Olympiad problems

2006 Estonia Team Selection Test, 3

A grid measuring $10 \times 11$ is given. How many "crosses" covering five unit squares can be placed on the grid? (pictured right) so that no two of them cover the same square? [img]https://cdn.artofproblemsolving.com/attachments/a/7/8a5944233785d960f6670e34ca7c90080f0bd6.png[/img]

1992 All Soviet Union Mathematical Olympiad, 578

Tags: combinatorics , tiling , equilateral , combinatorial geometry

An equilateral triangle side $10$ is divided into $100$ equilateral triangles of side $1$ by lines parallel to its sides. There are m equilateral tiles of $4$ unit triangles and $25 - m$ straight tiles of $4$ unit triangles (as shown below). For which values of $m$ can they be used to tile the original triangle. [The straight tiles may be turned over.]

2016 Indonesia TST, 1

Tags: combinatorics , coloring , tiling

Let $n \ge 3$ be a positive integer. We call a $3 \times 3$ grid [i]beautiful[/i] if the cell located at the center is colored white and all other cells are colored black, or if it is colored black and all other cells are colored white. Determine the minimum value of $a+b$ such that there exist positive integers $a$, $b$ and a coloring of an $a \times b$ grid with black and white, so that it contains $n^2 - n$ [i]beautiful[/i] subgrids.