Preserving a Legacy – No Problem Puzzles

Theo Geerinck and Symen Hovinga teamed up to become the prolific duo behind No Problem Puzzles.  They provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023.  Unfortunately, this came to a tragic end with the passing of Symen on 7 April 2023.

To keep the No Problem Puzzles legacy alive, Theo decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy.  He enlisted the help of Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, to verify and publish the stl model files.  These are being available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection. 

Andreas will be incrementally adding the puzzles to the library over the next several months.  The initial 3: Sandbox, Swinging Lid Tray, and 3U Frame are currently available (Update: 2 more were added before this post came out).

Since I had 3 puzzles at once to print, I printed all the frames together using gray filament and then a separate print of all the pieces using a light blue filament.  Both Sandbox and Swinging Lid Tray came out swinging right out of the gate.  U Frame took some extra work to get it ready.  Tight connectors had to be sanded and loose fittings had to be glued. 

All 3 of the initial puzzles released have a difficult rating of 3 out of 5 so none of them are difficult.  However they are all fun and I enjoyed solving each them.  I managed to keep myself from binging them all at the same time and did one a day.

Sandbox

The first puzzle that I wanted to dig into was Sandbox because it has such a cool looking box.  I still like it even after my NPSO asked Why can’t you make nice boxes like that?  Not only does this supreme box announce the name of the puzzle and designers on the front and sport a rock’n curved top featuring a negative handle, it also includes an image of someone shoveling a pile of sand.

In addition to the amazing box, the puzzle also consists of 4 pieces that need to be packed within said box.  Of course, you just know that the swinging lid is going to be a problem since the arc of the back of the lid sweeps through a portion of the interior.  And this is what makes the puzzle interesting and appealing.

All that is needed is to figure out how the pieces can go together, how they can be put together such that they can be inserted in the box, and finally how they can be put together such that they can be inserted in the box so that the lid can be closed.  You may be thinking why not just jump to the final stage and skip all those beginning steps?  Call me old fashioned (I prefer that to dim-witted) but I find that the initial baby steps help me get to the end.

Swinging Lid Tray

The second puzzle that I attacked also has a swinging lid.  In fact, it’s called Swinging Lid Tray and not because it parties with all the pieces although the lid does swing both ways.

Swinging Lid Tray is a 2D restricted-opening packing puzzle with the opening on the side guarded by a swinging door.  The pivoting axis of the door is neither on the end nor the middle so that the arc through the interior depends on which way your rotate it.  The top of the puzzle has a nice honeycomb pattern with sizable openings that allow you to manipulate the pieces within.  Of course my wife wanted to know why I didn’t print it in yellow and black and add pictures of bees on the pieces.  Sheesh!

I’m embarrassed to say the trying to add the first piece to the empty tray stumped me for a minute.  I made a careless assumption and was reminded once again to pay attention.  Once I got past that, it was clear sailing.

With these types of puzzles, it’s all about determining the last piece to insert and how it’s done.  For Swinging Lid Tray, the first part was not surprising but the second was unexpected.

3U Frame

I left 3U Frame for last because it looked more intimidating than the other 2.  However, it was no more difficult than the others.

3U Frame is an apparent cube packing puzzle with the objective to make a 3x3x3 cube from the 4 pieces within the center of the 5x5x5 frame.  The frame is made from the intersection of 3 U shapes.  The best part of this puzzle is that 3 of the pieces require rotations to add them to the frame.

Many thanks to Theo, Symen, Symen’s Family, Andreas, and to all the people that bought every one of the No Problem Puzzles as they came out to inspire No Problem Puzzles to keep making them!

RIP Symen!