In Mint Condition – Dr. Bell's Curiously Warped Mints

Dr. Bell’s mind is jam packed with mind-blowing packings.  Why, sometimes he’s imagined as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast.  His warped sense of humor has now brought us a minty fresh take on edge beveled cube packing.

Dr. Bell's Curiously Warped Mints was developed by George Bell and used as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Part (IPP).  Each of the 6 pieces is 3d printed in a different color and comprised of 4 warped edge-beveled cubes.  The objective is to artfully cram all the pieces within an accompanying tin.  The type of tin that you would expect to find a nice assortment of mints to enjoy.  However, you are not expected to enjoy these mints.  The tin explicitly warns to not eat them.  So then why are they made with yummy colors like grape, blueberry, raspberry, lemon, lime, and licorice?

To get you started, some of the pieces are already in the tin and you only have to add the remaining 2.  Of course, I dutifully took all the pieces out and separated them before starting on my journey of 1000 missteps.

Being warped always seems like it should make things easier but it always feels like the opposite.  Examining the pieces, I noticed some interesting clues that I filed for possible later use and proceeded on without them.

The first step in these types of packing puzzles is to determine what type of packing structure is required, i.e., how the web cubes are oriented.  I struggled a while working on a packing orientation that would allow the cover to go on.  Then I unfortunately discovered something significant.  I was proud.  Or I should say the puzzle was proud of the lip of the tin.  I thought that this was a problem until I finally realized that when you placed the lid on, it did not rest on the top lip of the tin and providing a little additional space.  And after considerable effort I was able to pack all the pieces except 1.

It turns out that what I thought was a problem that wasn’t a problem was a problem.  Eventually I reread the goal and it said that the cover has to be screwed down, which screwed the packing approach that I was trying to accomplish.  I hadn’t even realized that the lid was resting on threads.  I now had nothing to be proud about.  Dejected,  I went back to the drawing board mumbling to myself, screw it ... screw it … screw it.

I eventually discovered another packing structure with a lower profile that would allow the cover to be screwed shut.  I also made heavy use of the clues that I had remarked on earlier.  At one point, I had a 3 subassemblies that looked like they would go together to solve the puzzle but would require coordinate motion to accomplish that.  Of course it would require coordinate motion coming from Dr. Bell.  However no matter how hard I tried, I was not dexterous enough to get everything lined up and moving like I wanted it to.  Curiouser and curiouser!  I eventually convinced myself that they would not go together using coordinate motion.  I was so close to victory, I could almost taste it.  Stepping back a bit, a minor tweak allowed me to assemble the pieces within the tin and screw it.

Once all the pieces are assembled, it truly resembles a tin of mints that are all stuck together and won’t come apart as if they were one giant enticing gobstopper.

It’s a clever puzzle and by the time I finally solved it I have to say that I ended up licking it.  Thanks Dr. Bell.

A Solid Challenge? – NotchedTIC

ARC TICs are extremely cool puzzles and most of the ones that I have solved have been 4x4x4 cubes.  One notable exception being MagellanTIC (Space, The Final Frontier - MagellanTIC), which is a 5x5x5 apparent cube and an awesome experience.  And now we have NotchedTIC, which is a non-apparent cube.

There’s just something so satisfying about solving a Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC).  However, it’s been a while since I’ve tackled a TIC by Andrew Crowell, aka ARC Puzzles {https://arcpuzzles.com}.  In 2020, I reviewed a different TIC by Andrew each month, with December’s being CagedTIC 1 (Ending With a Beginning - CagedTIC 1).  That post also had the links to the other 11 TIC posts for that year.  Although there were more ARC TIC posts, they weren’t as frequent and eventually trailed off.  How did that happen?  Well sometimes I get easily distracted. SQUIRREL!!!  Squirrel? Squirrel squirrel squirrelsquirrelsquirrel…

NotchedTIC is a 3D printed 6-piece 5x5x5 TIC designed by Andrew Crowell.  It gets it’s name from each edge having a missing voxel in the center.  And the puzzle arrived disassembled, which is my preference for attacking most burr puzzles.

The pieces to this puzzle fell into place fairly quickly.  Piece placement was obvious and pieces were able to be added 1 at a time with backtracking where needed to add a new piece.  Assembling the puzzle takes 28 moves with about a dozen of them required to add the last piece.  Along the way, 2 rotations are required but you don’t need to worry as they are not complex and obvious when needed.  In fact when taking the puzzle apart, the rotations will execute by themselves as pieces scramble to evacuate the TIC infested region.

I would classify NotchedTIC as more fun than challenging for experienced puzzlers.

Although I bought my copy second hand, you can buy the 3D Printable STL files for NotchedTIC and 5 other 5x5x5 TICs as part of a 6-puzzle set from Andrew’s site, ARC Puzzles.

Mixolometragrobology – Get in the Spirit!

Mixolometagrobologist Steve Canfield decided to go all out for his exchange puzzle in last year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP) and deliver a Sequential Discovery (SD) cocktail for us to savor.  After all, he was the host and wanted to make a big splash by leveraging his vast knowledege of puzzle Boxes and Booze to create an intoxicating journey with a bittersweet ending.  To aid him in this grand endeavor, he enticed puzzle genius and master craftsman Lee Krasnow to flesh out the intricate details that make this puzzle shine.

Get in the Spirit! consists of multiple layers of intrigue.  The outside is turned from aluminum with a Walnut and Hard Maple center ring to provide a classy classic look.  This shiny work of art may not look all that difficult but aluminum parts encapsulating various devious movements ring true.  After I solved it, I tested this in a manner that I’m sure will resonate with everyone.  I suspended both and struck them to verify the sonority of each.  Both produced a very nice tone with the top straining longer to sustain its note.

As for the goal, the shaker shaped tag simply said Get in the Spirit!  Preparing for just that, I happily embarked on my SD spiritual journey.  But where to start?  It’s a shaker!  You’re supposed to shake it, right?  Right?  Not so much.  Tilting and rotating will do.  As a matter of fact, I’d recommend not shaking it.

Through the holes in the top, you can just make out a red logo on a dark green background but don’t strain your eyes.  What could it be?

All three parts of the shaker seem to rotate freely and as you twist it and move it around you can hear things moving inside.  I was starting to fear that it might be one big marble maze and was particularly worried about the bottom portion.  I hear that people sometimes get lost in their cups.

With a little bit of exploration, the first move can be found, revealing the first glimpse of the interior.  I’m embarrassed to admit that this initial freebie move took me a full 10 minutes but I was going to savor this journey, by golly.  And with a little bit of additional work, the outer shell was peeled away to reveal … the next layer.

The interior is mostly 3D printed garnished with some metal hardware to facilitate making things more difficult.  Welcome to the inner circle, which sports 5 windows around it’s circumference.  And the inner circle has it’s own inner circle with it’s own set of windows.  It’s obvious that a lot of additional work went into making the design aesthetically pleasing instead of resulting in a strictly utilitarian design.  When the windows line up, you get a glimpse of what is waiting inside.  Through another opening, you can get a good look at a trapped coin although there doesn’t seem to be a way to easily remove it.  

Now you have a clear view of that red logo on top, which kind of looks like the top of a bottle.  With some effort you can get the top of the bottle to stick out.  It seems like it would make a great handle to rotate the bottle inside, which I did.  Rotating clockwise works great!  Rotating counter-clockwise not so much.  It really is a bottle and proceeded to dribble it’s contents in my lap.  I obviously don’t know how to hold my liquor.  At least I managed to limit the damage by quickly retightening it and vowing to never make such an obvious mistake again.

With just one drink under my belt, I stopped making progress.  I hit THE WALL!  At this point I kept trying everything over and over and getting nowhere.  There seemed to be a lot of enticing round holes that were trying to tell me something, but all I was getting was a buzz.  Eventually, I packed it back up and put it to the side for a while, a long while, months, in fact it’s been about a year.  How embarrassing!

After taking it back out after all that time, I blocked out a weekend and quickly (or at least quicker than the first time) found myself back at the wall.  After spending another considerable amount of time looking for a way forward, I finally succumbed and asked permission to do something that I was reluctant to do.  And I received the rare go ahead.  Usually this is followed by lots of laughter as I try it.  However, this time I was lucky.  In hindsight, the puzzle does provide a hint on how to get over that wall but like all good puzzles, you don’t recognize it until it’s already too late.

After a few more moves, you eventually end up with a token that is a bottle of your accomplishment.  Or is it a bottle that is a token of your accomplishment.  In any event, you wind up with both a token and a bottle of spirits.  If you are adventurous, you can take everything completely apart into the dozens of components that make Get in the Spirit!.  

The reset takes much longer than the solve but that’s basically because you just freed up a nice little bottle of spirits.

And that red logo on the dark green background?  Turns out it’s HUA for the H. Underberg-Albrecht company that Herbert Underberg started the day he married Katharina Albrecht to produce natural herb bitters.  

In addition to Get in the Spirit!, the puzzle, Steve also produced Get in the Spirit, the book.  The book provides a collection of fine cocktail recipes and wisdom.  Of course each recipe has a photo of the cocktail with an amazing garnish. 

It is also possible that Lee will make a companion cocktail shaker stand to hold both puzzle and book versions of Get in the Spirit!  Of course it will be a puzzle box and will utilize pieces from Get in the Spirit! in the solving process.  The CAD drawings look amazing and can be seen on Lee’s website, Pacific Puzzleworks.  However the fate of this project is still in flux as insufficient preorders didn’t provide the volume required for the originally projected price point.  Maybe offering an all 3D printed version of Get in the Spirit! for folks that don’t own one but would like the cocktail shaker stand could salvage the original plan.

Monumental – Markus’ Tetrahedron

Only the passing of the great ones are marked by a pyramid.  And a pyramid it was to remind us of the loss of puzzle master Markus Götz to the puzzle community in 2018.  His puzzle legacy lives on through his many designs generated over the years and I’m always happy to run across a new one that I’ve yet to discover.

Markus’ Tetrahedron was designed by Markus Götz and used by Stan Isaacs as his exchange puzzle at last years International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The 4 identical bright shiny green 3D printed pieces can be used to construct a tetrahedron in 2 different ways.  And since these exchange puzzles were made by George Bell, the pieces are constructed from conjoined spheres.

Don’t let the small number of pieces lull you into a sense of complacency.  It took me some time to find the first of the two solutions.  Each piece consists of 5 spheres and the pieces don’t seem to want to go together.  And each piece consists of a string of 3 spheres and another of 2 spheres that are connected by a cube.  Keep track now – identical pieces of conjoined strings of spheres connected by cubes that form a tetrahedron.  I don’t usually give clues on how to solve puzzles but just this once I’ll let you know that the solution uses Face-Centered Cubic (FCC) Packing.  Your welcome!

It doesn’t take long to determine that each of the 4 tetrahedron edges will consist of 4 spheres with each corner sphere belonging to 3 of the edges.  4 edges, 4 corners, 4 pieces, maybe there’s some kind of correlation going on here.  And lo-and-behold, the first solution emerges.

When solving this puzzle, you can ignore the cubes that connects the strings of spheres like I did.  Or you can realize before you solve it that each cube has a sphere connected to 2 of its faces and maybe this is a clue to where the spheres of the other pieces have to go.

It took some effort to find the second solution.  I kept getting the first solution and couldn’t see past it.  I had to step back to give it a good think and I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for that.  Eventually, I thunk (I know, it’s less of a process and more of a sound that my aging brain makes, k-thunk, k-thunk, k-thunk) my way to the other solution, which unlike the first, snaps closed when you get all the pieces together.  Looking at the final assembly, I could easily see why the second solution is much more difficult to find than the first.  I basically needed to jettison all those great ideas that lead to the first solution. 

Of course, once both solutions are discovered, the next challenge is to pack the 4 pieces back into the rather non-tetrahedralish box.  However, this was a much easier challenge than the other 2.

Receiving this monumental puzzle at IPP last year reminded me just how much I miss seeing that energetic, smart, and entertaining puzzle genius at IPP.  He always make everything seem a bit more special.

Markus Götz (1974-2018) attended 17 IPPs, participated in 16 exchanges and hosted IPP31 in Berlin.  He invented over 100 puzzles and authored six CFF articles.  He wrote about this puzzle in CFF 66 (2005).  He is greatly missed!
        - From the Markus’ Tetrahedron Puzzle Insert

RIP Markus!

No Problem Puzzles, Update #2

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection. 

Since the last review (Preserving a Legacy – No Problem Puzzles {https://www.zenpuzzler.com/2025/06/preserving-legacy-no-problem-puzzles.html}), the next 4 No Problem Puzzles have become available.  They consist of Unmatch Box, Turn Around, Quinta Cuboids, and Dizygotic.  For this batch of puzzles, each had a different specified level of difficulty.  On a scale of 5, there was a 1.5, 2, 3, and 4.

Turn Around

Turn Around has the highest level of difficulty of the puzzles that have been provided on Printables so far.  It is a level 4 puzzle and provides a very nice challenge.

The objective of Turn Around is to pack 6 pieces within a box.  The bottom of the box has an internal 3x4x2 void and the top has a 3x4x1 void.  Unfortunately, the top needs to be screwed on with a 45 degree turn that is impeded by the pieces.  However, it works just great without the pieces.

You quickly realize that there is no trivial solution where some pieces fit exactly in the top space and some in the bottom space so that they don’t cross the boundary and interfere with the rotation.  Fortunately, the pieces don’t completely fill the interior of the box and you can utilize the voids to accomplish the rotation of the top.  Or maybe I should say, you can try to utilize the voids to do the rotation.

Needless to say, I fixated on an approach to accomplish the rotations that turned out to be wrong.  However, once I abandoned that approach, I quickly latched on to the proper solution.  

An alternate set of 6 pieces that can be packed within the box is also provided.  However, the alternate set of pieces is just that, an alternate set and not a second challenge.  Once you solve the puzzle, it’s solved regardless of which set of pieces you use.  I really can’t say if solving the puzzle is easier with one versus the other, but I found that the original pieces provided a good challenge.

I was a little surprised that the second set of pieces did not utilize my original approach.  Of course my original approach is the obvious first attack designed to sucker you in and keep you from discovering the much more elegant solution.

Unmatch Box

Oh so simple.  And Oh so difficult I found it.  I should have noted that this is an unmatch box and not a match box and shouldn’t have expected it to be easy to put things inside it.  Although this puzzle has a difficulty rating of 3, I spent more time solving it than Turn Around with a difficulty rating of 4.

Unmatch Box consists of 2 loops that can be arranged to make an enclosed box like shape and 3 pieces that need to be cached inside when closed.

In hindsight, it’s not difficult to solve but I struggled with it.  The pieces are very well chosen with lots of almost possibilities that kept me going around in circles, continuously, over several days, sans solution.

Packing any 2 of the pieces within the box is not an issue.  Trying to get that 3rd piece in is the challenge.  The problem is that the internal space starts to collapse when you open the box.  Trying to figure out how the pieces need to be arranged to support that collapse is the issue.  It teases you by allowing pieces to poke through gaps in the partially rotated box sides but never opens enough to allow them to completely pass through.

After a few days, I finally decided I was overcomplexerizing things and tried to dumb it down a bit.  Eventually, I stopped trying the same things and had everything packed within Unmatch Box.  As with many good puzzles, it took a long time to finally discover how simple it was.

Quinta Cuboids

The difficulty rating for Quinta Cuboids is 2 and I found this one a very quick solve.  It consists of 5 identical rectangular parallelapipeds (fancy speak for cuboids) that need to be packed within a restricted-opening box.  And the box only accepts the cuboids in one orientation.  And the solution obviously requires the cuboids to be in other orientations.  Which makes this a great 3D packing learning experience for someone just starting out with restricted-opening 3D packing puzzles.

Dizygotic

Dzygotic, at difficulty level 1.5, is another puzzle designed for packing puzzle beginners and I found this one a very quick solve.  It consists of 2 pieces that have to have to be packed within a restricted-opening box.  Unlike Quinta Cuboids, the pieces aren’t simple cuboids and the box sports 2 openings that occupy 3 sides.  The interior of the box is 3x3x2 and the pieces can fit within that space in several different ways and orientations.  The trick is to determine which one can be formed by introducing and manipulating the pieces using the restricted openings.  And yes, this is an apparent cuboid puzzle where all the openings are blocked by the pieces.



This is the second blog that continues reviewing the No Problem Puzzles as they are released on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  The first blog is Preserving a Legacy – No Problem Puzzles {https://www.zenpuzzler.com/2025/06/preserving-legacy-no-problem-puzzles.html}.

Engage! – Clutch 4

Not long after Wood Wonders’ latest release, I happily had a new puzzle in my clutches.  It is the final member of a clutch of TICs that extremize rotations.  Thus, I was engaged on a new mission within the puzzle zone.

Clutch 4 is the fourth and (hopefully not) final entry of the clutch series designed by Girish Sharma and made by Wood Wonders.  I have to admit that I had high expectations after the last collaboration between Wood Wonders and Girish that I played with (One Person – Three Body Problem).  But with a Level 31 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) requiring 14 rotations, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed!

As always, Wood Wonders did an awesome job bringing to life another one of Girish’s fantastic designs.  The puzzle is made from Poplar, Indian Laurel and Yellow Rosa with reinforcing dowels where needed.  The pieces are spot on and move like agile dancers.

The puzzle consists of 3 pieces: the chassis, the drive plate that happily rotates endlessly within the chassis, and the clutch that dictates when and how the drive plate can rotate.  It’s easy to determine where the pieces go and trivial to add the drive plate or clutch to the chassis individually.  The difficulty comes in adding both pieces without grinding them together – NO FORCE ALLOWED!

Ironically, when solved, the pieces aren’t really wrapped around each other.  They are just in each other’s way from being pulled apart.  However, the process of getting them together or apart requires a lot of entwining rotational movements.

To solve this one, I spent quit a bit of time determining how the drive plate and clutch work with the chassis individually.  All that was left was to determine how they intersected.  Easier said than done.

It’s all about finding that clutch move where you can add the third piece.  And what an awesome move it is!  Of course, once you’ve made that clutch move, there’s a whole lot of rotat’n left to solve this one.

Unfortunately, but not surprising, Clutch 4 was sold out.  However, I would not be surprised to see additional copies made available in the future.  If you like TICs, this one is a must-have.

F In L – Eleven L’s Puzzle

I recently had the opportunity to acquire a copy of the Eleven L’s Puzzle on an auction site.  What caught my attention was that the Eleven L’s puzzle consists of 11 F pentominoes.  Although I couldn’t track down the designer of this puzzle, perhaps there is a language translation issue here regarding the use of F and L.  In any event, there are a bunch of F’s invading the Eleven L’s Puzzle, Dagnabbit!

The puzzle consists of 11 L’s (aka F pentominoes) and a box that is divided into 2 sections.  One side comes with 2 of the L’s and the other is the what in 9 L’s? side.  The goal is to pack all 11 L’s on one side of the box.  Being lazy, I picked the slightly larger side leaving the other side for someone else to solve.

To solve this puzzle, I was immediately struck with 2 ideas.  The first was that since the packing space was larger than the space required by the pieces, I was suspecting a Coffinesque packing solution.  The second was the odd number of pieces, 11.  This made me consider how 11 pieces could be packed together and I simplified the approach by looking at it as a circle packing problem.  This gave me an initial concept of location and piece orientation to work with.  And I have to confess that this was done before the puzzle arrived as part of an anticipatory solving approach.  Doesn’t everybody do this?

After it arrived and I spent a couple of minutes with it, I finally came to the conclusion that I was overthinking it and that perhaps it was a straight-forward cubic-dissection packing problem.  Or it could be a combination of multiple packing schemes.  Working between several potential packing arrangements, I finally managed to pack all the F’n L’s into one side of the box.  I won’t reveal the final packing configuration but the process involved the typical attempt to pack pieces as densely as possible without leaving major gaps and of course there was plenty of backtracking. 

If you want a go at it yourself, it is currently available at Creative Crafthouse if you’re interested in acquiring your own copy.  They have both this version and a fancier laser-cut version as well.