Originally I did not understand this problem what so ever.

At first I attempted counting the

number of able to exist in each square. I knew my answer was wrong because well my answer
totalled to about 6.4 million when all was said and done. I asked a peer for help Memo to be
exact but he understood it almost less than me. We attempted setting up a time to sit down a
complete it but we forgot and did not do it. Attempting one more time by myself I attempted
counting the number of outlined possible squared in the 8x8 64 tile square, WITHOUT HAVING
THEM OVERLAP. I believed that if they overlapped I would not be able to get an accurate
number because the values would intersect. Then day of the POW due Lydia came up and
presented her finished POW. At that point everything I had worked on fell into place and started
to better understand the problem. After presenting I asked her some clarification questions such
as why are you allowed to have the borders of the various sized squares intersect? She
responded simply that they were allowed to intersect because we were trying to find the total
amount of squares and that it didnt matter if they intersect.
I then started following the path she did and found that the total number of squares on
the checkerboard is 204. I found this by finding one side of a square size and then squared it to
get the exact amount on the entire checkerboard. For example there are 25 4x4 squares in the
checkerboard because there are 5 total squares on the left most side of the board. And by
squaring 5 you are left with 25 the total amount of 4x4 squares in the checkerboard. Same goes
for 7x7 squares (4 of them), 2x2 squares (49 of them), 5x5 (16 of them) etc. For the second
question on the POW I found that the most efficient way of finding the same outcome on
different checkerboard sizes is to do the same thing. Except do only 3 and try to recognize a
pattern in the exponent target values. When you able to find one it is a lot easier than counting
them all out.
More than the actual math tied into the problem I think it was most important to spend
the brain time thinking about the fastest and correct way to carry it out. To make the problem
better I would have made the question asking about 9x9 (81 total squared) checkerboard. I was
a little confused why I only had to or could go to 8 and I think it would be less confusing to just
use a 9x9 checkerboard. I really did not enjoy working on this pow. So many variables came into
place in my mind it was very hard to consolidate and look at one at a time. Many of my original
assumptions were also invalid and I had a really hard time with this one Thanks god for Lydias
help or I would still be sitting here tapping my head with a pencil and trying to understand it. This
POW was averagely hard but for me it was insanely difficult Im not exactly sure why. I am sure
other people had different experiences.