Consider the following configuration of 64 triangles:
We wish to colour the interior of each triangle with one of three
colours: red, green or blue, so that no two neighbouring triangles have
the same colour. Such a colouring shall be called valid. Here, two
triangles are said to be neighbouring if they share an edge.
Note: if they only share a vertex, then they are not neighbours.
For example, here is a valid colouring of the above grid:
A colouring C' which is obtained from a colouring C by rotation or reflection is considered distinct from C unless the two are identical.
How many distinct valid colourings are there for the above configuration?
These problems are part of Project Euler and are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK