To think this simply can't be done?!

[prettyLittlefool]

Help. I have to solve this problem by tonight.
I need to draw this shape without taking the pen off the paper or crossing a line already drawn. Can anybody help?

[Reaa]

Is this a serious post?

[Ellisandra]

m.youtube.com/watch?v=f1EcYN41MaM

Google and YouTube are your friends.

[prettyLittlefool]

That's a different shape. Plus he crossed a line already drawn

[Ellisandra]

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh5QDXCjZ9g

Actually this is more what you want.

[Holidayshopping]

Why do you have to solve it by tonight?! I’m intrigued!

[prettyLittlefool]

So it is impossible I think. Folding the page is the same as lifting the pen.

[Ellisandra]

Fucksake, wish I hadn’t bothered posting the second link now. Would a “thank you” have hurt you?!

Even if the first video didn’t meet your needs, it would have given you the idea that typing “draw x in box” in google would have led you to an answer.

Manners cost nothing!

[BendydickCuminsnatch]

I don’t think folding the page is the same as lifting the pen. Surely it’s an exercise to get you to think laterally like that? I’m terrrrrible at stuff like that, always need to be told 😄

[Ellisandra]

How is folding a page the same as listing a pen?!!!
It’s a totally different operation.
Again, a “thank you” wouldn’t hurt

[Rubusfruticosus]

You have four vertices of odd degree, can't be done.

[ScreamingValenta]

Use a retractable ball point so you can keep the pen on the page without drawing unwanted lines.

[StayAChild]

I wonder how many of us are sitting with pen and paper trying to do this

[Rubusfruticosus]

You have to both enter and leave each of the vertices, except for the first and last in the path if you end in a different point to where you started. So all the vertices need to have an even number of lines coming out of them (if ending where you started), or two can have an odd number of lines (start and end points). Otherwise you can't draw it.

[DontCallMeCharlotte]

We used to do one at school but that had a little roof on it. Which it turns out I can still do 40+ years on! But it doesn't work without the roof.

[BecauseWeCanCanCan]

if it's joining the dots, you go beyond the outline of the dots, if you see what I mean.

[NannyRed]

It is possible! @Ellisandra even posted the perfect video showing it being done but you think folding the page is cheating. What a defeatist attitude.
You’ve had the answer, and I don’t know why you expected someone else to find that for you.

[claybakefan]

"ScreamingValenta Tue 19-Mar-19 12:42:57
Use a retractable ball point so you can keep the pen on the page without drawing unwanted lines."

Genius!

[Bartlebysleftshoe]

I don't think that it can be done without the folding paper method.

This seems to explain why, there will always be a line that you cannot draw.

[DontCallMeCharlotte]

Ellisandra's second link did do the job and fitted the brief. If they're going to give you something otherwise impossible to do, then you need to sink to their level as it were.

So now you owe Ellisandra your thanks and an apology because she was right.

[Ellisandra]

Thanks!
OP gave scant information so who knows what it’s for and why the urgency 🤣

If it’s for a maths course, then fhr correct answer probably is no, with a side of explaining vertices.

If it’s a more general question - then it’ll be lateral thinking and the folded paper is correct.

[Reaa]

The box with the roof on, start bottom left and go up into the roof before doing the line under the roof and then the cross bit.

[Goodadvice1980]

Start by drawing a backwards Z and take it from there (from memory!).

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

Is Rumplestiltskin on your back OP, threatening to take your firstborn?

[steppemum]

can I just say, you HAVE to cross over a line already drawn in order to do the cross, it is simply is not possible to draw the second line on a cross without crossing the first line!

[AliceAforethought]

Ellisandra my first ever experience of MN many years ago was responding to a “what’s this book?” thread. I knew the book - quite an obscure horror book - so posted with the title.
The blooming OP didn’t thank me or even acknowledge it.

I was fuming! (And possibly a bit influenced by pg hormones!)