New Puzzle Comes Out – Smelling Of Roses

I’m lucky to have many friends like myself in the warped-mind community.  In an effort to appear as regular people, some have attempted to come close by becoming regular tetrahedron people.  This has resulted in several tetrahedron puzzle designs popping up of late and this is the story of one such great pyramid puzzle.

Smelling Of Roses was developed by that famous guy from Two Brass Monkeys, Steve Nicholls.  Not to be confused with that other famous guy from Two Brass Monkeys that designed Rock-It Burr that we gushed over in a previous post (Drill Baby Drill! – Rock-it Burr).  Smelling Of Roses is made using …  well that depends on what you use to make it.  Steve made the design available on Maker World for anyone to download and make their own copy.  My version is 3D printed using a single color of PLA.  Not for any aesthetic reason but simply because I was too lazy to change the filament for additional colors.

Smelling of Roses takes a typical 6 piece burr and transmogrifies it using tetrahedronagonyal geometry.  This is basically a process of weaponizing the pieces by providing many pointy bits.  It also has the advantage of making the pieces difficult to grip since they are no longer rectangular and squeezing them tighter just launches them from you fingers instead of securing them.

Thorny Problem!

You would think that having 4 obvious corners would make the piece placement a no-brainer. However, there were several times I was considering putting those obvious corners in some not so obvious places.  Although, I didn’t think it possible, the pieces support going together in many unhelpful ways.  It took me several tries to find the correct assembly and when I finally had it, it was an effort to figure out how to move the pieces to get them all in place without loosing track of the assembly.  All this while juggling the pieces and attempting not to launch them.

Steve did an excellent job in picking a 6-piece burr that requires multiple moves before any pieces can be removed.  No key piece requiring a single move here!  In fact the movements are nicely executed in the tetrahedral space that the pieces were developed in.  I have to give Steve a lot of credit for using the BurrTools tetrahedral-octahedral space grid.  I find it very unintuitive to use.

The copy of Smelling Of Roses that I printed is a bit tight (the description uses the friendlier term - snug).  When all the pieces are coming together, they have to be cajoled into position.  It also adds a level of difficulty during disassembly since the moves are not obvious and nothing moves with casual prodding.  You have to prod with intent.  And multi-piece movements require more intent than single piece movements.

This is an awesome take on the 6-piece burr puzzle and kudos to Steve for making it freely available to the community on Maker World!  So download Smelling Of Roses and give it a try.  But whatever you do, don’t leave this caltrop of a puzzle sitting on a chair!  Assuming that you can put it together of course.

Puzzle Within A Puzzle – Lone Star Burr

Steve Nicholls’ exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP) was a plastic sphere.  After careful inspection, the sphere was determined to be comprised of 2 hemispheres, one red and the other transparent.  Further inspection revealed other clues such as a dimple in the middle of each hemisphere and some cryptic symbology on the transparent hemisphere.  After referencing my vast collection of books on hieroglyphics, I determined that it was safe to store food in this puzzle in the UK and EU - a good indication that there might by some candy inside as a reward for solving the puzzle.  The dimples turned out to be red herrings.

Having experience in opening many of these types of puzzles acquired from numerous gumball machines over the years, I quickly solved this puzzle and separated the 2 hemispheres from each other.  Secreted betwixt them were a makeup applicator and a card displaying 2 puzzle hamsters with guns drawn ablazin’.  The back of the card indicated that the 2 cuddly gun-totin’ hamsters prefer to be referred to as brass monkeys.  Although there is no indication of pronoun preferences, I can attest that at IPP41, it was required to address Steve as Your Majesty.  And yes, kneeling and groveling was encouraged.

Just when I thought that was it, I noticed that a single hunk of plastic had fallen out of the sphere as well.  For the most part, this starry object was red, white, and blue with some yellowing at the edges.  It looked a bit puzzly, so I decided to give it a whirl.  When this lone star burrst, I ended up with a small collection of colorful little pieces, kinda like caltrops but unexplainably juicy looking.

Lone Star Burr was designed and made by Steve Nicholls and used as his exchange puzzle for IPP41.  The burr consists of 5 pieces and has a red, white, and blue Texas star on each side.  Each piece is a multicolor 3D print.  It may be all gussied up with colorful starry bits but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a regular dodecahedron.

When viewed assembled, the burr appears intimidating.  However, when viewing the disassembled pieces, it definitely comes across as more tractable.  Spurred on by the opportunity of an easy victory, I tackled the challenge. Indeed, some trial and error, balancing pieces, a little swearing, getting things lined up exactly where they need to be, some more swearing, starting over when subassemblies fell apart, stuffing the makeup applicator in the mouth to stymie even more swearing, and then simply sliding things back in place, produces the original shape.  I was surprised about how the final glide path doesn’t look like it would work, but everything slides smoothly together in the end.  Of course, if you don’t have everything exactly lined up, it won’t go together and you may end up with some more swearing.

Lone Star Burr can be purchased on the Two Brass Monkeys website.