Windows 2

Windows 2 is a 5x5x5 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) designed by Andrew Crowell.  This bicolor puzzle consists of 6 pieces that form a white shell around a blue 3x3x3 apparent cube in the center.  Each side of the white exterior has 4 windows that allow you see the blue core.

When I pulled Windows 2 out to work on it, I only meant to sit down with it for a couple of minutes to figure out where the pieces went.  However, I was having such a good time that I ended up solving it before getting up.  Rather a bittersweet finish since this was the last 5x5x5 TIC in my backlog.  Luckily for me, I think I still have some 4x4x4 TICs that got pushed further back into the back of the backlog.

Initially, Windows 2 reminded my of Templars Cross (A Spirited Journey – Templars Cross) with the corners still intact.  However, I found it quite a bit easier to solve.  The last 2 pieces weren’t nearly as difficult to get in place and pieces just seemed a bit more accessible for manipulating.  If you are planning on doing both (recommended), I’d suggest starting with Windows 2 as the warm-up.

If you want to print your own copy of Windows 2, the model files are available on ARC Puzzles as part of the second volume of 5x5x5 TICs.

HoleyTIC

HoleyTIC is a 6-piece 5x5x5 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) designed by Andrew Crowell.  It is a nice addition to the collection of 5x5x5 TICs that Andrew has created.

Determining the assembly is not difficult.  The location and orientation of each piece can be quickly determined.  The effort is getting them into position.  Especially since there are a few rotations along the way.

I divided the 6 pieces into 2 groups.  Major framing pieces and smaller finishing pieces.  The four larger pieces were allocated to the major framing pieces although 2 are bigger than the others.  Starting with the 2 largest pieces, I was pleasantly surprised that getting them together was not trivial.  And once those 2 were together, adding the 3 piece was interesting as well.  The forth piece just slides into place but you have to keep in mind that the there are 2 more pieces yet to go and it may not be as easy if those pieces have to go in first.

As expected, those last 2 small pieces are where the magic lies.  It is fairly simple to add each one individually but adding them both is a real effort.  The finishing movements required to solve HoleyTIC are as awesome as you would expect from Andrew’s TICs.

You can purchase the 3D model file for this puzzle from Andrew’s online store, ARC Puzzles.  It is bundled with model files from 5 other 5x5x5 TICs to keep you happily engaged for a while.

Getting Everything Back Together – HolisTIC

After the last 2 Andrew Crowell spirit-crushing Turning Interlocking Cubes (TICs) that I worked on, 6 Face (Little Nightmares – Six Face) and Templars Cross (A Spirited Journey – Templars Cross),  it’s nice to take a step back and do a little HolisTIC puzzling.

HolisTIC is a 5x5x5 TIC designed by TIC master Andrew Crowell.  It consists of 7 unique pieces entwined in TIC magic.  It’s amazing how Andrew can just crank out all these complex puzzles with his TIC-it-tron.  As it’s name might suggest, there is a square hole bored through the center of each axis making it appear like a well-known Stewart Coffin design.  But this ain’t no Wookey Hole.

Unlike the last 2 TICs I worked on, this one falls on the lighter side TICdom.  I found it very approachable and the solving process moved along smoothly without any major hangups.  Of course, there are the obligatory backup and insert pieces in a different order, but for the most part, the piece locations are easy to determine as well as the movements and rotations needed to get them there.  It’s obvious where each piece enters until you discover that it enters from the other side.  You may also find that the last piece that you need to insert has to be added first.  And then when you do that, you realize that it’s in the way of other pieces forcing you to continually update the order of adding pieces.

Along the way, there are several very nice rotations that play out during the solution to add to the fun.  Some don’t become obvious until the end when you have to rotate pieces out of the way.  I’ve assembled it several times to enjoy the movements along the solution path.  

HolisTIC is obviously a puzzle designed to make you feel better.  And I appreciated restoring some of that confidence lost on 6 Face and Templars Cross.

Andrew’s puzzles can be found on his online shop, ARC Puzzles.

Little Nightmares – Six Face

It seems that I’ve been on a Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) hiatus.  Not sure how that happened, but I’m glad to have recently acquired some new Andrew Crowell gems in the 5x5x5 format.  The first one that I decided to tackle was Six Face.  Not Six Faces, Sixth Face, or Six’s Face but Six Face.  I could only assume that it would be a significant challenge and reveal itself as a little nightmare.  Needless to say, it took me longer than expected to solve.

Six Face was designed by Andrew Crowell and my version is 3D printed.  The puzzle is not a complete 5x5x5 cube but looks like a 3x3x3 cube with each face extended outward.  One of these faces is debossed with the name of the puzzle.  The face was carefully chosen so that the name was on a single piece to avoid providing any additional placement clues.  In total, there are 6 pieces that have to be assembled into the final shape.  It only takes 28 moves and there are a couple of rotations along the way.

I took Six Face and several other puzzles with me on vacation to PA, which is ironic since they were sent from PA by kind gentleman looking to spread the frustration.  And by frustration, I mean joy of course.  As always, I overestimated the number of puzzles that I would need.  I started with Six Face and almost ended there as well.  At least I was able to bring it home solved.  YES it was me that solved it!  I’m disappointed that you would even think otherwise.

Solving Six Face took me several sessions.  Right out of the bag, you need to spend 1 of your rotations to get the first 2 pieces together.  Or are they not the first 2 pieces?  Only time will tell.

With the 3 biggest pieces, you can construct most of the visible shape leaving you with the 3 smaller pieces that need to fill the gaps.  Of course, the order of entering those pieces and movements required are what make the puzzle challenging.  Two of the smaller pieces are dancing partners and work nicely to build out the solution path.  But it’s that last piece that is the crux of the solve.  For whatever reason, I had a huge blind spot concerning the where, when, and how of this piece.  It could obviously exist in 2 different orientations, so there were twice as many avenues to explore.  Adding it earlier would provide more room for it to navigate but of course would reduce the mobility of the other pieces.  And just how could that crux piece be added and manipulated into position.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise that a lot of steps were repeated looking for a new avenue to present itself.  With all this experimentation, it became apparent that the final orientation of the crux piece would be different from the orientation that it would enter the framework with regardless of which of the 2 possible orientations was the correct one.  You would think that knowing this, it would be easy to find an orientation where it could be inserted within the frame.  However, I found this a difficult challenge.

Eventually, I found a way to add the crux piece and rotate it into place.  So simple!  How could I have missed it?  All that was left was to determine how to add the dancing partners with it.  Not easy.  Nope.  Not happening.  And it didn’t happen, leaving me to wonder if it was just difficult or if I was barking up the wrong orientation.  At this point I had to split my time between working this approach as well as trying to find an approach for the other crux piece orientation.

Eventually 2, I found a way to add the crux piece in the other orientation and rotate it into place.  So simple!  How could I have missed it?  All that was left was to determine how to add the dancing partners with it.  At least this time, I was able to get everything in place and finally solve Six Face.

Fast forward several months to now when I want to blog about it and take it apart.  No surprises.  The crux piece volunteers to rotate and comes out nicely as expected.  Mission completed!  Except I can’t get it back together!  Try as I might, I just can’t find the exact insertion trajectory.  Unbelievable!  (You’d think by now that I would find this believable).  I spent at least another hour if not 2 getting it back together.  Not only that, I had to check both crux piece orientations since I didn’t pay attention to which one it was when taking it apart.  I’m assuming/hoping that if I take it apart again several months from now, it will be smooth sailing but at this point, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it were a rough ride.

If you're interested in acquiring any of Andrew's puzzles, you can visit his online store ARC Puzzles.

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.

X-tra Protection – T Lock

Last week’s blog got me thinking about protection so I thought it might be time to circle back and cover T Lock, the second of Andrew Crowell’s 3D printed burr locks that I recently acquired.  It certainly has secured a well-deserved spot in my collection of enjoyable puzzles.

Like Side Lock (www.zenpuzzler.com/2022/01/put-it-to-side-lock.html), T lock has a main frame (for all you old programmers out there), a shackle, and 4 T pieces that are packed in the frame.  The pieces are nicely 3D printed in gray, red, and yellow.  Since it doesn’t have the fifth piece running side-to-side like Side Lock, I expected it to be slightly easier.  Of course, it turned out to be slightly harder.  T Lock requires 15 moves to remove the first piece compared to 19 moves for Side Lock, but T Lock requires a rotation, which gives it that boost in difficulty.  Recall that puzzle difficulty = cube root of total voxels * pieces * highest piece moves * log(10 + rotations * 100)  / 100.  {Factors to compensate for things like n-ary inflation have been dropped for simplicity.   Compensating factors for piece surface area have also been removed since they are a pain to compute.  However, for designers that needlessly increase voxel resolution, these factors should be added back in.}

I’d like to describe how easy the original disassembly was, but it was so long ago I can’t remember.  This became all too obvious as I worked to get it back together.  In fact, I forgot that a rotation was required, which really is the crux move of this puzzle.  Needless to say, accomplishing the solve was a challenge.

The frame has 3 impeding cubies attached inside to help you figure out where you can, or more appropriately, where you can’t, put pieces.  These cubies only permit the shackle to be inserted in one orientation, so you can also add the shackle to places where pieces can’t go.  With some work, you can then determine where the 4 T pieces go, although I admit to doubting this configuration many times and re-examining it.  Trying to get those 4 pieces in the frame took some effort.  Once I finally figured out which 2 pieces needed to go in first, I had a devil of a time trying to get them situated in the frame.  

Typical Crowell puzzle scenario – struggling to get 2 small pieces in a big open frame.  Been there many times.  This is where I spent most of the time in the assembly until I finally enjoyed the Aha moment that resulted in not just the first 2 pieces in the frame, but all 4.  

T Lock is difficult and very satisfying as an assembly puzzle.  Having done it several times now, although not as difficult as an assembly puzzle, attacking it as a disassembly puzzle is interesting as well.  You can get copies of T Lock on Andrew’s online store, ARC Puzzles.