Venatio Formicarum – Ant Hunt

It’s that time of year again where ants start showing up in the house.  It happens every year and I’m longer surprised, especially since I haven’t done anything different with the house that would lead me believe that this year would be any different.  So just like every prior year, I was left to hunt them down.

As I was on my ant hunt, it dawned on me that I had an International Puzzle Party (IPP) exchange puzzle from 2024 that I hadn’t solved yet.  Straining my brain a bit, I came up with the name: Ant Hunt.  I started playing with it in 2024 but didn’t completely solve it.  I succeeded in getting to what I assumed was the half-way point but didn’t succeed in completely solving it.  Instead of leaving it in a half-solved state, I reset it back to the beginning and put it on a shelf where it has resided unsolved until now.

Ant Hunt is a puzzle lock developed by Boaz Feldman and used as his exchange puzzle at IPP41.  The puzzle consists of a padlock with a key chained to the lock.  The padlock sports a couple of additional holes that you would not normally find on a lock not infested with ants.  It also comes with a nice information card outlining the goal to open the lock and free the ant as well as the taunt that even a chimp can fish ants out of holes with tools.

Well versed in the comings and goings of ants, I knew that working over a tray would be the smart thing to do.  And it was definitely confirmed during the solving process.

The lock arrives with the key on a chain that also runs through the locks shackle.  The key cannot be placed within the keyhole attached to the shackle in the way that it arrives.  The first step is to free the key.  This is really a gimme but there are stories of key holders tripping up lock solves.  My apologies to anyone out there refusing to ask for a hint and still trying to use the key still attached to the shackle.  And yes, once the key has been liberated, it does fit in the keyhole and turns as well.  It supports a 90 degree turn and you can get some idea of what is happening by peeking in the holes.

On my initial attempt in 2024, I took a clue from the supplied material and tried a simian approach and monkeyed around with the lock.  I used my patented Remove Ants In Detention process of inserting, outserting, twisting, tilting, rotating, and any number of other random techniques to give me some hints of how, what I assumed was the ant, traversed the metallic forest.  Eventually, the ant escaped the jailous lock and showed up on the tray.

At this point, even though I ant’d up, the lock was still securely closed.  Not having time to complete the solve, I managed to get the ant reincarcerated to live through another future solve from the beginning.  

For my recent attempt, I decided to spend some time and determine how the ant went about its business.  After some more monkeying around, I think I had a reasonable idea how the ant was getting around and invited him back out again to play.  This time, between the two of us, we then managed to go the final step and open the lock.  Not only does the lock open but the shackle is removable and you can see first hand what you had already assumed in order to solve it.

Ant to conclude, I was wrong.  So very wrong!   The puzzle was wronged!  This whole description was wrong!  Well at least some of it was wrong.  I almost missed it.  I made a bad assumption and almost failed to completely solve the puzzle.  There was one more thing to do!  NOW I believe that I have completely solved the puzzle.  I could have easily walked away thinking I had solved it before reaching the final stage.  So if your solve matches my description above, you’re not quite done.