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.

Not a Little Challenge – Monster

What a cute little puzzle!  It only has 3 little pieces that you have to put in a frame.  Bwahahahaha!

So how do you define a Monster puzzle?  81 moves to put the last piece in?  A total of 105 moves to solve with 81 moves to put the last piece in?  Over 1000 moves to solve a 105 move puzzle with 81 moves to put the last piece in?  Over 6 hours to perform over 1000 moves to solve a 105 move puzzle with 81 moves to put the last piece in?

Monster was designed by Girish Sharma and made by Tom Lensch using Mahogany and Maple.  The pieces are constructed with doweled joints to strengthen them although you really shouldn’t need to test their durability.  The tolerances are perfect and if you’re using force, you’re doing something wrong.  I also appreciate that the puzzle arrived unassembled so that I could enjoy the full solving experience.

Although I really didn’t have any time to allocate for working on the puzzle when it arrived, I got sucked in and spent 1-2 hours fiddling with it after I took it out of the box.  2 days later, I had a couple of spare minutes and sat down work on it for a bit.  Once again I disappeared into the puzzle zone to finally reappear 5 hours later with a solved puzzle.  Yes, this is a real thing.  During a good solve, you slip out of normal space-time into the mind-bending puzzle continuum where all your senses are laser-focused on a single objective.  I once had someone apologize a couple of hours after putting a puzzle in my hand.  Too bad I couldn’t hear him.

This puzzle may only require 105 moves but I’m sure that it took me over 1000 moves to solve.  Maybe 2000.  I have to say that for a 3 piece framed puzzle, it was a challenge to solve.  However, I already knew that Girish's goal was to exceed the movement count of Climburr (50+ moves for the first piece).  It took me thousands of moves so I can't attest if the 81.19.5 level is accurate or not, but it looks about right.  As tough as it was, I enjoyed working on it.  It's not as hopelessly impossible as it first appears.  I pretty much knew what I had to accomplish at each step even though accomplishing each step was not easy.

I 4 1 thought Monster is a tough but fair puzzle.  The big unknown for me was the order of introducing the pieces to the cage.  I was fortunate in that my educated guess worked out.  However, I can't be sure that other orders wouldn't work just as well.  All the rotations that I made were well behaved, but there was one that was more than a simple rotate to add some spice in the solving process.

The first step in tackling this Monster is to determine the final configuration of the pieces within the frame.  This was not difficult and was greatly appreciated.  For each of the 3 pieces, you pretty much know where they go and how they are oriented within the frame.  You only need to determine how to move them around to get them in place.  During this process, I found that all 3 pieces are (mostly – hahaha) in 1 of 2 orientations, rotated and unrotated.  And you will be going back and forth between them, more than once, many times, so many times.

Having solved this Monster, the puzzle fibers that comprise my body were definitely sated.  I even thought my 6-7 hour solve time was quite respectable until I found out that someone else had solved it in a few hours while watching TV.  Sigh.

One Person – Three Body Problem

At this year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP), I overheard Girish Sharma say that people smiled when he told them the name of his puzzle, Three Body Problem, during the IPP Puzzle Exchange.  I know it didn’t make me smile – maybe cringe-worthy.  All I could think about was complex coordinated movements in physics with no general closed-form solution.  Turns out I’m just socially stunted and not tuned in.  3 Body Problem is the name of a series on Netflix based on a novel by Liu Cixin.  However, I may have been on to something since the puzzle does indeed require complex rotational movements.

Three Body Problem was designed by Girish Sharma and used as his exchange puzzle at IPP41.  The puzzle is nicely made with Maple, Cherry, and Mahogany by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  And dowels were used to reinforce end grain glue joints.

The stated goal is to interlock the 3 pieces within a 4x4x4 space.  It also promises some rotational moves in the solve.  Removing the 3 pieces from the box, it’s obvious that they are not going to fill the 4x4x4 space and won’t even cover the exterior surface like the many amazing turning interlocking cube (TIC) puzzles created by Andrew Crowell.  I used to see this as a sign of an unfinished design but to be honest, this puzzle is awesome.

Although this puzzle calls for 3 bodies, I thought I would tackle it solo.  However, it took me 3 times longer to solve than I expected.  I sat down with it several times before I finally had all 3 pieces packed together.

The final assembly was never really much in doubt, although I was required to doubt it a little since it took so long to find the solution.  However, the rotation supported by the half corner cube pretty much forces you to believe in the assembly.  It’s that crazy dance of the third piece that eluded me several times.  The problem is that you need to envision it from the end back to the beginning and there are so many steps, it’s not easy to run through.  Along the way, I found some interesting moves that I thought would be required but didn’t lead anywhere.  Eventually, I found my way to the final assembly.

I also enjoyed coming back to it a couple of days later and found that it took me several minutes to get it back apart.  To say that rotations are required is an understatement.  Being a fan of rotations, I really found this to be a great puzzle.  I’m sure the Netflix series plot has many twists and turns if it is anything like the puzzle.