User blog:SuperTalker101/Super's Math Problem

With Henry Hudson's Historian Competition prompting users to furiously work their brains in an effort to create the best article, many younger students might be taking a break by playing with Lego!. Fortunately, for all those users who aren't participating in the Historian Competition and are being bored to death, SuperTalker101 has prepared for you some very interesting math questions!

-

No squeezing!
-SuperTalker101's gigantic 8 meter tall structure has one problem. The top the tower is white, and SuperTalker101, for some reason, prefers it to be yellow. Perhaps it was because of the fact that the entire tower is white, and he wants the tip to stand out. The top of the tower is an 8 x 8 white grid made by 4 x 4 white bricks, and SuperTalker101 wants to cover it in yellow bricks. -

However, SuperTalker101 used up most of his bricks for the tower, so he is left with the following: It should be noted that SuperTalker101 is a perfectionist, so he cannot resist the temptation to rip a piece off if it is sticking out or overlapping. He is completely fine with any leftover bricks, however.
 * 1 x 6 Yellow Bricks (x7)
 * 4 x 4 Yellow Bricks (x2)
 * 2 x 2 Yellow Bricks (x2)

Is it possible to cover the top layer with the bricks that SuperTalker101 has?

-

The Temple of Many
-How many bricks do you think are used to create the structure? (Pictured on right) No external factors such as glue or tape were used to create the structure. Try to think of the way to create the structure using the least bricks as possible.

-

Please submit your answers in the comments!