Holey 2D Symmetry, Batman – Rising Sun & LUV Potion

In a departure from the usual 2D Symmetry puzzles, I present Rising Sun and LUV Potion.  Not only do the pieces have to be arranged to make a symmetric shape but the holes in the pieces must support the symmetry as well.  Both puzzles were designed by Frederic Boucher and made by Nothing Yet Designs in acrylic.  And neither puzzle indicates the type of symmetry required to solve it. 

Rising Sun

Rising Sun consists of 2 pentominos and 1 tetromino, each with a circular hole through it.  I’m assuming that the holes are not simply decoration but there to single out a unique solution from multiple other potential solutions that may exist if the holes were not present.  However, I don’t recall finding any other symmetrical shapes disregarding the holes.  Although I didn’t find it too difficult, it was more challenging of the two.

LUV Potion

Similar to Rising Sun, LUV Potion consists of 2 pentomino pieces and 1 tetromino piece but the holes are shaped like hearts giving them directionality.  As with most 2D symmetry puzzles, the pieces don’t want to cooperate and seem downright unfriendly.  However, this is understandable since each lacks a heart.

Instead of making things more difficult, the directionality of the hearts provides additional information revealing the type of symmetry needed to solve this puzzle.  This turns out to be quite useful, making this puzzle one of the easier 2D symmetry challenges.  It’s not that difficult to find the solution among the many symmetrical shapes you can make disregarding the hearts.

I’m sure that it’s challenging to determine the optimal locations for each heart when designing the puzzle.  It would be interesting to see the 8 previous prototypes.

If you would like to get your own copies of Rising Sun or LUV Potion, Nothing Yet Designs has these puzzles available as well as other puzzles from Frederic Boucher and 2D symmetry puzzles from other designers.

No Problem Puzzles, Update #10

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  Another contributor, Crab on Printables, has also tweaked some of the models to improve them.

This post continues the review of the No Problem Puzzles as the models are being released.  Since the last review (No Problem Puzzles, Update #9), more No Problem Puzzles have become available.  All level of difficulty ratings are from the puzzle descriptions and are on a scale of 1 to 5.

Drawbridge

Drawbridge is a 3D packing puzzle with 3 tetracube pieces that need to be packed within an articulated frame.  2 of the 3 tetracubes are identical.  The objective is to make a 2x2x3 cuboid with the 3 pieces pieces inside the frame, which is large enough to hold a 2x2x4 cuboid.  The frame consists of 2 joined parts consisting of a base and a top that can rock back and forth.  The frame has a lot of nice added detail to add character such as brick siding, decorative X-braces, and triangular patterned holes.

At a difficulty rating of 3, it makes for a nice challenge.  I tried various methods to insert the pieces past the tilting top until I landed on the correct one.  In hind-sight, the solution is more straight-forward than most of the ones I attempted.  Part of that was applying things I had seen in other puzzles but didn’t end up applying here.

Nest Box

Nest box consists of 5 polycubes that need to be packed within a box shaped like a bird house.  The house is complete with a perch, round doorway, cathedral ceiling, and a chimney. 

The only objective given is to pack the pieces within the box.  Even though this is a level 3 puzzle, I popped them in within minutes.  My rather inelegant solution lead me to believe that I was missing a constraint or two.  Considering that my solution had a piece stuck in the chimney, I decided to try finding a solution that had the chimney unoccupied.  And after some additional effort, I had them packed with the chimney unoccupied.  Was that the solution?  Maybe not since I used a rotation and I was beginning to suspect that if the word rotation is not used in the description then it’s not to be used.  Taking once last shot, I finally came up with a solution that packed the box with the chimney empty and without using rotations.  Whew!  BTW – the rotational solution was rather clever but difficult to undo.

Tumbler II

Tumbler II consists of 3 pieces that need to be packed in a 3x3x3 box with a bar across the middle of the open top that can rotate to each side.  And there are poke holes on all the other sides of the box including the bottom.  It has a difficulty level of 3.5.

I really should read the directions before solving these puzzles.  It requires no rotations and the 2 open rows on the top should be filled.  So much for tumbling the pieces in the tumbler.  The requirements removed some of the cool tumbling moves that I found.  In my defense, I have an expanding collection of these puzzles unsolved on my shelf and casually take them down to solve without going online and looking at the directions.  Perhaps I should consider writing the constraints down since the puzzle is really incomplete without them.

The solution to this one was nice and sneaky.  It took awhile before I groked the sneaky bit but after that it was quick going.

Slideshow

Slideshow is a level 3, 3D restricted packing puzzle with 4 pieces that need to be packed in a box with a sliding top.  However, the sliding top is at an angle and is not removable.  Unlike other puzzles, I knew exactly what to do here and proceeded to assemble the pieces where they needed to be.  Oddly enough, they couldn’t quite get there so I proceeded to tweak the assembly.  And I continued proceeding to proceed until I finally lighted upon a move that allowed me to further proceed.  At this point, I knew the movements needed to solve the puzzle but that’s only half the problem.  The other half is being able to accomplish those movements in a restricted space without access.  I’d like to point out that there are no poke holes in this puzzles since slideshows require darkness.  I finally manged to solve this one with my patented hopeful shaking technique.  But not to worry.  Unpacking is much easier than packing.



If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can obtain copies of No Problem Puzzles from Nothing Yet Designs based in the US or the PuzzleguyStore based in the EU.

Windows 2

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

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

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

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

RMF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HolopTIC

HolopTIC is a 5x5x5 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) puzzle designed by Andrew Crowell.  As with HoleyTIC and HolisTIC (Getting Everything Back Together – HolisTIC, HolopTIC has a hole in the middle of each side of the puzzle that runs through the cube.

This one was a lot of fun with some higher order rotational moves.  However, you need to make sure that you don’t cheat on the rotations.  It is possible to make some questionable rotational moves that bypass a sequence of other moves if you’re not careful.

As usual, the more pieces you put together, the more effort is required to add the next piece.  Until you end up scratching your head with one last piece to go.  One piece in particular required a lot of attention.  It didn’t play too nicely with the others and seemed like it would be better to add sooner than later.  Figuring out when and how to add it was the major challenge.

Fairly early on, I singled out a piece that could possibly be added last with a quick rotation but decided that the rotation would be blocked.  However, preliminary tests indicated that the rotation would work just fine.  When I had all the other pieces in place and just needed to add that last piece I verified that the tests were indeed preliminary and not conclusive.  Of course, the piece didn’t just rotate in and was indeed blocked.  Yay!  More puzzling to be had.  Not much longer after that, I had it solved.

I always enjoy solving these TICs and look forward to more to come in the future.  I’m almost at the end of my 5x5x5 TIC backlog.

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.
 

No Problem Puzzles, Update #9

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  Another contributor, Crab on Printables, has also tweaked some of the models to improve them.

This post continues the review of the No Problem Puzzles as the models are being released.  Since the last review (No Problem Puzzles, Update #8), more No Problem Puzzles have become available.

Slats

To get back to solving the No Problem Puzzles that have been coming out, I grabbed Slats simply because it looked like the easiest solve in the expanding collection of puzzles yet to be solved.  It consists of a frame and 4 slats that have to be added and centered withing the frame.  It also comes with a heart that needs to be transplanted inside.  It has a level of difficulty rating of 4 out of 5 but I found it much simpler than that, especially considering how much trouble some of those other level 4 puzzles are giving me.

Staying true to my take a whack at it approach, I jumped right in by trying to add pieces to the frame.  Even with a cavalier attitude, it is evident that there are only a couple of ways to add the pieces to the frame.  With some fancy maneuvering, I had all 4 slats in the frame.  All that was required was to add the heart.  Whereupon it became evident that the slats were not configured correctly to accept the heart and had to be reorganized.  Once I had them in the correct position, it was a simple procedure to add the heart.  Truthfully, the steps required to add the slats in the correct configurations required by the heart were simpler than the first configuration that I found.  It may be worth your while to determine what your heart is telling you before getting engaged with Slats.

Bunk Bed

Bunk Bed consists of a frame with a rotating top and 6 pieces.  The bunk bed consists of an upper bunk and a lower bunk.  The upper bunk can be rotated downward for storage, which is the required position for the solution, creating a 2x3x4 enclosed space to contain the pieces.  The pieces consist of 3 pairs of identical pieces, two of which are planer.  The non-planer ones are there to get in the way.  The objective is to get all the pieces within the frame.  Of course that is easier said than done requiring shifting pieces as well as rotating the top to get them all packed within the bunk bed.  A quick calculation indicates that there will be no voids when the beds are packed providing the first significant clue to the solution.  This one was not very difficult but that is to be expected with a difficult rating of 2.5.

Toolbox

Toolbox consists of 4 tools that have to be placed in a toolbox tray to make an apparent 2x3x4 cuboid.  And the tray is even equipped with a swiveling handle.  There aren’t many ways to fit the pieces within a 2x3x4 space, resulting a very restricted search space.  You just need to break through that Aha moment to find the solution.  It has a difficult rating of 2 and it reminded me of Akaki’s easier Picnic Basket puzzles (A Tisket A Tasket, Puzzles In – Akaki’s Picnic Baskets).

Toggle Box

Toggle Box is a 3D restricted entry packing puzzle with 4 identical pieces that make an apparent 2x3x3 cuboid.  The restricted entry has a rotating door that toggles the opening between 2 configurations.  I found Toogle Box to be a quick solve, which is reflected in its difficulty rating of 2.  A great choice for introducing someone to 3D restricted opening packing puzzles.

 

If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can obtain copies of No Problem Puzzles from Nothing Yet Designs based in the US or the PuzzleguyStore based in the EU.

Three Keys

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

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

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

HoleyTIC

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

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

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

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

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

Hangers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Dark and Foreboding – ApocalypTIC

It’s dark.  It’s foreboding.  In fact, it’s downright ApocalypTIC.

Back in the dark ages when the scourge of DIY 3D printing was just getting started, Richard Gain embarked on creating Printable Interlocking Puzzles (PIP).  These were interlocking puzzles where the pieces could be printed without supports or assembly of sub-components.  At some point, his level 11 PIP #4 was used as the seed of destruction for Andrew Crowell’s phenomenal Turboencabulator that stripped the PIP restrictions and brought a new level 17 challenge to life.

ApocalypTIC is a 5x5x5 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) consisting of 6 pieces.  Since it was TIC’led (not pink obviously) by Andrew, we know that it is going to be challenging.  

The first challenge is to find the assembly.  This is not as easy as most TICs since it lacks a large frame piece to use as a starting point.  In fact, each piece occupies no more than 3 layers with most of them only occupying 2.

Although some piece relationships seem obvious, there also seems to be many ways to create sub-assemblies.  And manipulating those sub-assemblies is a bit fiddly until you manage to get enough pieces to hold each other accountable.

At some point in the process, an assembly materialized from attempts at interweaving the pieces.  Swapping pieces in and out converged on a nicely morphing assembly of 4 pieces.  All that was needed was to determine how to get the, hopefully last 2 pieces, inserted.

I spent a lot of time on those last 2 pieces.  It got to the point where I could add either of them but not both at the same time.  After a lot of back and forth, I finally managed to confirm that these were indeed the final 2 pieces to go in and everything came together into a cube.

For a TIC, there are not a lot of rotations but the movements are well done and make a nice challenge.

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.

3-Pronged Puzzling Approach – TritanIC Series (1-6)

A short while ago, just over 5 years, I reviewed a set of 3-piece 4x4x4 Turning Interlocking Cubes (TICs) designed by Andrew Crowell (Puzzle Candy - ThreeTIC, TriadTIC, TripleTIC, NeuroTIC, TriumviraTIC).  These TICs provided quick enjoyable solves to brighten the day.  Recently, a kind soul on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (MPD) passed on another set of Andrew’s 3-piece TICs that I was more than happy to accept, but this time a 5x5x5 format.

The 6 TritanIC puzzles were designed by Andrew Crowell and like the prior 3-piece TICs, they provide a quick shot of TIC adrenaline to help get through the day.  I managed to hold myself back and do 1 a day over 6 days instead of binging them all in one sitting.
  

TritanIC

TritanIC, which I assume is the first of the series since it lacks a posterior numerical designator, is a nice start to ease you into the series.  One piece has more volume than the other 2 proclaiming itself as the base for adding the other 2 pieces.  The solution requires 1 straight forward rotation.  At least one other nice rotation is possible but not required and it made me wonder if it would be possible to alter the design to require it. 

TritanIC 2

I found TritanIC 2 to be twice as hard and then some as TritanIC.  I took this as a good sign that we were on a good trajectory.  TritanIC 2 has everything you would want in a 3-piece TIC where pieces have to added in orientations far from where they need to end up.  Determining how to simply put the 2 largest pieces together is not a gimme and takes some thought.  And trying to add the smallest piece to the mix is a challenge.

TritanIC 3

TritanIC 3 is a nice follow-up to TritanIC 2.  There are some nice rotations that have to be navigated to get the pieces in place before they collapse into a cube.  And you are almost guaranteed to have to back up and rethink the ordering of the pieces.

TritanIC 4

This is where the trajectory falls apart.  I found this one to be extremely easier.  Less than 2 minutes easy.  If you acquire the series, you may want to start with this one.  The most difficult part is getting the first 2 pieces together, which isn’t that difficult.  The third piece just flops in place before it it closed.  This one didn’t stand up compared to the others in the series.

TritanIC 5

TritanIC 5 gets things back on track.  In fact, it reminded me a lot of TritanIC 3 in terms of approach, rotations, and how the pieces go together.  It’s certainly it’s own puzzle, but has the same overall feel as TritanIC 3.

TritanIC 6

I found TritanIC 6 to be a tricky bugger.  Multiple rotations are required to get the pieces into position before they can start moving into place.  In fact, a few days later, it was non-trivial to determine how the pieces came apart.  A nice way to end the series!

Stuffing Puzzles – Xmas Stocking

I’ve seen references to the Xmas Stocking puzzle recently that caused my mind to wander a bit.  Since all the pieces were identical and packed in a fairly small box, I was wondering if I could solve it without having the puzzle.  After several minutes of determining how the pieces would need to be oriented due to the opening and rotation restrictions, I was able to visualize some assemblies but not how the pieces could be placed in the box.  I eventually resorted to using a piece of paper to map out the possible assemblies with no further luck.  It’s possible that this is one of those puzzles that requires some assistance like larger tolerances or beveling.  I was about to move on when I remembered that I had received some LEGOized hand-me-down puzzles from a generous soul on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (MPD) server and sure enough, there it was.

Xmas Stocking is a 3D restricted-opening packing puzzle designed by Osanori Yamamoto.  It consists of 5 identical Z tetracubes that have to be placed in a 2x3x4 box with 2.5 voxels on the top closed off.  The triangular half-square is there to restrict pieces from moving through that square while forcing the voxel underneath to be occupied – assuming that the opening needs to appear completely filled.  I was unable to find verification of that requirement, but these types of puzzles seem to require that and it turned out to be the case for this puzzle.

Most of the 3D LEGO packing puzzles that I recently received came solved.  However, since they are made from LEGO bricks, you can simply rip off the bottom and dump the pieces without seeing how they are arranged or how they come out.   The LEGO bricks used to make the box also included portholes to view the interior of the box, but they are not needed to solve the puzzle.  

Being made from LEGO bricks, you know that there are no rotations that can occur with loose tolerances or bevels unless very specific pieces are used or they are doctored in some way.  Armed with that assumption, I tested the pieces and could get no further than my pencil and paper analysis.  Yes, of course I realized that I was operating with a bad assumption somewhere but was having a difficult time identifying what it was.  And then I dropped a single piece in the box and it bounced it’s way into an orientation that I had thought was impossible.  Apparently, the Z tetracube has a nice property that gives it a possible rotation that I had not thought of.  Now that the secret was out, it only took a couple of minutes to get all 5 Z tetracubes nestled within the box.

I don’t know if it was intentional, but the LEGO version did have the interesting property of still being apparently filled even with all those holes.

Mail Call

April’s First Puzzle – Smelling of (M̶)Bums

Spring has sprung and the backyard is once again filled with the sounds of crows screaming Ka-Ka all day long.  All this cacaphony tilted my brain, dumping future puzzle ideas into the cesspool of my mind where thoughts of the recent rash of geometric dissection puzzles started to float to the top. 

Last year, one of the 2 brass monkeys dropped a puzzle on the community (New Puzzle Comes Out – Smelling Of Roses)  that is now developing into a series.  My goal was to develop the second of those droppings.  And a solid #2 at that. 

We all spend too much time running around to no avail.  So I wanted to design a puzzle where you could avoid the runs, take a sit, and solve a puzzle.  A puzzle for everyone.  Even the naysayers who proclaim: Puzzles?  We don’t need no stinkin puzzles! 

I decided that I had to bring this puzzle to life.  It’s my duty!

Design

Sometimes I have puzzle ideas up the wazoo, sometimes I have to work at it, and sometimes both.  I put myself under a lot of pressure to come up with this design but initially nothing was emerging.  Then, when I was sitting on my porcelain thinking chair straining to bring to light a brilliant puzzle idea, it just materialized out of nowhere.  What a relief!

To start the design process, I took one of my cubic dissection puzzle designs and decided to muck around with it.  I decided it needed to have a crapazoid shape resulting from a crapazoidal projection of a diminishing cylinder in a polar coordinate system.  It turns out that crapazoidal math is exceedingly complex and it’s very difficult to determine the feci of the curves.  But I persevered and created the optimum crapazoidal dissection.  It’s always nice to have another design in the can!  According to the Hordern-Dalgety puzzle taxonomy, it’s classified as an ASS puzzle.  

I did a data dump on it and it turns out to be a level 5.5.3.3.3.3 with 4 of those movements being rotational.  It’s certainly not one of those boring watered down NM-ary challenges. 

I originally decided to name it Smelling of Mums along the series theme but that M eventually evolved into a B.

Testing

Once I had the initial design, I went through several prototypes.  Halfway through the design process, I had a brain fart and lost my momentum.  The first 2 versions were complete failures but the turd one was a success.  The most difficult part was determining the oder of the pieces to be added to the assembly. 

Piece of Crap

Production 

Now it was time to get down to business.  I was originally planing to make it out of coprolite but using FDM where everything gets built from the bottom was much cheaper.  I also elected to go with a single color to avoid overtaxing the poop chute.

Unfortunately, Smelling of (M̶)Bums is a PITA to make and production is limited. I can only make one a day and sometimes the assembly line backs up.  Eventually, I got in the groove and I had the runs coming out like clockwork. 

Sales

I didn’t think that there would be any interest in such a complex puzzle but puzzlers are descending on this one like a business of flies as if it’s their duty.  I design great puzzles and people tell me: That looks fantastic but I’m not buying puzzles right now.  I make a piece of crap and I get: That puzzle looks like it stinks.  I’ll take 2 please!
 

Distribution

When you’re dealing with piles of puzzles or vice versa, you need to settle on a shitting service to get them in the hands of puzzlers. They’re all shippy, but you need some means of leaving little packages in front of houses.  Hopefully customs won’t require retaining a duty.  At least I don’t have to worry about them getting damaged along the way since they’re very turdy.
 

Conclusion

In the end, I was happy to create the puzzle.  It is comprised of several awesome movements and tolerances are dead on.  Everything slides nicely, slick as … what you’d expect.  Although I was initially worried about the theme, I was given some good advice a long time ago – Make your business, Your business!  After all these decades, I finally get it. 

Although I always try to make puzzles that look like something you want to have in your hands, this one may not be that puzzle.  It also turned out that it wasn’t the puzzle to entice my NPSO.  She reminded me once again that she won’t take any crap from me.

It may be a while before my next puzzle. I’m all pooped out. 

  

Uh Oh!

 

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.

Getting Everything Back Together – HolisTIC

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Problem Puzzles, Update #8

No Problem Puzzles provided over 100 amazing puzzles designs for the community between November 2020 and April 2023 until the tragic passing of Symen Hovinga on 7 April 2023.  Theo Geerinck, the other half of the No Problem Puzzles duo, decided to graciously allow the puzzle designs to be made available to the puzzle community for anyone to print their own copy to keep the legacy alive.  Mr BurrTools himself, Andreas Röver, is currently in the process of verifying and publishing the stl model files over the next several months.  These are being made available on the Printables site under the No Problem Puzzles collection.  Another contributor, Crab on Printables, has also tweaked some of the models to improve them.

This post continues the review of the No Problem Puzzles as the models are being released.  Since the last review (No Problem Puzzles, Update #7), more No Problem Puzzles have become available.

Chain Stitch

This was Theo Geerinck’s exchange puzzle at the 28th International Puzzle Party (IPP).  It consists of 6 planer pieces that somehow form a 3D shape.  But what is that 3D shape?  Since it’s designated as a level 2.5 puzzle, I decided to make it extra challenging by not looking at the final shape.  Which was extra challenging.  Too challenging in fact and I resorted to peeking at the photo of the final shape.   Even knowing what the final form looked like, it wasn’t trivial.  Unless you have a crochet background, I’d recommend looking at the photo.  It also comes with a stand.  And it’s big, really big, so big!    

Nineveh

There are several puzzles that involve packing 9 V tricubes into a 3x3x3 cube.  This one stands it on end.  The goal is place the 9 Vs in a stand that is only big enough to hold a 2x2x2 cube.  Of course, you have to do it in such a way that the pieces overhanging the sides do not fall down.  At a difficulty level of 3 it’s not super challenging.  This is helped by the fact that there are 7 solutions.  Then again, if you’re objective is to find all 7, it may prove to be a little more challenging.

 

Quintessence 

Who doesn’t like a good dodecahedron puzzle.  The objective of this one is to take 6 identical shell pieces, each configured with a different hook assembly, and make a dodecahedron with the hooks weaving around each other inside.  Doesn’t look so bad and with a difficulty level of 3, it should pop together quickly.  On second thought, maybe it’s a bit more involved.  Then again, after several interesting moves, it wasn’t that difficult to get together.  However, I have the nagging suspicion that I used a sketchy (off-axis) rotation.  I’m not considering this one done unless someone indicates that a sketchy rotation is required.

 

Rhomble

Here’s a puzzle that was skewed twice over.  Or is it thrice skewed over.  I wasn’t confident that I could immediately discern whether it was twice or thrice so I had to think about it for a bit.  In the end, I convinced myself that you lose a pair of squares for each skew performed and that Rhomble was a Soma cube that had been skewed 3 times.  This puzzle has a difficulty level of 2 and makes a nice little challenge to skew ya bwain a tad.


If you don’t have a 3D printer, you can obtain copies of these puzzles from Nothing Yet Designs based in the US or the PuzzleguyStore based in the EU.