Tilings of $(2\times2\times n)$-board with colored cubes and bricks

Abstract

Several articles deal with tilings with squares and dominoes on 2-dimensional boards, but only a few on boards in 3-dimensional space. We examine a tiling problem with colored cubes and bricks of $(2\times2\times n)$-board in three dimensions. After a short introduction and the definition of breakability we show a way to get the number of the tilings of an $n$-long board considering the $(n-1)$-long board. It describes recursively the number of possible breakable and unbreakable tilings. Finally, we give some identities for the recursions using breakability. The method of determining the recursions in space can be useful in mathematical education as well.