RMF

RMF is a 3-piece 2D symmetry puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics.  Each piece consists of 3 squares but 1 square of each piece has been cut in half diagonally and the halves have been separated.

The goal is to place the pieces together to make a shape that you can rotate, mirror, or flip and still end up with the same shape.  Only one of those operations is required but you are not told which one.  And there is only 1 solution.

You can try to devise a robust mathematical framework for analyzing these these types of puzzles but it’s really more fun to use them as fidget puzzles.  They’re perfect for zoom meetings.

This one didn’t take me as long to solve as some of Alexander’s other puzzles I recently blogged about but I still appreciate how devious the solution is.  Maybe something is sinking in.

I wasn’t sure where the name RMF came from but thankfully AI cleared it up for me:

The RMF symmetry puzzle is named after its designer, the puzzle inventor Alexander Magyarics.  The letters represent the initials of his first name (R... [Alexander is often known by his surname]) and the M and F indicating Magyarics Family or a similar personal arrangement.

If you are interested in acquiring a copy, RMF as well as many other 2D symmetry puzzles from Alexander and other designers are available at Nothing Yet Designs.

Serendippity

Some amazing puzzles have recently come to my attention and I decided to adorn a round table with a nice selection of them.  All of these puzzles competing for my attention.  What serendippity!  For no particular reason, my goal was to spend Wednesday through Sunday solving them.

Canal

Canal was designed by Han Dongkyu and consists of 4 pieces that need to be placed in a tray so that there is a path between the pieces from the lower left-hand corner to the upper right-hand corner.  And the path can only be a single unit wide.  And there can be no other uncovered squares in the tray that are not part of the path.

I’ve been seeing photos of Canal for a while and had always wanted to give it a try.  It seemed like a novel idea and how hard could it be with only 4 pieces that needed to be placed in the tray.  Well looks can be deceiving and it took me a bit of time to find the correct orientation and positioning of those pieces.  It was a very nice challenge and is currently available at Team JB Hobbies.  Canal was also an entry in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 43rd International Puzzle Party (IPP43)

Bocca Della Verita

Bocca Della Verita is a 2D restricted-opening packing puzzle designed by László Molnár.  It consists of 7 L Tromino pieces that need to be packed in a circular tray.  Each piece has to be entered through the maw in the top.  Two other openings are provided to poke your finger into for manipulating the pieces inside.

I solved this one a while ago but without the fancy restricted-opening top.  With the top, it looks much move daunting with limited opportunities to move pieces around and I was wondering how much more difficult the dexterity aspect would make it.  Although certainly more challenging, it turned out to be quite doable.  And just like Canal, it was an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Diasafe

Diasafe is a restricted, somewhat 2D’ish packing puzzle designed by Lucie Pauwels.  It consists of a variety of 8 pieces made from 3 to 9 squares.  Each piece has a button added on top of one of it’s squares.  And all 8 pieces are unique.  The frame that holds the pieces has a slot in the side to add the pieces and a Z-track on top for the buttons to slid through.  

The objective is to add the pieces to pack the frame by entering them through the slot in the side and moving them where they need to go.  Of course, the movements of the pieces are restricted by the Z-track on the top of the box.  Since all the pieces are different shapes and sizes, enter from the same point, and have to follow the same path, the challenge is to find how they are packed and the order to add them. 

On my initial solving attempt, I added all the pieces to the frame but subsequently found out that all the buttons had to be in the Z-track and not in the single-square entrance to the Z-track.  Backtracking a bit, I found a solution where all the buttons properly resided within the Z-track.  The addition of that final restriction added some nice additional properties to the solve.  And coincidentally, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Elegant People

Elegant People was designed by George Sicherman and made by Wood Wonders.  It consists of 4 pieces, each constructed from 3 cubes with most cubes attached with an offset.  Each pair of pieces can be used to construct a symmetric shape resulting in 6 challenges.  I’ve been working on this one for several months and have still not completed it.  Of the six challenges, some are easy, some are more challenging, some are difficult, and one is downright impossible.  Apparently, some elegant people are more difficult to get along with than others.  This is a fantastic set of challenges that transports easily.  A must have for symmetry puzzle enthusiasts.  Eventually I’ll figure out that last one.  Stubborn little bugger – THE PUZZLE!  And as incredible as it is to believe, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Loach Bed

Loach Bed is an apparent cuboid packing puzzle designed by Osanori Yamamoto.  It consists of 3 simple pieces that need to be packed within a 2x2x3 box with a single 1-voxel corner missing.  I solved this one last year at a puzzle picnic and took this opportunity to revisit it.  This is one of Osanori’s simpler packing puzzles but works well in a small format.  It’s a good packing puzzle for someone just being introduced to 3D packing puzzles since it has a simple entry point, few simple pieces, and takes several moves to remove the first piece once solved.  And to top it off, it was an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  And furthermore, it won a Top 10 Vote Getter award in the competition.

One Way or Another

One Way or Another, designed by Alaexander Magyarics, presents a nice 2D sliding puzzle challenge.  Not only do you have to solve it, you have to design it as well.  The ultimate objective is to move the small round piece from the upper right-hand corner to lower left-hand corner by finding a sequence of moves that allows the round piece to traverse the tray also holding the other 4 pieces.  However, the first and significantly harder objective is to discover how to pack the pieces in the tray to accomplish the ultimate objective.

Since there are multiple ways to place the pieces in the tray, especially since there are 4 unoccupied spaces, it looks quite daunting.  Maybe I got lucky, but focusing on the location and interaction of a couple of pieces, I zeroed in on a working configuration much quicker than I expected.  Of course, I was expecting the worst.  The final configuration provided a longer sequence of moves to solve the puzzle than I anticipated.  The length of the solve makes identifying the design less obvious.  Even so, the real challenge here is to design the puzzle rather than solve it.  The solve really serves to validate the design.  This was a very nice novel concept which resulted in a Jury Honorable Mention award at the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Thyor

Thyor is a 3D restricted-opening puzzle designed by Volker Latussek.  It consists of 6 pieces that need to be packed within a box with a single opening.  But open it is.  The largest side of the box is entirely open except for a single voxel overhang on all sides.  You can just start dropping the pieces in up to a certain point.  

The pieces are made from 3x3x2 cuboids.  There are 3 types of pieces: 1 of the first type, 2 of the second, and 3 of the third.  I found this one quite challenging and was happy to eventually end up with all 6 pieces packed inside the box.  And would you believe, it was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Petit Albert

Petit Albert was designed by Volker Latussek and consists of 5 pieces that need to be packed within a 2x3x3 box.  The box has a 3 voxel opening on one the 2x3 sides to add/remove/manipulate pieces.  There are no other openings in the box.  The pieces consist of 4 tetracubes and 1 dicube.  Each of the tetracubes sports a rounded corner that allows an additional rotation within the box.

I originally solved Petit Albert last year (Round Bevels – Petit Albert) but it was definitely worth a revisit.  The second time around, it was still a good challenge and I had to rediscover the Aha moment.  There are quite a few rotations and a bit of dexterity involved.  Just like the first time, I found it a challenge to repeat the sequence of rotations within the box that were found outside the box.  A winner for sure.  I can’t wait to see Fat Albert.  Hey, Hey, Hey!

And believe it or not, this puzzle was also an entry in the IPP43 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  Where it didn’t win anything.  Which is a shame because I found it a tough little nut with the rotations that were required.

Three Keys

Three Keys is a 2D 3-piece symmetry puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics.  Each piece consists of 2 conjoined squares with one of the squares missing a corner.  And the corner that is missing is different for each piece.  The goal is make a symmetric shape but the type of symmetry is not specified.  There is only a single solution.  To be quite honest, I usually pick out the 3-piece puzzles from the 2-do 2-D symmetry pile first and then the single solution ones from those.  Of course that ends up leaving me with an ever increasingly daunting pile of shame.

At first glance, Three Keys reminded me of Hangers and I was all set for an easy solve thinking that the solution would be similar.  Yes, I never learn.  The solution was not similar and I ended up having to think about this one after I couldn’t cram it into the Hangers mold.  I tried a couple of strategies before alighting on the winning combination.  I didn’t find it as difficult as hangers but it was still a good challenge. 

My copy of Three Keys is 3D printed by Alexander but you can also get a laser-cut acrylic version from Nothing Yet Designs.

Hangers

Hangers is a 2D Symmetry puzzle developed by Master Symmetrist Alexander Magyarics.  It consists of 3 polyominoes that form a symmetric shape.  But the type of symmetry is not specified.

I find 3 piece symmetry puzzles fall into that sweet spot in terms of level of difficulty.  They immediately look near impossible when they consist of 4 or more pieces due to the exponential increase in piece location combinations.

Once again, I naively bought into the this puzzle looks easy feeling expecting a quick solve.  And as usual, it was anything but.  Even though I knew the obvious piece placements were a trap, it was hard to not to fall into them.  And fall into them I did, multiple times, thinking that there would be a difference.

Although I spent a lot of time just fiddling with the pieces, I eventually turned on some brain cells to speculate on the solution.  One arbitrarily firing brain cell provided the type of symmetry used while a couple of others produced the solution before passing out.

I really liked this one.  It survived a lot zoom meetings.  I find these puzzles perfect for these meetings since they lay flat, move easily, and don’t making clacking sounds next to the computer mic.

My copy of Hangers is 3D printed by Alexander but you can also get a laser-cut acrylic version from Nothing Yet Designs.

Better Than TV – Widescreen

More than a decade ago, I stopped paying for TV service to focus on other more important things.  Things like puzzling.  Dropping this service not only gave me more time to spend with puzzles but also left me with more funds to buy them.  At least that would be what I would tell me wife if I even dared to hint that she no longer had TV service so that I could buy more puzzles.  We’ve stopped going to the movies as well.  Apparently we were ahead of our time since everyone stopped going to the movies about 5 years ago.  Fortunately, I recently had the opportunity to appreciate watching things unfold within the ... Widescreen.

Widescreen is a 3D restricted-opening apparent-cube packing puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Wood Wonders.  The pieces are made from Tauari and the box is made from Tigerwood with Avodire accents on the edges.  I love the look of the Tigerwood and the contrast with the Avodire edging makes it a stand-out eye-candy piece.

There is one large wide opening in box that also makes use of half-voxels.  These half-voxels prohibit the movement of pieces while at the same time forcing a piece to be located there to satisfy the apparent-cube requirement.

Shipping Configuration

The puzzle arrived with all the pieces within the box pretending to be a disassembly challenge.  However, the pieces did not make an apparent cube leaving a lot of the box opening unfilled.  All that was needed was to shuffle the pieces around a bit to fill that unfulfilled opening.  HaHaHaHa.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to remove the pieces from the box in their unsolved shipping state.  Once the pieces are fully visible and fueled by the success of quickly liberating the pieces from the box, I immediately came to the conclusion that this was not going to be that difficult and it would be a quick solve.  BwaHaHaHaHa.  There are just some things that I will never, ever learn.

This puzzle definitely benefits from an approach that starts with determining what orientations the pieces can enter the box with.  This reduces the number of possible assemblies utilizing the 2 largest pieces, which can quickly be reduced to 2 main candidate assemblies.  However, both of these assemblies support several complete assemblies with the final piece added.  I ended up bouncing between these assemblies searching for one that would work with the box.  And even though, after experiencing many, so many, of these puzzles, and writing this over and over again, I doubted the assemblies that were providing several moves along a path and looked for other assemblies as I struggled to find that allusive solution.

Eventually, I found the one thing that I hadn’t tried and the solution unfolded in front of me.  And after a couple of attempts, I even manged to follow the sequence and get all the pieces within the box where they were supposed to be.

The 12 move dance to get that first piece out is terrific and it even took me few minutes the following day to liberate the pieces from the box again.  Just another great design from Alexander.

 

One Tɍough – Ditch

Ditch was designed by Alexander Magyarics and entered in the Nob Yoshigahara puzzle design competition at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  Although it did not win a prize, it looked like an interesting concept worthy of spending time on.  And spend time on it I did!

Ditch consists of 12 bi-color pentomino pieces where each piece is comprised of a tetromino of one color and a monomino of a different color.  The goal is to make a 4x4 square outline with the 12 monominoes.  The problem is that all those tetromino bits get in the way of accomplishing this.

The first Aha comes early on to get you started followed by a long period of learning how the pieces can interact with each other.  Some off these relationships will help form the solution while others will lead you astray.  There were some relationships that I was unwilling to ditch that kept me from finding the solution for quite a while.  I found myself reluctant to divorce myself from these poisonous relationships and I found myself in rut with Ditch.

I eventually gained the willpower to break off some of those relationships, giving me the freedom to engage in some new, healthier relationships.  With something old and something new, I successfully managed to extract the solution from the Ditch.

There were many times where I had one piece leftover that would not fit in the available space. The natural reaction is to start moving pieces around to see if you can change the space to something more receptive.  I can certainly attest to that.  However, if you end up with the same troublesome pieces multiple times, it's worth taking some time to find them a good match and treat them as a couple.

Much nicer versions of Ditch in a selection of exotic woods are available at Wood Wonders if you would like to acquire your own copy.

Lacking QC – Messing a-round

Messing a-round is a 2D packing puzzle was designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by alienpuzzles.  It was 3D printed and used by Alexander as his exchange puzzle at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The tray is white and each of the 8 pentominoes is made with a different color giving it a vibrant look.

The puzzle consists of 8 pieces that need to be packed in the tray although not all at the same time since the tray can only accommodate 7 of them.  The pieces are rounded and fit together nicely with each other.  However, 2 pieces are missing a couple of rounds and the pointy corners don’t fit nicely in the inside corners of other pieces.  Really, what has become of quality control these days?  At least these unrounded corners were discovered before distribution and the solution statistics were duly updated.  With these unrounded corners, the number of solutions for packing all the pieces except the T piece dropped from 128 to 1.  Similarly, the number of solutions without the Z dropped from 95 to 2 and the solutions without the L dropped from 19 solutions to 1.  It’s almost as if the corners weren’t rounded on purpose.

Although those unrounded corners are initially awkward, you quickly get a feel for what pieces won’t go together well.  Given that roughly 99% of the potential configuration are going to be eliminated by the unrounded corners, you begin to suspect that finding the valid 1 or 2 working solutions is going to be tough.

I experienced the expected almost solved situations several times.  The case where the last remaining opening for a piece matches a piece that was already placed and not the one in your hand.  And the case where the last piece in your hand would fit if only one of those unrounded corners had been properly made.

Of course, I started with the missing Z challenge since there were 2 solutions and it would be like finding 1 of 2 needles in a haystack instead of a single needle.  And sure enough, even though it took some time, I eventually found 1 of the solutions.  Challenge complete.  No, I didn’t feel compelled to search for the other solution.  It’s always there if my conscious starts to nag me but she’s usually after me to do other non-puzzle related things.

I did the missing L challenge next since T pieces are usually a real pain in these types of packing puzzles.   I found this one much more difficult than the missing Z challenge and it took a lot longer to solve.  In fact, I sat down with it several times without success.  I was relieved when the last piece finally went in to complete this challenge.

I saved the missing T challenge for last since I find that the T piece in 2D packing puzzles usually don’t work well with other pieces.  However, the T is so restricted in how it can work with other pieces that it actually supported finding the solution.  There isn’t much you can do with that T so it helped to narrow things down rather quickly.

If you like Messing a-round, Alexander has designed other puzzles where he’s forgotten to round the corners of some pieces.

Entwining Pieces – Collator

Where other people say, please make it easier to put things in the box, puzzlers dare to say, please make the box opening smaller with malcontent contents that don’t like to work together.  Entwining pieces within a box with odd little openings is alluring.  Divining the correct sequence to bit-by-bit, slowly transfer objects that coalesce totally intertwined within the box - puzzle nirvana.

Collator was designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  It was made with a Flame Birch Box and the 3 pieces that need to be crammed in the box are made from Bolivian Rosewood (one of my favorites) with some very nice heartwood accents.

Putting the pieces in the box is as easy as 1, 2, 3 – or I should say 1.2.3.  However, that is not the true solution.  There are 10 possible ways to assemble the 3 pieces into a 3x3x3 cubic space.  Of those 10, 3 of them can be packed in the box.  However, only 1 of the 3 looks like a solid cube when it is inside the box.  It is this apparent cube configuration that is the objective and it has a difficulty level of 10.4.2.  The other non-apparent cube solution has a difficulty of 5.1.3.

I really don’t need to tell you that this is a good puzzle.  Designed by Alexander, made by Brian, 10.4.2 restricted opening apparent cube packing puzzle – you know it’s going to be good without even seeing it.  And it’s even better when you get your hands on it.  With a box at 3 cubic inches and pieces with a voxel size of 3/4 inches, it’s bigger than most apparent cube packing puzzles making it a pleasure to handle.  The beautiful Bolivian Rosewood pieces also have a nice heft to them.  And no, I wasn’t disappointed and thoroughly enjoyed the sequence of moves required to solve the puzzle.

An Attractive Puzzle – MagneTeam

You either like or don’t like apparent cube packing puzzles and MagneTeam is certainly a polarizing puzzle.  This puzzle doubles down on apparent cube packingness, giving you that much more to love or hate.

MagneTeam was designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Cubicdissection.  The box is made from Ash with a - shaped opening on one side and a + shaped opening on the other.  The Cubicdissection team thoughtfully beveled the 4 inner corners of the + opening for when you poke your fingers inside.  The 4 pieces to be packed are made from Granadillo and Morado.  Why 2 different types of wood for the pieces you ask?  Because there are 2 objectives.  The first objective is to pack the 3 Granadillo pieces into the box making an apparent cube (as a quick reminder, an apparent cube is a shape that looks like a cube but may not completely be or be completely a cube.  It just fills all the openings of the box and looks like one.  You can think of it as a cube wannabe/impostor/impersonator – you get the idea).  Once you have apparent( cubic)ly solved the first challenge, the second challenge is to add the Morado piece and pack all 4 within the box to make another apparent cube.  Since the first challenge was already an apparent cube, chances are that you can’t just simply add the additional piece for a quick win but I’m pretty sure that you guessed that already.

So what do you need to know to solve this puzzle.  On the negative side, it may be daunting if you’re not used to apparent cube packing puzzles and unaware of how to utilize small openings to solve the puzzle.  On the positive side, this puzzle has a big opening that easily permits pieces to enter the box.  Both challenges are fun and can be solved like most apparent cube packing puzzles.  No rotations are required but each has a nice difficulty level: 9.4.4.3 and 7.6.6.  

The biggest challenge for the 3 piece apparent cube was quite unexpected.  The Granadillo looks nice and the Morado looks just as nice, so much so, I couldn’t really tell them apart.  You say Granadillo, I say Morado, let’s call the whole thing indistinguishable.  Maybe it was a third challenge, maybe it was Eric Fuller’s sense of humor, but I spent some time trying to convince myself that one of the pieces was made from a different type of wood.  Of course I wouldn’t deprive you of figuring out which piece it is by mentioning it here.  Although if you are curious, you can check it on the puzzle will be played site.  For the record, I would have been perfectly fine if all the pieces had been made from the same type of wood with the challenge being to find which 3 pieces that still made an apparent cube.  

Two very nice challenges for the price of one.  Well done Alexander!