Elbow Room

Elbow Room is a 3D restricted-opening apparent-cube packing puzzle designed by Goh Pit Khiam.  It was entered in the 43rd International Puzzle Party (IPP) Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition where it was deemed the Puzzle of the Year.  It won both the Puzzlers’ Award as well as the Jury Grand Prize.  Key considerations by the panel of judges include: innovation, physical design, and the fun of solving the puzzle.

The puzzle consists of a little bit more than 4 pieces that have to be packed within a box.  The box has a single corner missing to provide access to the interior.  The pieces are adorned with keys and keyholes and the trick is to get them all locked in place as they are added to the frame.

Needless to say, I had to try solving thee Puzzle of the Year.  It didn’t take long to get familiar with the pieces and determine what needs to be done to pack them in the box.  I found it to be a quick solve.  I would guess that many people had the opportunity to solve this one at IPP43 since it doesn’t take a lot of time.  The version in the competition was also made from wood, which would add to attraction to play with as well.  It also has a nice fiddle factor going for it as well.
 

Hamstersaurus

Over a year ago, I reviewed an amazing 6-piece burr dissection designed by Steve Nicholls called Smelling Of Roses (New Puzzle Comes Out – Smelling Of Roses).  It appears that Steve has been at it again with another 6-piece burr dissection called Hamstersaurus, which was his International Puzzle Party (IPP) exchange puzzle at IPP42.  Steve has now graciously made it available for anyone to download the Hamstersaurus model files from MakerWorld to print their own copy.

Hamstersaurus is as fun as Smelling Of Roses.  This time around, Steve upped the ante and made the destination shape 2 intersecting pyramids instead of a single one.  Initially, it takes some effort to get oriented with how the pieces are used to form the final shape.  And once you get that down, there seems to be many ways that the pieces can be joined.  But eventually, all the pieces come together.  It’s not difficult but it is a fun challenge.  I’m looking forward to seeing the 6-piece burr dissection based on 3 intersecting pyramids.

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.

Forever In the Rough – 10 of Diamonds

It’s sad when you realize that you are not playing with a full deck.  In fact, my Molnár deck only has 2 cards, the Ace of Diamonds (Nothing Yet Designs Release: 13 January 2025, 12:00 PM EST) and the 10 of Diamonds.  Someday, I’d like to have a full Molnár deck or at least a royal flush.

10 of Diamonds was designed by László Molnár and used by Gergő Prémecz as his exchange puzzle at the 40th International Puzzle Party (IPP).  It is a 2D tray-packing puzzle made from red and white acrylic.  The 5 unique pieces each consist of 2 connected diamonds.   The front of the tray is designed to look like a playing card, the 10 of diamonds in fact, with a rectangular space to hold the diamonds.  It’s nicely made by Mr. Puzzle with the details inlaid in red on a white background.  The backside has a second challenge, where the pieces need to fit within a hexagonal area.  The backside also has the puzzle information etched on the tray.

A single-sided version made from wood was originally entered in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in 2020 where it won a Top 10 Vote Getter Award.  Now the puzzle has double the fun of the award-winning version.

Both sides of the tray are challenging.  Since neither side is fully packed you would think it would be easier but you would be mistaken.  There is quit a bit of unused space that makes it more difficult to determine where pieces need to go.  And although the backside has 2 solutions, the front side has a single solution.  You may find it rough.  It may take you forever.  But you’ll enjoy solving it.  At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

Along the way, you may encounter situations where the pieces can be crammed in by force but this would not be the solution and you should not be tempted to use force.  The puzzle has been designed so that all the pieces can be nicely placed with no force.

10 of Diamonds is a nice challenge and I’m looking forward to seeing how László completes the royal flush.

Oh! – Fudge

Were you are expecting a quick solve?  Fudge get about it.  Which brings us to the latest puzzle confection – Fudge.

Fudge is a 3D packing puzzle designed by Takuro Kawasaki.  It was entered in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 42nd International Puzzle Party (IPP) where it won a Top 10 Vote Getter award.

How difficult could it be?  4 simple identical pieces that have to be packed in a box with one side completely open except for 2 voxels on opposite sides of the box. Not only are the pieces identical but they are symmetric, reducing the number of orientations that you have to check.  You will eventually stop yourself from rotating the pieces completely around to see if it fits in better the other way.  Or grabbing another piece to see if it fits better.

The pieces work in pairs and tangle each other to lock them in place.  You’ll eventually convince yourself that they only go together in 2 configurations that I call the cuboid and the corner.  And you would be right.  Unless you were wrong.

Any combination of cuboids and corners can fit within the box but not all them can be removed.  Once under the 2 covered corners, nothing wants to let go.

You may try to solve it with nice simple crisp rectilinear movements but at some point you’re just going to have to fudge it, maybe even double fudge it so do it on a Sunday.  It’s not difficult but makes for a nice treat on the weekend. 

Magical Slant On Puzzling – Diagonal Twins

Diagonal Twins was designed byYasuhiro Hashimoto and entered in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 42nd International Puzzle Party (IPP) in Japan.  It won the Puzzlers’ Award (top puzzle selected by the attendees) as well as a Jury Honorable Mention Award (even the judges liked it).

Diagonal twins consists of 4 dicubes that need to be packed within a cubic box.  The box opening is just about a quarter of the box.  Normally it would be easy to put 4 dicubes in such a box in several ways but the dicubes have been altered to make 2 identical male (rails) and 2 identical female (alleys) dicubes.  All you have to do is match them to get a nice cube and then figure out how to get that cube within the box.  There is no more room for requirements. 

Except that the angle of the rails and alleys forces the pieces to be at 90 degrees to each other, which appears impossible to place within the box.  Somehow, each diagonal rail has to be magically transported within a diagonal alley.  However, with the box impeding your progress, you’re left wondering how to get through the walls.

You need to experiment and discover how to levitate a piece without touching it (wingardium leviosa – pronunciation counts apparently).  It’s even more challenging without the benefit of a wand.  With some practice, you can learn to do this when you’re in a tight spot – like a box – like a box with a constrained opening.

Although not difficult, the movements to solve the puzzle are magical indeed.  And if it takes you a while, don’t be a muggle and give up.  Keep going and discover the magic for yourself.

And once the puzzle is solved, removing the pieces from the box is as easy as spilling butterbeer from a leaky cauldron.  

Life, The Universe, And Everything – 42

So what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?  By now, everyone knows that the answer is 42.  This answer to the ultimate question was generated by Deep Thought well before we had all that fancy-schmancy AI crap.  And it only took 7.5 million years to compute.

Riffing on the 42nd International Puzzle Party (IPP), Joe Turner created the shapely puzzle 42 to use as his exchange puzzle at this year’s IPP.  The puzzle consists of various 2D shapes that form the digits 4 and 2.  The 6 Mahogany pieces are used to make the 4 and the 6 maple pieces are used to form a 2.  Each digit is also required to have 180 degree rotational symmetry.  The shape of each digit is provided on the cover of the box.  And to put a different slant on things, the digits are italicized.

The Maple pieces looked the easiest of the 2 so I thought that I would start there.  I spent quit a bit of time going around in circles, zig-zagging back and forth.  However, my zigs and my zags were not matching.  One would be slightly longer than another, a space would be too big, the slant was going in the wrong direction...  But after a long protracted battle ... I finally switched to the Mahogany pieces.

The Mahogany pieces reminded me of the classic T puzzle and I was hoping to have better success than with the Maple pieces.  But this one turned out to be Tough 2.  But I kept at it, basically because there were no other digits to work on.  Using my acute sense of geometry, I determined that the Mahogany pieces were pointier than the Maple.  And all these oddly angled pointy bits weren’t playing nice.  I eventually got the point and was rewarded with a nice 4.

With the first half of the challenge complete, I transitioned back to the Maple pieces.  I zig-zagged along my merry way before the epiphany that was stuck in the back of my mind finally made it’s way to the forefront.  With this new approach, I left a vast collection of malformed 2’s behind and had a nicely formed 2 to go along with the 4.

42 was certainly more challenging than I had anticipated.  I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what comes after life, the universe, and everything.

Flattenry Will Get You Nowhere – Soma Tray

Over the last several years, the Soma Cube developed by Piet Hein has suffered a lot of abuse.  Since the 7 pieces forming a cube has 480 solutions, various tortuous methods have been employed to jettison 479 of them leaving the puzzle with a unique solution.  One of these time-honored methods is to squash it.  This involves picking one of the 480 (or maybe more appropriately 240 to avoid the mirror) solutions and scaling it down along one of it’s 3 dimensions.  To be quite honest, I do not know if every combination results in a unique solution but I’ve always assumed that squashing the Soma cube is a uniquifying process.

Soma Tray was designed by Rick Eason in 2016 and used as his exchange puzzle at the 41st International Puzzle Party in 2025, suggesting it sat on the shelf for 9 years.  In fact, it looks like it was buried on a shelf resulting in a somewhat flattened appearance.  OK, a very flatted appearance.  My guess is that it’s flattened shape under a heap of other puzzle prototypes had doomed it from seeing the world.  However, as we now know, it successfully escaped and made itself know. 

The puzzle consists of the 7 squashed Soma pieces with 1 dimension about a quarter of the size of the other 2.  All the pieces are flat with 5 of them having a single squashed cube added on top.  As the name of the puzzle would indicate, there is also a tray.  The tray is 5x3x2 with the 2-layer Z dimension representing the flattened dimension.  There is also a 1x3x1 shape affixed to the bottom of the tray, 1 unit from the end.  This provides a 2-layer 3x3 area on the left and 1x3 area on the right.  Both the pieces and the tray are made from laser-cut veneered wood.  The tray also has the name of the puzzle as well as additional information debossed along the rim of the tray.

Soma Tray comes with 2 challenges.  The first is to build a typical, albeit squashed, Soma in the 3x3 area of the tray.  I’m assuming that this is a uniquified Soma cube but I didn’t verify that.  The second challenge is to fill the tray with all 7 pieces.

The puzzle arrives nicely packed in the tray except for a single square sticking up from the tray.  Needless to say, filling the tray is not achieved by simply flipping that piece over.  Since the tray arrives with 1 piece sticking out, I obviously wanted to fix it and started with the second challenge.  I immediately dumped the pieces out to start with a clean state and embark on fixing the problem.  I know I said that you couldn’t just flip over that one piece in the original packing state to solve it but honestly, I just assumed that.  Maybe the joke is on me.

Since the right side of the tray limited that pieces that could be placed there, that’s where I started.  This definitely turned out the way to go as the spillover into the 3x3 side helped put the final pieces in place there.  I should also note that I solved it a second time and ended up with the a mirror image of the first solution.

Having completed the first, or technically, the second challenge, I proceeded to work on creating a squashed cube.  After some random attempts, I decided to think about the relationship between the pieces with and without the extra cube.  This gave the direction that I needed and soon after, I had a squashed cube nestled in the tray.  Since the other challenge had a mirror solution, I checked the cube as well and sure enough, the solution to this challenge had one as well.

Soma Tray is not a difficult puzzle but I did enjoy the challenges.  I also like how the pieces store in the tray.  And you can never have enough Soma variants.

In Mint Condition – Dr. Bell's Curiously Warped Mints

Dr. Bell’s mind is jam packed with mind-blowing packings.  Why, sometimes he’s imagined as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast.  His warped sense of humor has now brought us a minty fresh take on edge beveled cube packing.

Dr. Bell's Curiously Warped Mints was developed by George Bell and used as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Part (IPP).  Each of the 6 pieces is 3d printed in a different color and comprised of 4 warped edge-beveled cubes.  The objective is to artfully cram all the pieces within an accompanying tin.  The type of tin that you would expect to find a nice assortment of mints to enjoy.  However, you are not expected to enjoy these mints.  The tin explicitly warns to not eat them.  So then why are they made with yummy colors like grape, blueberry, raspberry, lemon, lime, and licorice?

To get you started, some of the pieces are already in the tin and you only have to add the remaining 2.  Of course, I dutifully took all the pieces out and separated them before starting on my journey of 1000 missteps.

Being warped always seems like it should make things easier but it always feels like the opposite.  Examining the pieces, I noticed some interesting clues that I filed for possible later use and proceeded on without them.

The first step in these types of packing puzzles is to determine what type of packing structure is required, i.e., how the web cubes are oriented.  I struggled a while working on a packing orientation that would allow the cover to go on.  Then I unfortunately discovered something significant.  I was proud.  Or I should say the puzzle was proud of the lip of the tin.  I thought that this was a problem until I finally realized that when you placed the lid on, it did not rest on the top lip of the tin and providing a little additional space.  And after considerable effort I was able to pack all the pieces except 1.

It turns out that what I thought was a problem that wasn’t a problem was a problem.  Eventually I reread the goal and it said that the cover has to be screwed down, which screwed the packing approach that I was trying to accomplish.  I hadn’t even realized that the lid was resting on threads.  I now had nothing to be proud about.  Dejected,  I went back to the drawing board mumbling to myself, screw it ... screw it … screw it.

I eventually discovered another packing structure with a lower profile that would allow the cover to be screwed shut.  I also made heavy use of the clues that I had remarked on earlier.  At one point, I had a 3 subassemblies that looked like they would go together to solve the puzzle but would require coordinate motion to accomplish that.  Of course it would require coordinate motion coming from Dr. Bell.  However no matter how hard I tried, I was not dexterous enough to get everything lined up and moving like I wanted it to.  Curiouser and curiouser!  I eventually convinced myself that they would not go together using coordinate motion.  I was so close to victory, I could almost taste it.  Stepping back a bit, a minor tweak allowed me to assemble the pieces within the tin and screw it.

Once all the pieces are assembled, it truly resembles a tin of mints that are all stuck together and won’t come apart as if they were one giant enticing gobstopper.

It’s a clever puzzle and by the time I finally solved it I have to say that I ended up licking it.  Thanks Dr. Bell.

Mixolometragrobology – Get in the Spirit!

Mixolometagrobologist Steve Canfield decided to go all out for his exchange puzzle in last year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP) and deliver a Sequential Discovery (SD) cocktail for us to savor.  After all, he was the host and wanted to make a big splash by leveraging his vast knowledege of puzzle Boxes and Booze to create an intoxicating journey with a bittersweet ending.  To aid him in this grand endeavor, he enticed puzzle genius and master craftsman Lee Krasnow to flesh out the intricate details that make this puzzle shine.

Get in the Spirit! consists of multiple layers of intrigue.  The outside is turned from aluminum with a Walnut and Hard Maple center ring to provide a classy classic look.  This shiny work of art may not look all that difficult but aluminum parts encapsulating various devious movements ring true.  After I solved it, I tested this in a manner that I’m sure will resonate with everyone.  I suspended both and struck them to verify the sonority of each.  Both produced a very nice tone with the top straining longer to sustain its note.

As for the goal, the shaker shaped tag simply said Get in the Spirit!  Preparing for just that, I happily embarked on my SD spiritual journey.  But where to start?  It’s a shaker!  You’re supposed to shake it, right?  Right?  Not so much.  Tilting and rotating will do.  As a matter of fact, I’d recommend not shaking it.

Through the holes in the top, you can just make out a red logo on a dark green background but don’t strain your eyes.  What could it be?

All three parts of the shaker seem to rotate freely and as you twist it and move it around you can hear things moving inside.  I was starting to fear that it might be one big marble maze and was particularly worried about the bottom portion.  I hear that people sometimes get lost in their cups.

With a little bit of exploration, the first move can be found, revealing the first glimpse of the interior.  I’m embarrassed to admit that this initial freebie move took me a full 10 minutes but I was going to savor this journey, by golly.  And with a little bit of additional work, the outer shell was peeled away to reveal … the next layer.

The interior is mostly 3D printed garnished with some metal hardware to facilitate making things more difficult.  Welcome to the inner circle, which sports 5 windows around it’s circumference.  And the inner circle has it’s own inner circle with it’s own set of windows.  It’s obvious that a lot of additional work went into making the design aesthetically pleasing instead of resulting in a strictly utilitarian design.  When the windows line up, you get a glimpse of what is waiting inside.  Through another opening, you can get a good look at a trapped coin although there doesn’t seem to be a way to easily remove it.  

Now you have a clear view of that red logo on top, which kind of looks like the top of a bottle.  With some effort you can get the top of the bottle to stick out.  It seems like it would make a great handle to rotate the bottle inside, which I did.  Rotating clockwise works great!  Rotating counter-clockwise not so much.  It really is a bottle and proceeded to dribble it’s contents in my lap.  I obviously don’t know how to hold my liquor.  At least I managed to limit the damage by quickly retightening it and vowing to never make such an obvious mistake again.

With just one drink under my belt, I stopped making progress.  I hit THE WALL!  At this point I kept trying everything over and over and getting nowhere.  There seemed to be a lot of enticing round holes that were trying to tell me something, but all I was getting was a buzz.  Eventually, I packed it back up and put it to the side for a while, a long while, months, in fact it’s been about a year.  How embarrassing!

After taking it back out after all that time, I blocked out a weekend and quickly (or at least quicker than the first time) found myself back at the wall.  After spending another considerable amount of time looking for a way forward, I finally succumbed and asked permission to do something that I was reluctant to do.  And I received the rare go ahead.  Usually this is followed by lots of laughter as I try it.  However, this time I was lucky.  In hindsight, the puzzle does provide a hint on how to get over that wall but like all good puzzles, you don’t recognize it until it’s already too late.

After a few more moves, you eventually end up with a token that is a bottle of your accomplishment.  Or is it a bottle that is a token of your accomplishment.  In any event, you wind up with both a token and a bottle of spirits.  If you are adventurous, you can take everything completely apart into the dozens of components that make Get in the Spirit!.  

The reset takes much longer than the solve but that’s basically because you just freed up a nice little bottle of spirits.

And that red logo on the dark green background?  Turns out it’s HUA for the H. Underberg-Albrecht company that Herbert Underberg started the day he married Katharina Albrecht to produce natural herb bitters.  

In addition to Get in the Spirit!, the puzzle, Steve also produced Get in the Spirit, the book.  The book provides a collection of fine cocktail recipes and wisdom.  Of course each recipe has a photo of the cocktail with an amazing garnish. 

It is also possible that Lee will make a companion cocktail shaker stand to hold both puzzle and book versions of Get in the Spirit!  Of course it will be a puzzle box and will utilize pieces from Get in the Spirit! in the solving process.  The CAD drawings look amazing and can be seen on Lee’s website, Pacific Puzzleworks.  However the fate of this project is still in flux as insufficient preorders didn’t provide the volume required for the originally projected price point.  Maybe offering an all 3D printed version of Get in the Spirit! for folks that don’t own one but would like the cocktail shaker stand could salvage the original plan.

Monumental – Markus’ Tetrahedron

Only the passing of the great ones are marked by a pyramid.  And a pyramid it was to remind us of the loss of puzzle master Markus Götz to the puzzle community in 2018.  His puzzle legacy lives on through his many designs generated over the years and I’m always happy to run across a new one that I’ve yet to discover.

Markus’ Tetrahedron was designed by Markus Götz and used by Stan Isaacs as his exchange puzzle at last years International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The 4 identical bright shiny green 3D printed pieces can be used to construct a tetrahedron in 2 different ways.  And since these exchange puzzles were made by George Bell, the pieces are constructed from conjoined spheres.

Don’t let the small number of pieces lull you into a sense of complacency.  It took me some time to find the first of the two solutions.  Each piece consists of 5 spheres and the pieces don’t seem to want to go together.  And each piece consists of a string of 3 spheres and another of 2 spheres that are connected by a cube.  Keep track now – identical pieces of conjoined strings of spheres connected by cubes that form a tetrahedron.  I don’t usually give clues on how to solve puzzles but just this once I’ll let you know that the solution uses Face-Centered Cubic (FCC) Packing.  Your welcome!

It doesn’t take long to determine that each of the 4 tetrahedron edges will consist of 4 spheres with each corner sphere belonging to 3 of the edges.  4 edges, 4 corners, 4 pieces, maybe there’s some kind of correlation going on here.  And lo-and-behold, the first solution emerges.

When solving this puzzle, you can ignore the cubes that connects the strings of spheres like I did.  Or you can realize before you solve it that each cube has a sphere connected to 2 of its faces and maybe this is a clue to where the spheres of the other pieces have to go.

It took some effort to find the second solution.  I kept getting the first solution and couldn’t see past it.  I had to step back to give it a good think and I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for that.  Eventually, I thunk (I know, it’s less of a process and more of a sound that my aging brain makes, k-thunk, k-thunk, k-thunk) my way to the other solution, which unlike the first, snaps closed when you get all the pieces together.  Looking at the final assembly, I could easily see why the second solution is much more difficult to find than the first.  I basically needed to jettison all those great ideas that lead to the first solution. 

Of course, once both solutions are discovered, the next challenge is to pack the 4 pieces back into the rather non-tetrahedralish box.  However, this was a much easier challenge than the other 2.

Receiving this monumental puzzle at IPP last year reminded me just how much I miss seeing that energetic, smart, and entertaining puzzle genius at IPP.  He always make everything seem a bit more special.

Markus Götz (1974-2018) attended 17 IPPs, participated in 16 exchanges and hosted IPP31 in Berlin.  He invented over 100 puzzles and authored six CFF articles.  He wrote about this puzzle in CFF 66 (2005).  He is greatly missed!
        - From the Markus’ Tetrahedron Puzzle Insert

RIP Markus!

Welcome To The Home Of Despair – DODECASOMA

What happens when you take a 3x3x3 matrix of cubes, attach identical pentahedrons to each side of the matrix so that each pentahedron completely covers one of the matrix sides, define a new cubic boundary to encompass the new shape, slice the space up into into 27 identical bits, and randomly glue up some of neighboring bits back together?  Well, you get a DODECASOMA obviously.  To save you the effort of doing that yourself, Rod Bogart has done it for you so that you can enjoy the formidable fiddly fun of constructing a dodecahedron from 7 dodecahedronized Soma pieces.

DODECASOMA was designed and made by Rod Bogart and used as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party.  It consists of 7 green 3D printed Soma pieces that assemble into a dodecahedron instead of the normal cube.  The pieces are nicely scored with the outline of the 3x3x3 grid to provide some guidance on how the pieces are aligned.  The puzzle also comes with a stand for displaying the assembled puzzle.  The stand is also useful to hold partially assembled constructions.  And although it is providing a helping hand, don’t expect any useful advice from it.

It all appears innocuous enough but when someone hands you a puzzle that is an anagram for CASA DOOMED, you have to stop and consider the ramifications.  Are there 240 (or 480 – you’re welcome Nick) solutions?  No!  Which is good since you probably don’t need another regular Soma cube although you should have a least one.  Is the solution unique.  Don’t know!  But trying to solve it, it seemed like it could be.

Unlike a plain old boring Soma made from plain old cubes, the DODECASOMA ends up being made from 4 types of shapes which I’ve come to think of as corners, edges, middles, and the core.  They’re really misnomers, but I’m sure you’ll come up with better names when you start handling them.

I don’t know why I was surprised the first time I had 1 last piece to add and it didn’t fit.  Why would I think it would be any different from any other puzzle that I’ve solved?  A couple rounds of that wiped the smirk off my expectations.

It’s also a bit fiddly and you have to juggle the pieces in your hand as you try different piece combinations.  Unlike the typical Soma puzzle with cubic dissection pieces, not every piece will fit nicely anywhere.  However, there are enough places where they can go together making it non-trivial to solve.

Eventually I had it all together and with a bit more effort, I had it displayed on the stand.  At least I didn’t have to try all 10 sides to find one where it would stand without falling apart.

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.

Answers From The Void – Sixmetry

There is something appealing about a packing puzzle with identical pieces.  I think it has to do with the initial assessment done by the subconscious mind where it realizes that it has less shapes to deal with and throws a couple of dopamine chits your way.  And yes, fewer shapes does equate to less complexity, which in many cases results in easier.

Sixmetry is a 3D packing puzzle designed by David Goodman and made by Vinco.  It was used by Patrick Major at the 41st International Puzzle Party as his exchange puzzle.  The puzzle consists of 6 identical wood pieces that need to be packed in a 4x4x4 wooden box.  Each piece consists of a 2x2x1 board attached to a 2x3x1 board.   The pieces consisting of 10 voxels each only use 60 voxels of the 64 voxel box leaving 4 of them unoccupied.

Even without the clue in the name, I would have guessed that the solution would be a symmetric shape.  In fact with 4 empty voxels in a 4x4x4 box, I assumed we had a Slothouber–Graatsma situation brewing here.  Don’t google that if you want to avoid spoilers.

There are a lot of puzzles that fall into this category.  A lot.  So many!  And after so many, when you are presented with one of these, you basically know where the empty voxels are located, which simplifies determining the solution.  And this allowed me to solve Sixmetry in about 5 minutes.  I’m sure it would have taken a lot longer if I hadn’t know the positions of the empty voxels.

And extra points for Vinco for providing the non-solution packing configuration on the instruction sheet.

Infesting In Puzzles – Parasitic Version

I have a lot of burr puzzles and they seem to be accumulating at an alarming rate.  This seems to be my retirement strategy.  Collect as many wood burrs as possible for the day I can’t afford the heating bill.  Or maybe they’re just fuel for the soul.  

I particularly love 6 piece burrs.  And 6 piece burrs with 9 pieces are even better!  This seems to be the result of an ever increasing tendency to stuff things in burrs.

Parasitic Version is a 6 + 3 piece burr designed by László Molnár.  It was made by Pelikan Puzzles and used by Gergely Prémecz as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The 6 main burr pieces consist of 2 pairs each of Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart. and the parasites are made from Maple and Bubinga.

You know from the start that getting parasites into the burr will not be easy since Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart are naturally pest resistant hardwoods.

I believe that the puzzle came with the 6 piece burr assembled with the parasitic pieces outside.  However, it was such a long time ago from when I originally received it and made a pile of pieces that I really can’t remember how it arrived.  I really don’t know why I keep acquiring new puzzles when I could just redo the same ones over and over again for the first time.  Yes, I do – and you do too!

I started the solving process by assuming that the 6 large burr pieces were actually paired by wood type.  Wouldn’t you?  It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, but typically if there are 3 types of wood used, the pieces are paired,  This gives you a boost in the solving process since you don’t have to worry about all those other combinations.  Of course it’s also sometimes used to force a single or more difficult configuration.  So using the logic of purposeful intent, I went with the paired approach and started to look at possible configurations.

For each possible configuration of 6 burr pieces, the next step is to determine whether the parasites can be packed within the central envelope.  After a couple rounds of that, the process changed to one of looking to generate specific configurations that will accommodate the parasites instead of testing randomly generated candidates.

And then the fun really starts when you have to insert the parasites.  Of course, you can’t just let them dig their way in.  That would be boring!  You must go through all the proper channels and find the correct way to get them all nestled in their new home.  After spending some time with these buggers, you begin to get a feel for what will pack and what won’t that you can then narrow down to the winning configuration.  Even then, you have to still get it together, which I found an interesting juggling act with 9 pieces and 2 hands.

When everything is said and done, you are rewarded with a 6 piece burr that looks exactly like it did when you started.  But you know the difference because now, you’re infested in the process.

Finding Elegance – Four Pieces

Four Pieces was designed by Emrehan Halici and entered in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  He also used it as his exchange puzzle for IPP41.  It is made from laser-cut acrylic with a double-sided black tray with white lettering and 4 red pieces that need to be packed in the tray.  It also comes in a very nice box specifically made for the puzzle.

The pieces remind me of the great white shark Bruce from Finding Nemo.  He was the character that lead a support group for sharks that want to be friends with other less toothy fish.  And indeed, your mission here is to get these fishy pieces to cooperate within a room.

Each side of the tray has a different shaped conference room for the Fish Are Friends, Not Food meetings.  One side of the tray has a square conference room to be filled and the other has a hexagonal conference room.

I only spent a few minutes trying to herd great white sharks around before really getting down to examining the pieces.   The sharks had the look of being the product of intelligent design leading me to assume that there would be an elegant solution.  With that in mind, I tackled the puzzle in earnest.

I started with the square conference room since it had a higher order of symmetry, which I figured would have an easier discoverable elegant solution.  And I was not wrong.  It didn’t take long to commence the meeting in the square conference room.

The hexagonal conference room takes a bit more effort,  I found a couple of configurations that were just shy of fitting.  I was tempted to blame the contractors but I’m all too familiar with the close but wrong scenario where more effort (mental, not physical) is required.  And yes, my faux solutions were elegant as well.  I eventually realized what I was missing and found the true elegant solution to bring the final meeting to order.

And finally, please note that you are packing great white sharks in conference rooms.  There are no red herrings in these meetings.

Ballsy Name for a Boxy Puzzle – Spherelation

I have several puzzles requiring the packing of 4 sticks in a box like 4 In Frame, Wheel Lock, and Quadripole.  They’re fun and I always look forward to solving them.

Spherelation was originally designed by Tom Jolly and improved by Zack Zieper.  It was used as Tim Udall’s exchange puzzle at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  Removing Spherelation from it’s packaging, you are presented with a dark brown open-top 3D printed box with 4 beige 3D printed pieces nestled inside, flush with the top of the box.  But it’s cubic.  The box is cubic, the pieces look cubic - calling it Spherelation is a little ballsy.

Since it comes assembled, the first task is to take it apart.  Turning the puzzle upside-down allows the pieces to move out from the top so that you can grab and start to move them while getting a peak inside.  It doesn’t take long to discover that there’s a shooter hiding inside to give you some trouble.  In addition to the shooter, there appears to be several nubs on the inside of the box to keep everything from simply falling out.

Disassembly requires moving the pieces around the nubs and each other while dodging the shooter.  Eventually, the box will be emptied, providing you with 4 burr pieces and an over-sized shooter.  The box is reminiscent of Pox Box with a couple of extra cubies on the bottom.

Once emptied, you need to leave it disassembled for at least 3 months before putting it back together so that you can completely forget how it came apart.  To be honest, this only takes me a couple of minutes but I dutifully waited the 3 months.

3 months later … I found a box with 4 burr pieces and a shooter.  Must be a puzzle (good thing it was sitting right next to a box with the IPP41 logo on it).  I immediately deduced that the pieces and the shooter had to be put in the box through the open end.  Since 3 of the burr pieces have non-solid ends they need to be located at the bottom the box since it’s obvious that the pieces have to go in vertically.  Further investigation revealed that the locations and orientations of 2 pieces are forced by the box.  This is a huge boost for a puzzle like this.  Given the nature of the shooter, there aren’t too many position and orientation combinations for the other 2 pieces.  The main difficulty is determining the order that the pieces, including the shooter, are introduced to the box.  However, I was surprised at how quickly it came together.  I found that getting the first 2 pieces in the box was the major challenge.  The last 2 pieces were much easier and the time to add the shooter wasn’t difficult to determine.

So is it more difficult to disassemble or assemble?  For the disassembly, the process starts out as a semi-blind experimentation process since you can’t get a full view of the internal structure.  From the assembly perspective, you have a full view of everything, but you’re not given the piece locations and orientations.  I found both to be roughly of the same difficulty and that neither was very difficult.

Drill Baby Drill! – Rock-it Burr

Demonstrating remarkable prognostic foresight, a brass monkey produced a future ubiquitous symbol from his well-oiled cognitive facilities.  And once such a thought has been brought into the world, it can never be unbrought.   The magnitude of this shared vision could very well end up defining a nation.

Rock-it Burr was designed by Ali Morris and made by Two Brass Monkeys.   It was used as Ali’s exchange puzzle at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  When I pulled it out of the box, I just spent some time admiring it.  It’s a masterpiece of 3D printed and metal parts.  The Sucker Rod Pump (the bird like thingy that looks like it’s pecking the ground) is nicely made and feels very solid.  It is mounted to the 3D printed terrain with the sucker rod disappearing underground.  It also has IPP laser cut on one side and 41 on the other, which serve as the pivoting point for the rod.  The cactus is also a nice touch supporting the Texas theme.  When everyone else was running with the Rock-et theme, Ali trod the path less traveled.  Well done!

Examining the ground portion of the puzzle, it looks burrowish with potential pieces that could be prodded to get things moving.  But nothing seemed to move and I was beginning to wonder how I was supposed to solve this frack’n puzzle.  And that was all the clue that I needed to dig in.  I drilled down to the core of the disassembly process and was soon pumped to have all the pieces laying there in a pile.  What a great idea!  And I wasn’t worried about getting the puzzle back together since the pieces are reminiscent of a typical Kumiki puzzle with a twist.  I solved it rather quickly but to be honest, the whole thing was rigged.

It can’t pump jack but it makes a good puzzle!  And they are currently available on the Two Brass Monkeys website.

A Set of Blocks For Adults – Houston, We Have a Puzzle

When I was younger, every kid had to have a set of blocks.  My set was made from 2x4 lumber and my younger brother’s set was smaller and made with smoothly finished hardwood.  Together, these sets were used to make many amazing 2D and 3D structures.  And at the end of the day, they needed to be packed back into a box and stored under the bed.  So even at a tender age, I was being trained to pack blocks into boxes.

Houston, We Have a Puzzle was designed by Oleg Smolyakov and used by Daniel Bain as his exchange puzzle at last year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The puzzle was manufactured by Vinco and consists of 7 rectangular parallelepipeds that need to be packed in a wooden box.  Of immediate note, the box is unrestricted so every configuration would also be a solution.  However, after spending a couple of minutes attempting to figure out how to pack the pieces within the box, you’re quickly left with the feeling that there is a single configuration.

Each of the 7 pieces are a different size and made from a different type of hardwood.  When you spill them out of the box from their non-solution packing configuration, it doesn’t really look that difficult.  And in fact, it’s not really that difficult.  You just need to think about it.  Of course if you are like me, you’ll dicker around with it for a while before resorting to that dreaded thought process.

When you stop to really examine it closely, there is a logical progression.  And the progression is what you would naturally gravitate towards.  Each piece can be added one by one with confidence that it is in the correct position.

The puzzle comes with an instruction sheet with the solution on the inside.  Not that anyone would ever look at a solution sheet.  Extra points for providing the non-solution packing configuration on the back of the sheet.  Although pieces can slide around in this position, they won’t spill out of the box when in the packaging.

Houston, We Have a Puzzle is currently available on Vinco's website.