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.

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.

Easy As – Duck Soup

How many puzzles can you say are as easy as duck soup and be completely correct irrespective of the person attempting to solve it?  Well this one’s Duck Soup for everyone!

Duck Soup was developed by Guy Loel and David Goodman and entered in this year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP) Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  Although it didn’t win any awards, I thought it was one of the top stand-out puzzles in the competition.  It was well-themed, well-made, and a good challenge.  

There are 2 goals: the ultimate goal and a waypoint goal for encouragement.  The waypoint goal is to make a bland soup by packing all 7 ducks in the pot without the bouillon cube (with the lid closed of course – no legs hanging out of the side of the pot like in the kitchen).  If and when you accomplish that, you can add the bouillon cube to the pot as well for the ultimate soup experience.

No names for the ducks were provided so I’m going with Rufus, Pinky, Chicolini, Bob, Gloria, Vera, and Zander.  I managed to pack these 7 ducks into the pot in the IPP41 design competition room without the bouillon cube.  It was enough of a challenge to realize that I wasn’t going to obtain the ultimate goal at IPP if I wanted to spend time enjoying the many other puzzles in the competition.

When Duck Soup became available on Nothing Yet Designs, I grabbed a copy as soon as possible.  Continuing the theme, the puzzle arrives in a takeout box with everything you need to successfully make Duck Soup – a pot complete with lid, 7 ducks, and a bouillon cube just to spice things up a bit.  You don’t have to worry about the ducks making a mess.  The bottom of the box is filled with hay.  All the pieces are 3D printed and they are very well-done.  As well-done as the design competition version was, these are weller-done.  The ducks are so cute, who wouldn’t love them.  And the pot, most amazing pot ever!  Love that fuzzy skin.  However, I do have to say that I miss the magnets that held the lid on the pot in the competition puzzle.  Having 3D printed a few puzzles myself, I completely understand avoiding embedded magnets and I feel the tradeoff with the other enhancements like multicolor printing was worth it.

Working on getting that bouillon cube to dissolve in the pot at home, I think I discovered most of the 180 solutions of organizing the ducks in the pot without the bouillon cube.  And of course it was just as easy to add the bouillon cube and leave out Rufus (who was very grateful by the way).  

I failed to make the ultimate Duck Soup over several days.  The ducks were just not cooperating and free-ranging in my living room.  Did I mention that there is only 1 proper way to make Duck Soup?  At some point I stopped and decided that I needed to think like a duck.  If I were a duck, how would I cozy up to other ducks to waste the least amount of space.  Once I figured that out, it was Duck Soup!

The IPP design competition has so many great new puzzles designs that they can’t all be given a prize.  Duck Soup is one of those gems.  If you want one of your own, you can get it from Nothing Yet Designs when it is in stock.

Not ducks were harmed in the making of this blog.

 

No Scoop 4U – 4 PAC

Continuing the trend of designing restricted-opening packing puzzles with 4 simple looking pieces, Hajime Katsumoto has provided us with 4 PAC.  The box has a single slot opening to permit the pieces to be entered and several poke holes for you to insert your fingers for manipulating the pieces.  However, for this packing puzzle, the pieces are round, allowing for new types of rotations within the box.  This novelty helped 4 PAC win a Jury Honorable Mention award in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in 2021.

This puzzle looks innocuous.  After all, we’ve solved several of these 2x2x3 packing puzzles with simple looking pieces.  This one looks even easier with the pieces made from cylinders, which support rotations around the cylinder’s axis.  When I first saw a photo of this puzzle, my initial reaction was that it could be trivially solved in several ways.  Deep down, I knew this would not be the case and was summarily reengaged by a comment on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord server: The solution doesn't use the scoop move.  The scoop move?  Was this the move that my trivial solutions were based on.  Indeed it was.  After more thought, this move is obviously (I use the term obviously loosely here since it obviously wasn’t obvious on my first pass) impossible.  However, it would have been possible if the top of the box had a thickness of 0 (that’s mm not inches), which the mental construct within my mind indeed had.

Having cleared its reputation of trivialness, I decided to print a copy to solve.  Given the nature of this type of puzzle, it’s easy to deduce how the last piece goes in.  That only leaves figuring out how to add the first 3 pieces.

No Scoop 4U

As with most of these types of puzzles, I take an out-of-the-box approach and attempt to construct the configuration of the pieces inside an imaginary box and envision how they would be removed.  Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t recognize invalid moves like the scoop move.  This one seemed to require more of an in-the-box approach and I thought that I was clever to have a box with a removable lid so that I could experiment without the top.  I use clever as loosely as obviously since it had all the disadvantages of the out-of-the-box approach as well as the frustration of trying to move round pieces in a tight box in orientations that couldn’t be realized with the top in place.  Having exhausted all the poor ways to solve this problem, I was forced to use the better approach.  With the lid ON, I was able to determine how the pieces could be added one-by-one until the box was packed.  What was once a trivial, unwieldy, frustrating fidgety puzzle, became an interesting puzzle with a solid Aha moment.

The Bane of All Cubes - Cubane

As if the bane of all cubes wasn’t enough, Cubicdissection has announced that they are looking to release Cubane II in the near future pending the development of a successful prototype.  This got me thinking that maybe I should solve Cubane I, or just Cubane as it was called when released, before the second one comes out.

Cubane was designed by Masumi Ohno and released by Cubicdissection in 2015.  It was available in 3 different wood combinations and the one that I have is made with Shedua and Bloodwood.  A version made from Wenge and Padauk was entered in the 2015 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, although that version was not as well-made as the one from Cubicdissection.

The puzzle consists of two pieces: a frame and a shuttle.  The objective is the remove the shuttle from frame.  There is a well identified starting point that aligns a magnet on the shuttle with a magnet on the frame to keep it in place until you start.  The 2 sides of the shuttle are held together by a dowel on one side, while the other side has a larger dowel that sticks out but does not span the distance between the 2 sides of the shuttle.  The sides of the frame have cuts in them to let the smaller dowel pass through, notches that permit the larger dowel to pass through, and rounded edges that allow the shuttle to be rotated by 90 degrees.  Each edge of the frame supports up to 5 of these mechanisms.  The exit point is easy to identify since it is a combination of a cut and a notch that allows both ends of the shuttle to pass.

With the frame cut in 4 places, you may think that it might be flimsy.  However, Cubicdissection has taken great pains to make solid joints to avoid that from happening.  It would be possible to make a fifth cut, but that may be pushing it.

With 12 edges on the frame and 16 ways that the shuttle can reside on each edge, there are 96 possible states that Cubane can be in (+1 for when the shuttle is removed).  Of course, not all states can be reached, making the number of obtainable states smaller.  I didn’t make a state map, but none is really needed and it doesn’t take long to solve.

Is it really the bane of all cubes?  Nah!  But it's really clever and fun to fiddle with.  The first few minutes of the puzzle are the best.  This is where you explore the different ways the shuttle can move and pass between the edges.  I won’t include any spoilers here on the different ways that may occur, but it is very clever.

I’m looking forward to seeing what new features Cubane II will offer.  The fifth edge cut?  Octagonal edges?  45-degree rotations?  Cross-bars?  Oh my!

Earth Day Celebrates 50 Years - Globe Ball

Thousands of casualties in the animal world resulted from the 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara.  Earth day was established the following year on April 22nd to raise awareness for environmental reform.  Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth day, which is now celebrated around the world.

In honor of the 50th anniversary, I searched for a puzzle that would have a global appeal.  The obvious choice was Hanayama’s Globe Ball puzzle.  Unlike most Hanayama puzzles, this one is plastic and twice the normal size.  However, similar to several of the Hanayama puzzles, this one was designed by Vesa Timonen. 

Vesa’s original design was called Tangerine and entered in the 2008 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, where it won a First Prize award.  Like a tangerine, the internal pieces consisted of wedges that make a complete sphere and there are 4 of them.  The peel of the tangerine wraps around the wedges and is divided into 2 pieces, reminiscent of the outer skin of a baseball.  The skin covers all the segments except for a small hole where you can use the tips of your fingers to rotate the segments within the tangerine.  Once the segments are in the proper position, the tangerine can be opened to free the segments.  However, this is not as easy as it sounds since you can’t see through the peel to see if the pieces are in the correct position.  All you can see are the edges of the segments as they rotate past the access hole.  This requires you to look at the edges and then rotate them while mentally trying to track where they are after they leave the opening.  Of course, all this assumes that you have determined how the segments need to be oriented to open the tangerine.

The original version of Tangerine was 3D printed using orange for the peel pieces and white for the segments.  For the Hanayama version, an additional layer was added to the puzzle and renamed Globe Ball using the Earth as the new theme.  The molten core has 4 red segments surrounded by 2 blue oceanic pieces.  The 2 new outer shell pieces are a transparent light blue with opaque white regions depicting the continents.  Now instead of having a single outer shell, there are 2, and the inner shell needs to be manipulated into position with respect to the outer shell.  This has to be accomplished while still manipulating the internal core segments through the hole that is now in both shells.  Another nice feature is the addition of a 3rd outer shell piece that screws into the hole making the globe a complete sphere.

The packaging for Globe Ball deserves some recognition.  The box is a simple transparent box showcasing the puzzle and all the inserts.  Everything is very neatly packaged and the Ball is cradled between 2 clear plastic inserts.  The plastic insert on the bottom covers the official base to display the puzzle.  Another nice feature is that the box not only provides the puzzle designer’s name but has his photo as well.

After solving Globe Ball or the original Tangerine, you can see where the inspiration for Vesa’s newer puzzle, Cast UFO (Uns@lv*bl# F!&#ing O$j@ct - Cast UFO), came from.  You can almost hear him say, I want to do something similar but totally different.  And he did.

Globe Ball is difficult to come by and I’m glad I was able to acquire a copy.  It is not a very difficult puzzle but it is very clever and displays well.

Inspiration from Grandchildren - Little Kenny and Wooden Puzzles

How would you like to take a journey through 20 different must-have classic puzzle designs by world-renowned puzzle designers?  Along the way, the secrets of how to make them yourself will be revealed.

Several years ago, my good friend and master craftsman, Brian Menold, informed me that he was writing the definitive book on how to make wooden puzzles and asked if I would like to contribute a design.  Even before I knew of the world-class puzzle designers that would be included, I readily agreed.  I later found out that the book included designs from Stewart Coffin, Jos Bergmans, Yavuz Demirhan, Stéphane Chomine, Primitivo Familiar Ramos, Tom Jolly, and of course Brian Menold.  The cognoscenti of puzzledom.  Fortunately, I didn’t have the pressure of knowing the other contributors beforehand.

Brian’s guidance to me was that the book, called Wooden Puzzles, was targeting entry level woodworkers and he was looking for a simple design.  I translated simple to mean a puzzle based on a cubic dissection with rectilinear moves and a fairly small form factor, i.e., no larger than a 4x4x4 cube.

At about the same time that Brian asked for my contribution, along came my first grandson, Kenny.  He is a continual source of puzzlement and wonder.  When my grandson was 4, I informed him on some random sunny afternoon that he would be starting school the following year.  He looked at me, and in no uncertain terms said, “My mom said I don’t have to go to school”.   Trying my best to realign his thinking, I told him that everyone had to go to school.  Unfazed, he peered over at me again and replied, “I don’t need to go to school.  My job is inspiration!”  Well, how do you argue with that?  Needless to say, this post is about the puzzle that was inspired by Little Kenny.

The initial version of Little Kenny that was included in Wooden Puzzles is comprised of 4 pieces in a 4x4x3 format.  Only rectilinear moves are required and the level of difficulty is 5.1.1.  I was very happy with this design and thought that it was an excellent fit for the book.  Since the book has been released, I’ve received feedback from a couple of woodworkers with Wooden Puzzles and they loved Little Kenny.

Brian did an amazing job writing Wooden Puzzles.  Not only is it informative, but it is crammed full of pictures of puzzles, tools, jigs, and various types of wood.  The book is comprised of 4 main sections.  The first section provides an overview of tools for puzzle making, selecting wood for puzzles, and jigs for making puzzles.  The second section is the majority of the book and describes in detail how to make the 20 puzzles covered.  By the time you get through all 20, you should have a good understanding of the woodworking basics required to make these types of puzzles.  The following section provides some recommendations for taking your puzzle making to the next level.  Alas, the last section shows the solution for solving each of the puzzles covered in the book, but I know that you won’t be tempted to look.

Although Brian indicated that his book was for beginning woodworkers, I believe that it is suitable for woodworkers at all levels.  There are great little nuggets of information for everyone.  I pulled out my copy of Wooden Puzzles as I was writing this post and as I was flipping through it, I realized that it was time to read it again in preparation for making this year’s puzzle prototypes.  The book may also be of interest to puzzle collectors interested in the process of creating the puzzles that they collect.  Just don’t read the solutions to the puzzles provided in the back of the book.

Shortly after providing the initial Little Kenny design to Brian, I decided to make a more difficult version for the upcoming IPP35.  I was able to split one of the blocks to require rotational moves in the solution, thus becoming the first puzzle in the half-cube series.  I brought my updated Little Kenny prototype to IPP35 and it was well received.  Just like my grandson, it’s small size with only 4 pieces makes it look fairly innocuous but it does have a little bite to it.  And no, the solution provided in Wooden Puzzles won’t help you with the updated version.

After IPP35, Little Kenny was produced by the world-class craftsman, Tom Lensch.  The pictures in this post are of Tom’s version made with Jatoba.  With the successful release at IPP35, I decided to enter it in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition the following year at IPP36 where it received the award for …. nothing!  Oh well.  It was up against some pretty stiff competition like Chain Store (Yanked My Chain - Chain Store) and Bitten Biscuits (Food For Thought - Bitten Biscuits).

You should get a copy of Wooden Puzzles.  It is available on Amazon here.  Then you can make your own copy of the original Little Kenny design.  If you want a copy of the updated half-cube version of Little Kenny, they will be available soon from Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.

A New Spin on Puzzling - Tetra Spinner

“That’s a novel take on packing tetrominoes”.  That was my initial thought when I saw Tetra Spinner while perusing the IPP39 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition entries.  I was intrigued and looking forward to trying it.

Tetra Spinner was designed by Yasuhiro Hashimoto and Mineyuki Uyematsu and was one of the top ten vote getters in the competition.  I got my chance to try it at the Rochester Puzzle Picnic (A Decade of Puzzling - RPP 2019).

It’s made from plexiglass and consists of a frame and all 5 tetrominoes (i.e., the free ones and not the extra 2 one-sided ones).  Tetrominoe is just a fancy name for a connected shape made from 4 squares in a plane.  Each of the tetrominoes in Tetra Spinner is a different color making it an eye catcher.  However, it’s the frame that gives this puzzle it’s unique appeal.  The frame is comprised of 3 layers of plexiglass.  The outer 2 layers are clear and bolted together through the center.  There is a spacer in the middle around the bolt to keep the two outer layers apart.  The middle layer has the same dimensions as the outer layer but most of the interior has been removed to make room for the tetrominoes.  The center layer can be moved and rotated around the middle but is restricted by the spacer holding the outer pieces.

The objective is to place the five tetrominoe pieces in the middle layer so that the middle layer is centered within the puzzle.  This requires that you move the white plexiglass frame as far as it will go so that you can add pieces to the empty areas that now hang outside the outer layers.  However, the more pieces that you add, the more difficult it is to move the frame of the middle layer.  This requires determining where the pieces need to go within the frame and the order that they need to be added.  Oh, and while you’re doing that, you need to determine how the pieces and frame need to be moved around to accomplish all that.

I didn’t find this puzzle difficult but it was fun to solve.  I didn’t include the photo of the puzzle in the solved state, since it would give away part of the solving process.  It would certainly give away the first piece that would be removed although this should become obvious rather quickly in the solving process.  Yes, that was a hint, but I’m sure you were already thinking about it.  It’s only cheating if you go back 2 sentences and reread it to understand it.

S,Z,J,and L Tetrominoes

Before concluding, I feel compelled to explain the reference to free tetrominoes to save readers the embarrassment of getting caught leaving the puzzle store without paying for tetrominoe related puzzles.  There are 5 tetrominoes if you regard the pieces irrespective of orientation.  These are referred to as free tetrominoes.  There are 7 tetrominoe shapes if you are not allowed to turn them over.  These are referred to as one-sided tetrominoes.  The difference between the free tetrominoes and the one-sided tetrominoes is due to the 2 pieces that can be flipped over to provide a different shape; the S piece becomes the Z piece and the J piece becomes the L piece.

Yanked My Chain - Chain Store

Sometimes a puzzle just yanks your chain, which is exactly what happened with Chain Store.

One of the joys of attending the International Puzzle Party is spending time playing with the entries in the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  This is a puzzling wonderland full of all sorts of new designs for a wide variety of puzzle types.  There is something for everyone and I try to spend as much time as possible in the design competition room socializing with other puzzlers doing the same.

One entry in the IPP36 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition was Chain store, designed by Goh Pit Khiam.  It was made by master craftsman Tom Lensch and won the Jury Honorable Mention award.

I looked at it and said to myself, how difficult could it be to put a 5-link chain in a box?  Apparently, 5 links are plenty sufficient to provide all sorts of awkward positioning to frustrate the packing process.  The links are 4x6 allowing the width of the link to just fit inside another link.  And then what about the box?  Do the links go in orthogonally or do they end up at an angle?  I spent a lot of time hypothesizing how the links would sit within the box and then trying to orient the links in the direction that I needed.  It turns out that turning links made from square material takes more forethought and planning than links made from cylindrical stock.  In the end, it took more of an effort than I could muster in the design competition room.

Now I have a question for you.  Would you rather buy a puzzle that you have already solved or that puzzle that you didn’t quit manage to solve?  Personally, I tend to buy puzzles that I haven’t solved.  Once I’ve solve a puzzle, I’ve basically scratched that itch.  Of course, some puzzles are so brilliant you need to acquire a copy even after solving them to occasionally wonder at and show others.  Case in point is Stumbling Blocks also by Goh Pit Khiam, and a top 10 vote getter in the IPP36 design competition.  I solved Stumbling Blocks very quickly but the movement is so spectacular, I needed to acquire a copy.

When I saw Tom Lensch at the following Rochester Puzzle Picnic, I made sure to acquire a copy of Chain Store as well as Stumbling Blocks.  After returning home, I played with Chain Store attempting to get all 5 of those links inside the box without peaking over the lip at the top.  I had heard that an earlier version of the box was slightly bigger and that it allowed an alternate solution.  While I was working on Chain Store, there were several times that I wished that I had the original box.

At some point, the chain was sufficiently yanked to turn the light bulb on and I managed to stuff those stubborn links into that wee little box.  Once I discovered the required orientation for the links, I found that there is an elegant way to crumple up the chain to pack in the box.

I really liked this puzzle and if you are interested in acquiring a copy, Cubicdissection is planning on releasing a run in the near future.

Molnar Scores Again! - Hat Trick

A hat trick in sports is a reference to 3 of something.  When I was a kid, my folks used to watch hockey, so I was brought up to recognize a hat trick as 3 goals scored by a player in a game.  Other sports have similar definitions of a hat trick.  I’m sticking with hockey since Hat Trick, the puzzle, obviously has 6 hockey sticks (one for each player on a hockey team) with a goal - of packing them all in the restricted opening box.

Hat trick was designed by Laszlo Molnar and entered in the IPP39 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition where it was one of the top 10 vote getters.  When the competition entries were originally announced, I was intrigued by this puzzle and attempted to solve this puzzle as a mental exercise without having a physical copy.  I finally encountered a copy at the Rochester Puzzle Picnic (A Decade of Puzzling - RPP 2019).  Brian Menold from Wood Wonders brought several copies to RPP in a variety of different woods.  They were so beautiful, I ended up taking one with an Orange Agate box and Redheart pieces home with me.  I particularly like the look of the Redheart corners on the Orange Agate box.

So, what is Hat Trick all about?  It consists 6 hockey sticks or if you prefer, you can just think of them as L shaped pieces that are 3x2x1.  These hockey sticks can be stored in the accompanying box that has an interior space of 2x3x4.  The only problem is that someone made the opening in the storage box too small to simply dump the hockey sticks in.  It only has a small T-shaped opening in the top.  This type of faulty craftsmanship turns an easy job into a complex process, or what we fondly call: a puzzle.

Once I had a physical copy, I was able to verify the solution that I had envisioned when viewing the puzzle competition design entry listing.  The solving process for this puzzle is fairly straight-forward.  Since this is a fully packed restricted opening box with 6 identical pieces, it is obvious where the last piece in (or first piece out) is located.  With that information, there aren’t too many 2x3x4 assemblies left to check.  It becomes obvious early on that rotations are required to insert and manipulate the pieces.  Understanding the possible rotations that can be made is the key to achieving the required assembly.

Compared to other recent packing puzzle designs, I found this one to be on the easier side.  It would make a nice challenge for a new puzzler.  The key movement required to orient the pieces is clever and provides a very nice Aha moment.

Hat Trick is currently sold out on Wood Wonders but it’s possible that it may show up again.

Chico Strikes Again – TD345

Chico Banan has taken the puzzle community by storm.  His radical political posturing and TD proclivities have made him the most talked about and celebrated individual within the community.  Although he has recently become embroiled in medical supply shortage issues, his true focus has always been on serving the puzzle community.

Chico’s entry in the recent Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition was TD345.  This puzzle was the buzz at the competition and it was inevitable that it would be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

This awesome puzzle was the overwhelming favorite in the competition and garnered the most votes of any puzzle in the competition by far.  In fact, it received so many votes that the vote counter rolled over and mistakenly put TD345 in last place.  Unfortunately, this oversight was not discovered until after the awards ceremony but Chico is looking forward to his trophy.

TD345 with SPH

As with most of Chico’s puzzles, the idea was born out of his tongue depressor advocacy (can you say fetish?).  To commemorate this special event, Chico used exotic tongue depressors made from Purpleheart.   These TDs were linked in two chains of different lengths with the short one making a 3x3, 2-layer square and the other a 4x4, 2-layer square.  After these 2 challenges have been met, both chains can be used together to make a 5x5, 2-layer square.  These escalating challenges provide a challenge for people at any level with a rare few being able to walk around with their chest puffed out proclaiming, “I’m a 5x5’er”.  Needless to say, they’re all squares.

The TD345 prototype used rivets to connect the TDs, but at the last minute, Chico decided to use fasteners to give the puzzle competition participants the opportunity to satisfy their urge to rip them apart.  His thoughtfulness towards frustrated puzzlers knows no bounds.

Chico vehemently denies that his flat articulated chains were influenced by the movie Snakes on a Plane although rumor has it that you could hear the puzzle design competition participants occasionally quoting the movie: “I have had it with these mothaf…ing snakes on this mothaf…ing plane!”

With this puzzle design entry, Chico has finally and definitively proved that the TD complete problem, “Does 3² + 4² equal 5²,” is indeed true as most people had come to believe (even Pythagoras!). 

When asked what his next project would be, Chico humbly said that his vision is to inspire others to fix the Soma cube.

As a final warning, please do not put the TD345 puzzle in your mouth!  You think that this would have been obvious, but there were several sightings of purple tongues at IPP this year.

Many thanks to the Chico Banan fan club that unknowingly submitted the photos used for this post.

Where Do Great Puzzle Designs Come From?

Trifecta made by Tom Lensch
One of my prior design competition entries.

What can inspire metagrobologists around the world to produce new, innovative, and extremely clever delights for the puzzle community?  What about the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition held every year at the International Puzzle Party!

This competition has been held each year since 2001 in honor of Nob Yoshigahara, one of the founding members of IPP, and serves as an incubator that spawns many new puzzle designs each year.  New designs are selected by craftsmen, manufacturers, and shop owners.  This is only natural since the many participants are creating wish lists of puzzles that they would like to acquire copies of.  If you browse through the historical listings of past design competition entries, you will run across many now familiar puzzles that got their start as entries in the yearly competition.  Some of my own designs have been picked up in past competitions to be produced.

The puzzle competition room is organized with many tables, each supporting about a half-dozen puzzles.  Each puzzle is also accompanied by a description sheet identifying the name of the puzzle, some details of the puzzle including a photo, and the solving objective.  The backside of the sheet provides the solution to the puzzle if needed.

There are always more entries than there is time to solve them all.  Unfortunately, this means that you have to prioritize the puzzles that you dedicate time too.  It also helps to keep an ear out for what other people like.  For instance, last year, Jigsaw Puzzle 29 was pretty low on my list because I didn’t think that I needed to spend any time on a jigsaw puzzle.  After hearing many people rave about the puzzle, I finally sat down, solved it, and discovered what a brilliant puzzle it was.  I could have easily missed out on that one.

Awards are given for the best designs and the Design Competition Trophy is?  You guessed it - A Puzzle!  This year’s trophy was designed by Yavuz Demirhan and made by Tom Lensch, so you know it’s extraordinary.  Pin’s are also awarded for the Puzzlers’ Award, Grand Prize, First Place Prizes, and Honorable Mentions.  All prizes are awarded by a judging committee except for the Puzzlers’s Award, which is voted on by attending IPP members.  Certificates are also given to the top 10 designers that received the most votes.

This year, there are 61 entries in the puzzle design competition.  You can find the official entry list on the 2019 Puzzle Design Competition web page.  Since the design competition rules allow puzzles that have been released in the last 2 years, some of these entries are already available.  After reviewing the competition entries, I tallied 15 of them that I recognized before seeing the competition entries.  They are as follows:

1.    Brass Monkey Two – You can read about this puzzle at Puzzling Times and PuzzleMad.  It is available at Puzzle Master or the TwoBrassMonkeys Etsy shop.

2.    FantasTIC – This puzzle is a level 7.7.12.4 requiring 30 moves to totally disassemble with 6+ Rotations in a 4x4x4 format.  I really love these Turning Interlocking Cubes and I’m looking forward to eventually playing with this one.  The ‘TIC man has been cranking out very high-quality designs at a rapid rate and they are all highly recommended.  My guess is that this puzzle will eventually show up on Wood Wonders.

3.    Hokey Cokey Lock – This puzzle lock, accompanied by a rather intricate and shameless presentation ritual, was a highlight of last year’s IPP puzzle exchange.  You can read about it at Puzzling Times, PuzzleMad, and Boxes and Booze.  You can acquire one from Mr. Puzzle, although it’s just not the same without the presentation.

4.    Jack in the Box – Videos of the creation of this puzzle box include Jack in the Box Part 1, Part 2, and Box Pieces.

5.    Logical Progression – This puzzle was included in the last release from Cubic Dissection.  If you missed out, Eric Fuller is planning on releasing another batch in September.

6.    Mazeburr L – You can read all about this puzzle at PuzzleMad.

7.    Multiball – This puzzle was included in a recent release from Cubic Dissection.   I wouldn’t be surprised if Eric released another batch of this puzzle in the future.

8.    PedanTIC - This puzzle is a level 1.1.2.26.6 requiring 36 moves to totally disassemble with 10 rotations in a 4x4x4 format.  Wow!  I haven’t had the opportunity to play with this puzzle yet, but it looks like it’s all about removing that 4th piece.  26 moves is a lot of moves for releasing a piece from a 4x4x4 puzzle.  I expect that this one will become available at Wood Wonders in the near future.

9.    Puzzleduck Pastures - You can get some additional information about this sequential discovery puzzle from the Lumberjocks site.

10.    Slammed Car – This puzzle was recently released and still available at Pluredro.  You can find a good description of it on Puzzling Times.

11.    Slider – This is the most recently released puzzle from Hanayama.  You can acquire a copy from Puzzle Master.

12.    Somaa Cube – Wood Wonders has been releasing several Soma variants recently including the Somaa Cube.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see more copies of the Somaa Cube in future releases, especially with it being in the design competition.

13.    Venn Puzzle – This puzzle is the product of a recent kickstarter campaign and is currently available at Puzzle Master.

14.    Wave 5 – This designer has recently released a wave of new puzzles that have become very popular, including Wave 5.  You can try getting a copy at Puzzle Master, but as of the date of this posting, it was still sold out.  If you like this one, there is also a Wave 7, also currently sold out.

15.    Yosegi Pattern Box – You can read about this puzzle on Boxes and Booze.  You can also view a video on the box construction on YouTube.



If you are interested in acquiring a copy of Jigsaw Puzzle 29 from last years competition, it is available at Puzzle Master.