Decadent – Triple Dip

What do you do when you go to make a symmetry puzzle from a highly symmetric shape cut into 10 congruent isosceles triangles and then lose one of the those triangles?  Well, if you’ve been at this for a while, you randomly glue the triangles up and hope nobody notices.  And just to be sure that no one catches on, you theme the whole thing on 3s – 3 triangles, 3 pieces, triple ...
 
Triple Dip, designed by symmetrologist George Sicherman, is a 2D symmetry puzzle consisting of 3 pieces, each consisting of 3 isosceles triangles.  All 9 triangles are identical and are one tenth of a decagon.  Most 2D symmetry puzzles are laser-cut or 3D printed but the Triple Dip puzzles offered in Wood Wonders last release are of the decadent variety, made from a selection of exotic woods.

I got the triple Triple Dip made from 3 different types of exotic woods.  The choices where 1, 3, or 9 different types of exotic woods.  Having each piece with the same 3 different types of woods seemed like the most mind-bending option.  We’re all used to symmetry puzzles in a single color.  9 different colors would start to shake things up a bit.  But having each piece made from the same 3 different woods starts to pull the brain out of whack as it tries to align the colors.  Already possessing a herniated brain, I simply enjoyed the swirling colors in my mind as I ceaselessly shuffled pieces in front of me. 

Triple Dip arrives in a nice drawstring pouch with the name of the puzzle lasered on the bag.  Of course, the object is to arrange the 3 pieces into a symmetric shape once you have stopped admiring the eye candy.

I’m always amazed with how non-straightforward solving 3-piece 2D symmetry puzzles are.  I just know that there is a mathematical approach to solving them but I haven’t cracked it yet.  It always looks so easy and I always end up spending way more time than I expected on solving them.  Needless to say, they are awesome and I have quite a few of them.  Perfect fidget puzzles and they travel nicely.

After working on Triple Dip for a while, I discovered that I could make a symmetric shape with just 2 of the pieces.  The third piece wasn’t really needed after all.  Pretty sneaky I thought as I put the puzzle on the solved pile where it sat all alone.

Missing the swirling colors in my mind, I took Triple Dip back out for another twirl.  I spun those bits around like there was no tomorrow until it looked like it was ready to take off.  It was then that I noticed something peculiar.  The left side looked kind of like the right side but reversed.  Checking to be sure that a mirror hadn’t slipped in during the frenzy, I concluded that I must have come across a 3-piece solution.  Undaunted, I quickly scrambled them back up and continued twirling them around with a big smile.  Pretty wood ...

If you want to dip into symmetry puzzles, Triple Dip is still available at Wood Wonders.  And you can choose between having the puzzle made from either 1, 3, or 9 species of exotic woods.

Better Than TV – Widescreen

More than a decade ago, I stopped paying for TV service to focus on other more important things.  Things like puzzling.  Dropping this service not only gave me more time to spend with puzzles but also left me with more funds to buy them.  At least that would be what I would tell me wife if I even dared to hint that she no longer had TV service so that I could buy more puzzles.  We’ve stopped going to the movies as well.  Apparently we were ahead of our time since everyone stopped going to the movies about 5 years ago.  Fortunately, I recently had the opportunity to appreciate watching things unfold within the ... Widescreen.

Widescreen is a 3D restricted-opening apparent-cube packing puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Wood Wonders.  The pieces are made from Tauari and the box is made from Tigerwood with Avodire accents on the edges.  I love the look of the Tigerwood and the contrast with the Avodire edging makes it a stand-out eye-candy piece.

There is one large wide opening in box that also makes use of half-voxels.  These half-voxels prohibit the movement of pieces while at the same time forcing a piece to be located there to satisfy the apparent-cube requirement.

Shipping Configuration

The puzzle arrived with all the pieces within the box pretending to be a disassembly challenge.  However, the pieces did not make an apparent cube leaving a lot of the box opening unfilled.  All that was needed was to shuffle the pieces around a bit to fill that unfulfilled opening.  HaHaHaHa.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to remove the pieces from the box in their unsolved shipping state.  Once the pieces are fully visible and fueled by the success of quickly liberating the pieces from the box, I immediately came to the conclusion that this was not going to be that difficult and it would be a quick solve.  BwaHaHaHaHa.  There are just some things that I will never, ever learn.

This puzzle definitely benefits from an approach that starts with determining what orientations the pieces can enter the box with.  This reduces the number of possible assemblies utilizing the 2 largest pieces, which can quickly be reduced to 2 main candidate assemblies.  However, both of these assemblies support several complete assemblies with the final piece added.  I ended up bouncing between these assemblies searching for one that would work with the box.  And even though, after experiencing many, so many, of these puzzles, and writing this over and over again, I doubted the assemblies that were providing several moves along a path and looked for other assemblies as I struggled to find that allusive solution.

Eventually, I found the one thing that I hadn’t tried and the solution unfolded in front of me.  And after a couple of attempts, I even manged to follow the sequence and get all the pieces within the box where they were supposed to be.

The 12 move dance to get that first piece out is terrific and it even took me few minutes the following day to liberate the pieces from the box again.  Just another great design from Alexander.

 

Merlon the Magician Apparently Fortified – Embrasures

Every once in a while, you run into some puzzle magic.  And puzzles invoking medieval times with swords, damsels in distress, and impenetrable castles are in vogue.  Particularly castles.  Castles with turrets.  Castles with turrets with embrasures.  And you can’t just create embrasures from nothing.  Or can you?  No!  Merlon magic is apparently needed to create embrasures.

Embrasures is a 3D apparent cube packing puzzle designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Wood Wonders.  The box is made from Tigerwood and Avodire and the 3 pieces are made from Red Grandis.  The use of the 2 contrasting exotic woods for the box gives it a stunning look.  And the embrasures definitely lend it the appearance of a castle turret.

The objective of this level 10.9.4 challenge is simple.  Fortify the turret, i.e., pack the pieces within the box so that the all the openings are filled.  This includes the top with the 4 embrasures as well as the 2 other ports on the bottom.

I started by looking at possible ways to arrange the 3 pieces withing a 3x3x3 cubic space but quickly determined that there were too many to take that approach.

Depending on how you look at it, the top has 4 embrasures or 4 merlons.  Since this is an apparent cube puzzle, maybe it would be best to focus on the embrasures.  And don’t forget those 2 ports at the base.

Embracing an embrasure approach, I eventually found a promising candidate assembly.  Doing a little experimentation, I was able to see how the first piece could be removed from the box.  However, I was having a little difficulty finding how a second piece could be removed.  The last 2 pieces seemed to be in each other’s way, prohibiting either from exiting.

It was then that I discovered a tricky little rotation that would allow me remove a second piece and summarily, the last piece.  I successfully tested it and trumpeted my triumphal victory.  

As I started writing this blog I reread the puzzle description on the Wood Wonders website whereupon I noted that it explicitly states NO ROTATIONS.  Cheater, cheater, cheater!!!  I was seized with flashbacks of grade school and being reprimanded for not paying attention to directions.  Now I have a wife to keep me in line and I knew she was going to make me work on this puzzle until I solved it correctly.  I’m so lucky!

Of course, the fork in the road was at that problematic section in the middle of removing the second piece.  In my defense, the rotation path was about the same length at the non-rotation path.  However, the non-rotation path is a bit more elegant.  Had I been following directions, I would have never found the alternate path with the rotation.  It’s not obvious and will not occur inadvertently.  I’m just glad I got to solve it twice.  As with all of Alexanders designs, I really enjoyed this one.  If you’re lucky, you may find it in stock at Wood Wonders.

I was so amazed at the appearance and quality of Embrasures that it got me thinking of something with a bigger scope.  Maybe the next big castle puzzle project could include a packing puzzle within each turret.  That would be awesome!

Oh! – Omicron

Wood Wonders’ recent release included many enticing puzzles with several new designs from some of my favorite designers.  There is a nice selection of symmetry puzzles, 2D and 3D packing puzzles, burr puzzles, and Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) puzzles.  Of course, I wanted to start with one of the TICs.

Omicron (aka Omicrom) was designed by Girish Sharma and made by Wood Wonders.  It looks absolutely beautiful with the contrast between the 4 pieces made from Bloodwood, Wenge, Maple, and Roasted Poplar.  As soon as it was released, Omicron went viral and is now sold out along with the other TIC in the release.  I always used to tell myself that the design was the most important aspect of a puzzle but the stunning look of those exotic woods makes me wonder whom I’m really trying to fool.  However, since Wood Wonders provides both, it’s a win-win.  And I’m always impressed with the little details like reinforced joints to provide durability.

There’s just something relaxing about spending time solving TICs. Om-Micro-On, Om-Micro-On… I can easily just drift through the puzzle-verse, sliding and turning pieces past each other as time continues to drag the real world down outside. 

Designed by Girish, you might suspect that rotational moves would be required and you would be right.  What you may not have anticipated is that the 4x4x4 puzzle would appear as a solid cube.   This is a departure from Girish’s previous TIC offerings and demonstrates his ticnacious dedication to the genre.  Especially since it is definitely more challenging to produce an apparent cube TIC without external voids showing.  However, I find it more aesthetically pleasing and worth the effort.  Having said that, I still love TICs with external voids as the additional space allows for more uncertainty in the assembly and additional complexity along the solution path.

Although it is straight-forward to determine where all the Omicron pieces need to go, it takes quite a few moves to get there.  Omicron requires more than a dozen moves to remove the first piece.  In fact, it takes 15 moves, which may or may not have anything to do with Omicron being the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet.  Of course, it’s provided unsolved, so that would be 15 moves to put the last piece in.  It is all part of a well-orchestrated dance of all the pieces to celebrate the grand finale of the solve.  Even with all those moves, including some rotations, Omicron is not overly difficult as you happily skip along the solution path.

If you missed out on getting a copy of Omicron, don’t despair.  More copies will be available at Wood Wonders in the near future.  You’ll definitely want this one for your TIC collection.

Engage! – Clutch 4

Not long after Wood Wonders’ latest release, I happily had a new puzzle in my clutches.  It is the final member of a clutch of TICs that extremize rotations.  Thus, I was engaged on a new mission within the puzzle zone.

Clutch 4 is the fourth and (hopefully not) final entry of the clutch series designed by Girish Sharma and made by Wood Wonders.  I have to admit that I had high expectations after the last collaboration between Wood Wonders and Girish that I played with (One Person – Three Body Problem).  But with a Level 31 Turning Interlocking Cube (TIC) requiring 14 rotations, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed!

As always, Wood Wonders did an awesome job bringing to life another one of Girish’s fantastic designs.  The puzzle is made from Poplar, Indian Laurel and Yellow Rosa with reinforcing dowels where needed.  The pieces are spot on and move like agile dancers.

The puzzle consists of 3 pieces: the chassis, the drive plate that happily rotates endlessly within the chassis, and the clutch that dictates when and how the drive plate can rotate.  It’s easy to determine where the pieces go and trivial to add the drive plate or clutch to the chassis individually.  The difficulty comes in adding both pieces without grinding them together – NO FORCE ALLOWED!

Ironically, when solved, the pieces aren’t really wrapped around each other.  They are just in each other’s way from being pulled apart.  However, the process of getting them together or apart requires a lot of entwining rotational movements.

To solve this one, I spent quit a bit of time determining how the drive plate and clutch work with the chassis individually.  All that was left was to determine how they intersected.  Easier said than done.

It’s all about finding that clutch move where you can add the third piece.  And what an awesome move it is!  Of course, once you’ve made that clutch move, there’s a whole lot of rotat’n left to solve this one.

Unfortunately, but not surprising, Clutch 4 was sold out.  However, I would not be surprised to see additional copies made available in the future.  If you like TICs, this one is a must-have.

Puzzle DNA – Edge Beveled Cubes

I recently received a magnificent box of elemental puzzle material synthesized from a wide selection of exotic woods.  The set consists of 130 atoms in the form of 35 unique molecules with each molecule consisting of 1 to 4 atoms.  In fact, these 35 molecules are the full set of all possible molecules that can exist with up to 4 atoms.  These molecules can then be pack together to make higher level structures.  The trick to packing them together is determining which ones will bond tightly with each other.

The Edge Beveled Cubes set was designed by George Sicherman and made by Wood Wonders.  It arrives in a laser-cut Walnut box with nice detailing debossed on the top.  Inside are nestled 35 molecular pieces that are the substance for many a challenge.  Each atomic edge beveled cube is made from an exotic hardwood.  130 cubes with 12 bevels each to give you 1560 bevels to keep you on edge.  

The pieces are formed via bonds between the cubes across the beveled edges.  My version has the cubes with randomly selected woods to form the pieces.  However, Wood Wonders also provides a fancier version made from 35 different exotic woods, where each piece is made with cubes of the same wood.  Each piece is also branded with a number that’s keyed to a list that identifies the type of wood used for each piece.

So what can you do with this set of oddly shaped pieces?  It turns out, quite a bit.  As a starter, the pieces can be used to make Stewart Coffin’s Distorted Cube and Pyracube puzzles.  But since I’ve done those in the past, I was looking to do something new.

As tempted as I was to just jump in and create a double helix, I decided to start by making some square based pyramids.  My original thought was to create a list of unique pieces that could be used to make targeted shapes but I abandoned that idea for two reasons.  The first is that I was enjoying making targeted shapes by wisely selecting pieces to be added from the entire set and I was not too keen being restricted to a unique set of pieces.  This would work well for small shapes that required a few pieces but not for larger shapes where more than a dozen pieces would be required.  Who really wants to do an assembly challenge with 35 pieces and a unique solution?  The second, as it turned out, is that BurrTools wasn’t too keen on it either.  The first shape I put in was the 6x6 square pyramid and BurrTools never even got to the point where it would only take ages.  Apparently solving a puzzle with up to 35 pieces that can each occupy hundreds of possible positions doesn’t make for good math.

So I embarked on a square pyramid journey working my way from a 1x1 to 6x6, the largest solid square pyramid that can be made.  I jumped right in and grabbed the single beveled cube to proclaim victory of the 1x1 square pyramid.  What a confidence booster!  Adding a 4 cube piece quickly produced the 2x2 pyramid.  I was on a roll and kept going as they got progressively harder.  

After completing the 5x5 square pyramids, I decided to skip right over the 6x6 square pyramid and attempt a 6x7 rectangular pyramid.  This one was a bit more challenging and ended up using 30 of the 35 pieces.  My overall strategy was to build from the bottom up and attempt to use the more complex pieces as soon as possible.  My rudimentary definition of complexity utilized how many layers a piece required.  Some require only 1, others 2, and a couple 3 layers.  As with the 4x4 and 5x5 square pyramids, there was a lot of backtracking involved as the dwindling supply of pieces failed to support filling the space remaining.  Eventually, I successfully summited the pyramid for the win.

And then I went to put them back into the box.  And failed.  The box holds 136 cubes with the square packing leaving 6 unused positions when it is packed.  Since there is only one single cube piece, there aren’t too many gimmes that you can take as you start to fill it in.  My strategy was to fill the box from left to right while conserving what I though were easy to place pieces.  However, as I got to the right side, my choice of easy to place pieces didn’t work very well in the corners.  Lesson learned.  I took half of the pieces out and modified my strategy to fill the right side of the box.  

After I go back and finish that 6x6 square pyramid maybe I’ll attempt the 6x8 rectangular pyramid, which would use 127 of the 130 cubes.  Sounds like a real challenge with no guarantee that it is indeed possible.  Then I’ll try my hand at the triangular pyramids where the cubes use a different packing mechanism.  I might throw in some double or triple triangular pyramids as well.  So many forms to try, So little time.

Both versions of the Edge Beveled Cubes are currently available at Wood Wonders on the A Few More Copies, Last Chance page if you’d like to attempt any of the challenges mentioned here or create your own.  If you do create your own, be sure to share them with the puzzle community.

Triangular Pyramid

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.

A Physical Manifestation Of An Ethereal Concept – T Pack

Haym Hirsh, a professor of computer science for 100100 years, presents us with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework.  This educational model describes the intersections between technology, pedagogy, and content for the effective integration of technology within teaching.  It consists of 3 contextual knowledge categories: content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge, the 3 pairwise intersections of these categories, and the overall 3-way intersection representing the entire framework.  Realizing that such a conceptual frameworks would not capture much interest, Haym transformed this abstract concept into something more physical albeit somewhat still cerebral.  The framework has become a box frame, and the 3 knowledge categories and 3 pairwise intersections have each been embodied in a T.  He has anointed this physical construction with the name T Pack.  Note the introduction of the critical space to distance it from the original ethereal concept.

T Pack is a 3D apparent cube packing puzzle designed by Haym Hirsh and made by Wood Wonders.  It consists of 6 wood T-shaped pieces that need to be packed within a 3D printed box made with wood infused filament.  And the box has been specifically constructed so that each side presents a smooth 3D printed plate-side finish.

Each side of the box has a square opening in each corner except for 1 side that has a corner shifted to the middle of a side to merge with the adjacent corner.  The edge of the new opening has also been removed to provide a full 2x1 voxel opening for inserting and removing the Ts.  And even though you can’t pass the Ts through the square windows, they are large enough for the pieces to poke out of them.

The goal is to pack 6 Ts in a box.  What a great concept!  I’m quite partial to 6 T puzzles (Shhhh! She Just Turned – 6T and Not A Box For Tea, A – T-Box).

Since all the pieces are the same T shape,  you only need to investigate how that one piece can enter the box and how it can manipulated once inside.  After looking for possible 3x3x3 assemblies outside the box, it quickly becomes apparent that some of the pieces will need to be rotated.  And although there’s not a lot of room within the box, all those windows facilitate the rotation of pieces.

Since not all the voxels within the box will be occupied by the Ts, the first piece removed from the solved configuration does not necessarily need to come out in the first move.  In fact with all those windows, there could possibly be a lot of movement before the first piece comes out.  I focused on the removal of this first piece as a starting point of how the pieces would be configured.  Of course, I didn’t start with the correct way to remove this piece and spent quite a bit of time unnecessarily cajoling pieces into positions to no avail.

It’s always fun when you get half the pieces in, decide it’s not going to work, and then have to figure out how to get them back out for another think.  Sometimes its because I naively thought I could do something undoable or sometimes its because I simply lose my way.  I’ve recently noticed a strong correlation between puzzle experience and losing the thread of a solution.

After discovering an infinite number of ways that the Ts can’t be rotated within a partially filled box, I finally manged to get everything aligned and had an apparent cube of Ts within the box.  The solution entails a nice sequence of moves with rotations and I really enjoyed this one.  At the time of this posting, T Pack was still available at Wood Wonders.

A Very Attractive Puzzle – Tetracore

Sometimes you find yourself drawn towards a very attractive puzzle (I confess that I sometimes confuse sometimes with often).  Tetracore is one of those very attractive puzzles.  It consists of a stellar core surrounded by 14 heavenly satellites that have been captured in orbit.  In fact, the orbital shell is completely full and there is no room for additional satellites.  And as attractive as this puzzle is, needless to say, the satellites find each other repelling.

Tetracore was designed by Jared McComb and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  It includes a 2x2x2 core with 4 magnets on each of the 6 faces.  The satellites are the 7 exotic planer tetracubes, T, O, I, L, and Z, and the mirror images of L and Z.  There are 2 of each and the top face of each has 4 magnets except for I, which has 2 since the outer cubes can never be in contact with the core.  76 magnets in all!

With all those magnets, Tetracore begs to be played with.  Whether you solve it or not, it’s meditative to just sit and snap the pieces to the core.  You can even push them from one state to another.

During the solve, I was surprised at the number of times I was left with a tetracube void that didn’t match the last tetracube in hand.  Sometimes they were the mirror of each other.  I also ended up in situations where the core was completely covered with no external magnets to capture remaining satellites.

Sadly, I eventually ended up with a celestial body in equilibrium.  But wait, looking back at the description on Wood Wonders’ site, there are 5 symmetrical solutions in addition to non-symmetrical ones and mine lacked celestial harmony.  Yay!  More fiddling time on the event horizon.

Celestial Tetracube Being

 

One Person – Three Body Problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Entwining Pieces – Collator

Where other people say, please make it easier to put things in the box, puzzlers dare to say, please make the box opening smaller with malcontent contents that don’t like to work together.  Entwining pieces within a box with odd little openings is alluring.  Divining the correct sequence to bit-by-bit, slowly transfer objects that coalesce totally intertwined within the box - puzzle nirvana.

Collator was designed by Alexander Magyarics and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  It was made with a Flame Birch Box and the 3 pieces that need to be crammed in the box are made from Bolivian Rosewood (one of my favorites) with some very nice heartwood accents.

Putting the pieces in the box is as easy as 1, 2, 3 – or I should say 1.2.3.  However, that is not the true solution.  There are 10 possible ways to assemble the 3 pieces into a 3x3x3 cubic space.  Of those 10, 3 of them can be packed in the box.  However, only 1 of the 3 looks like a solid cube when it is inside the box.  It is this apparent cube configuration that is the objective and it has a difficulty level of 10.4.2.  The other non-apparent cube solution has a difficulty of 5.1.3.

I really don’t need to tell you that this is a good puzzle.  Designed by Alexander, made by Brian, 10.4.2 restricted opening apparent cube packing puzzle – you know it’s going to be good without even seeing it.  And it’s even better when you get your hands on it.  With a box at 3 cubic inches and pieces with a voxel size of 3/4 inches, it’s bigger than most apparent cube packing puzzles making it a pleasure to handle.  The beautiful Bolivian Rosewood pieces also have a nice heft to them.  And no, I wasn’t disappointed and thoroughly enjoyed the sequence of moves required to solve the puzzle.

Uniquely Sneaky Snakey Packer – Snake Pack

I recently wrote about Snake Pack 2, and now it’s time to talk about its Slytherin twin: Snake Pack.  They look similar but the snakes are the mirror image of each other.  Unfortunately, someone forgot to reverse the box and they are identical.  And therein lies the problem.  These new snakes just don’t feel like they belong with the same box.

Like Snake Pack 2, Snake Pack was designed by Haym Hirsh and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  The box that the snakes are packed into has an opening in the corner and 2 poke holes inviting your fingers to enter and manipulate the snakes.  Snake Pack 2 had 3 poke holes – I don’t know why one has 2 and the other 3.  It’s possible that one of the holes fell off during shipping since I did find a hole in the package.

The box is made from Moabi and the 5 identical “A” tetracube snakes that need to be coaxed into the box are made of Lacewood.  It’s still not Snakewood but it’s more snakey than the Snake Pack 2 pieces.  It also has a unique solution whereas Snake Pack 2 has 3.

For some reason, using the Snake Pack pieces feels more awkward than the Snake Pack 2 pieces.  Like Snake Pack 2, the Snake Pack pieces can enter the box in 2 different ways, which of course are different than the 2 orientations used by Snake Pack 2.  

The time required to solve Snake Pack was about the same as Snake Pack 2.  However, Snake Pack feels sneakier and the more difficult of the two.  Although the solution to each puzzle is completely different, I felt that the time spent solving Snake Pack 2 amped my snake packing factor to give me an additional boost.

As a last note, I’ve successfully packed all the snakes in the box but it didn’t make an apparent cube.  This was not stated as a requirement in the description and I assume that my solution is the goal, but if you know differently, please let me know.

Charming Snakes Into a Box – Snake Pack 2

I was fortunate to acquire Snake Pack and Snake Pack 2 from a generous soul on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (thank you Mark).  To be honest, I approached these puzzles with a bit of trepidation.  I had heard that they were difficult and I was prepared to be assaulted by a variety of coordinate motion dexterity moves worthy of a modern dance performance.  There were even comments from frustrated puzzlers with pieces stuck in the box.  I decided to start with Snake Pack 2 since it was supposed to be the easier of the two (although Haym said that he found it more difficult).

Snake Pack 2 is a charming puzzle designed by Haym Hirsh and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  The box that the snakes are packed into has an opening in the corner and 3 poke holes inviting your fingers to enter and manipulate the snakes.  The box is made from Canarywood and is absolutely gorgeous!  The varying colors throughout the wood look fantastic!  The 5 identical “B” tetracube snakes that need to be charmed into the box are made of Moabi.  The Moabi looks great, but the poet in me cries for Snakewood – just because.

So what would I expect from a packing puzzle with 5 identical pieces.  The first couple of pieces have lots of room to rotate and could be put in any orientation needed.  The last piece will drop right in.  The next to last piece may require some shifting of the prior 3 to get in place and maybe even a rotation or two.  The third piece will be a pain – enough room to expect rotations and not enough room to accomplish them easily.

I worked with the snakes outside of the box to discover a workable assembly that could be inserted.  A little bit of experimentation shows that there are 2 ways that the snakes can be inserted through the box opening.  The major thought during this process was coming up with an assembly where the first snake could easily be removed from the box followed by a second.  To be honest, at one point I was stuck in a rut and turned the whole thing upside down so that the opening was on the bottom.  This helped me find what I was missing and led me to the solution.

In the end, I thought that the rotations were well behaved and I really enjoyed the puzzle.  And yes, determining what the third piece was and how to get it into place was the crux of the solution.  Once you figure it out, it’s not hard to do.

It turned out that this was an apparent cube puzzle as well.  However, there are supposedly other solutions and I don’t know whether this is the only apparent cube solution or one of many.

Not A Box For Tea, A – T-Box

About the same time that I gave my wife her 6T birthday puzzle, I acquired a copy of T-Box, which, pointed out by my wife, also has six T-shaped pieces in a box.  T-Box was designed by Jenga master, Haym Hirsh and made by Mom – no, wait, I had it upside-down - made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  This is the latest of Haym’s designs inspired by Jenga pieces.  For some, Jenga is a multi-player stacking game with wooden pieces, for others it is a source of raw materials for puzzle making.  Hopefully, we won’t see a massive run on Jenga blocks resulting in the worldwide shortages that we saw with tongue depressors (Chico Strikes Again – TD345).

Brian Menold turned the T-Box design into a stunning showpiece.  The pieces were upgraded to Birdseye Maple and the box was made from Bloodwood with a Maple Top.  What really makes this box stunning is the detailed laser engraving on the sides of the box.  Brian is fortunate to have a gifted graphics artist in the family and the design created for the T-Box really makes it something special.

Of course the goal is to get all 6 pieces within the box so that the top lays flush with the sides.  To help, or perhaps to hinder, there are a few impediments attached to the interior of the box.  Solving the puzzle is not that difficult, but it is a nice challenge.  When I was done, I noticed a nice property of the pieces, which can be exploited to solve the puzzle.  I’d like to say that, of course I recognized this property and summarily conquered the challenge in one swift stroke, but as usual, I crossed the finish line with a half-lit bulb.  Perhaps you’ll come across it and immediately recognize it for what it is.  And no, I’m not going to say what it is.

 

Board With Puzzles - Trikado

 

Every once in a while you need to do something different.  This desire drove Brian Menold from Wood Wonders in search of a puzzle to make like Trikado.  Brian is a fan of board burrs and when he found Trikado by Yavuz Demirhan, he couldn’t pass it up.  It looks like a 9-board puzzle, but 3 pairs are actually combined to provide a 6 piece puzzle.

I like how Brian made the boards with two contrasting woods.  Since all the boards have the same 2 toned appearance, nothing of the solution is given away.  This particular copy is made with Canarywood & Mahogany.

I took this puzzle apart last year and occasionally pull it out to solve when I’m on the phone.  After a recent phone conversation, I decided that it was past time to actually solve this puzzle and I spent another hour focusing on putting it back together.  It’s not difficult to determine how the pairs need to be placed with relation to each other.  However, it does take some analysis to determine how the single boards need to be oriented to get everything placed where it can be assembled.  Being a level 8.8.2.2 puzzle, it’s not overly difficult and within the abilities of most puzzlers interested in burrs.  When the puzzle is assembled, there is quite a bit of movement with false moves by the pieces that make discovering the proper disassembly path an interesting challenge as well.

Puzzle Purchasing Pandemonium – Cluster & Inelegant Box

Puzzle madness has gripped the world!  A once humble community of puzzle enthusiasts has morphed into an insatiable world-wide puzzle-gobbling beast.  Reports of shopping cart thefts and shop crashing are now commonplace on puzzle messaging sites.

Puzzle demand now far outweighs the supply generated by a few key craftspersons around the world.  The entire internet can be felt sagging as puzzlers around the world refresh their screens multiple times per second in the anticipation of newly released puzzles.  Mom & Pop puzzle shops are collapsing under these loads forcing a migration to more sophisticated ecommerce website providers.

For the holiday season, Brian Menold at Wood Wonders decided to embrace this madness and held a special 24 hour “Snatch the Puzzle” event on Black Friday, 27 November 2020.  During the event, puzzles were randomly made available at deeply discounted prices as a way of saying thank you and providing some holiday fun for the puzzling community.  It consisted of puzzles from recent and future releases as well as some other goodies like puzzle stands.

However, Brian took pity on everyone.  To avoid having everyone repeatedly hit the refresh key for 24 hours (please don’t take this to mean that I don’t think there aren’t people up to such a challenge), he periodically posted clues via Facebook on 25 and 26 November 2020, providing hints at the times that he would be releasing puzzles:

• Will you be looking for puzzles in prime time, or when you're having a piece of pumpkin pie?
• I wonder if a label might come in handy?
• Let's start early. Same time forward or backwards.
• Is it a time or an airplane?
• There may be an emergency or two tomorrow!
• Why are those guys all sitting cross-legged on the floor on such a windy day?
• Another time, same backwards and forwards, and upside down.
• Police - Location (US)
• And finally, should I repeat myself?

Who couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that!  Like everyone else around the globe, I continually mashed the refresh key at what I hoped were the release times in an attempt to grab a puzzle.  Most of the time, I managed to get a puzzle in the cart, only to have it disappear before checking out.  The event was almost over before I managed to successfully acquire a puzzle.  When my wife asked me what I bought, I sheepishly looked at her and said “I have no idea.  If you have to look at it before you buy it, it will be gone.”  Of course, all of Brian’s works are wonderful and you really can’t go wrong.  Shortly after the event, I received a box from Wood Wonders with 2 puzzles.

Cluster

I initially had the opportunity to solve a copy of Cluster prototype that Brian brought to RPP last year (A Decade of Puzzling - RPP 2019) and was glad to finally acquire a copy.  The version that I received was made from Cambodian Ormosia.  It has an awesome grain looking like black bolts of lightning running through the wood.  It also has an interesting distinctive scent that reminded my wife of Sandalwood.  Cluster was designed by Andrew Crowell and it should come as no surprise that rotations are required to solve this puzzle.  In fact, all the pieces require rotations.  One of the pieces makes a rotational circuit through the puzzle, which I consider the highlight of the puzzle.  The puzzle is not very difficult, but the crystal shape requires some out-of-the-box-shape thinking.

Inelegant Box

Inelegant Box is my second acquisition from the Inelegant Puzzle series by Haym Hirsh made by Wood Wonders.  My first was Inelegant Fake (Not Your Elegant Hoffman Packing Puzzle - Inelegant Fake).  Like Fake, Box is made from 4x5x6 unit blocks that have been joined into 6 "L" shaped pieces consisting of 4 blocks each.  Since this consists of only 24 blocks, the completed cube is missing 3 blocks.  One of those blocks is the center of the cube making it hollow – aka a box.  This puzzle is not that difficult, but you do have to keep in mind that that there are missing blocks and you may have a difficult time solving this puzzle without that in mind.  The version I received from Brian was made with Canarywood and has a beautiful reddish grain to it.  It also came with a Curly Maple frame that shimmers as you tilt it.

Brian enjoyed providing this event to the puzzle community and is considering making this an annual event.  I’ve already started a finger training route in anticipation of next year’s event.  Thank you Brian for a fantastic time (12:21, 2:33,  3:14, 3:35, 4:06, 7:47,  9:11, 10:20, 11:11, AM/PM)!

The Gift That Keeps Giving - The Ottawa Cube

Several years ago, the hosts of the 35th International Puzzle Party indicated that they liked my 4x4x4 interlocking puzzles and asked if I would be interested in designing the Committee gift for IPP35.  This gift is given to each of the hard-working committee volunteers that make the event run smoothly.  Of course, I was honored and immediately said yes.

The development of the IPP35 puzzle was a collaborative effort between several people including the IPP35 hosts, Brett Kuehner and Rob Stegmann, who provided design criteria, reviewed proposed designs, and provided feedback; myself as the designer; world-renowned craftsman Brian Menold from Wood Wonders to make them; and Rob Jones providing support.  The result of this team effort was the Ottawa Cube.

What prompted me to finally write about the Ottawa Cube this week, is the listing of an Ottawa Cube on the Cubicdissection Marketplace.  Only 30 were made and you don’t see them very often.  This particular copy is an unopened spare from IPP35 that has been added to the puzzle auction to support a charity: Community Food Bank of New Jersey.  The winner will not only support those in need but end up with a rare puzzle as well.

Since it would be awkward to describe how wonderfully awesome this puzzle is, I decided to share some of the highlights of the design process:

Round 1 - Something New

The IPP35 hosts approached me 1½ years before the event to design the puzzle.  They were looking for something similar to my 4x4x4 designs and offered the following criteria:

• It should be a new, unproduced design.
• It should not be too expensive to make.
• It should be challenging but not too difficult to solve.

With that guidance, I set about creating 3 new designs and I brought prototypes to IPP34 and the following Rochester Puzzle Picnic (RPP) for the hosts to review.  Each of the designs consisted of a 4x4x4 puzzle built around an initial concept.  These concepts were:

• An entire 2x2 face pushed in for the first move.
• A friction move required for the first move.
• A puzzle consisting of all U-shaped pieces.

After a thorough review by the hosts, they said that’s nice, … , but it’s not what we’re looking for.  They were looking for something more theme related to IPP35 in Ottawa, Canada.

I dubbed the 3 designs - The Reject Series, and they are now even rarer than the Ottawa Cube.  There are only 3 complete sets and I have one of them.

Round 2 - Something Themed

Armed with a pocket full of rejection, I thought about how I would approach a themed puzzle.  I pretty quickly decided on a cube with letters on the side with the following criteria:

• The cube would have to be 5x5x5.  A 4x4x4 cube was just too small and anything larger would be too expensive.
• All the characters used would be on the face of the puzzle and not hidden inside.
• It would be done in two colors with red for the foreground and white for the background to match the Canadian flag.
• Each piece would be a single color and not a combination of the two colors.  Yes, sometimes I like to make things unnecessarily complex for myself.  However, without this restriction, you could take any 5x5x5 puzzle and make it look the way you want and I felt that it would lose the quality of what makes it unique if that was done.

I worked up an initial prototype using live cubes and sent pictures to the hosts for an initial assessment to verify that I was on the right track.  I was glad to get a response back that it looked worth pursuing.

Round 3 - Something More Complex

Unfortunately, there was no way to lay out the letters on the face where the adjacent edges matched color.  To solve this dilemma, I had to up my game and cut the corner cubes at a 45-degree angle to get a different color on each face.  Of course, this was no longer a cubic dissection and I realized that I had probably just shot the expense criteria to hell.  

Did I mention that I imposed a restriction where each of these different color cube halves can’t be part of the same piece?  Needless to say, it was a challenge to develop an interlocking puzzle with purely colored pieces.

I created a BurrTools file of the new design where each cube in the puzzle was represented by a 3x3x3 set of cubes to allow me to cut them in half at an angle.  BurrTools was able to successfully solve the puzzle, which is always welcome feedback.

With a bit of trepidation, I sent the BurrTools file out to the team for review.  I was particularly worried about what Brian would have to say about all those 45-degree angle cuts.  As an amateur wood dabbler, it looked insurmountable to me.  

Round 4 - Final Product

With the design process complete, Brian Menold took over the development of the Ottawa Cube. Aside from some recommended changes to improve the structural reliability of the pieces from Brett and Rob’s review of an initial prototype, it was good to go.  Rob also suggested the name: The Ottawa Cube.

The final product is a gorgeous cube with the letters for IPP35 on 5 of the 6 faces.  It’s made with Redheart and Maple to represent the red and white colors of the Canadian flag.  It’s also fairly big and heavy at slightly over 3” per side.

When I first saw the Ottawa Cube at IPP35, I was amazed on how beautiful they looked and how smoothly they moved.  Brian did an amazing job with the 45-degree angled pieces and I was impressed on how well everything came together.

I’m sure that Brian has his own story to tell about unrealistic designers and constraints.  After everything was done and I chatted with Brian about the project, I thought I heard him mumble something under his breath like “neber eggen”.

I’m glad to have been part of The Ottawa Cube team and thoroughly enjoyed working with the team.  I hope that others will be interested in acquiring a copy and helping support the Community Food Bank of New Jersey by bidding generously on the Cubicdissection Marketplace Ottawa Cube listing this week.

Not Your Elegant Hoffman Packing Puzzle - Inelegant Fake

 

What happens when you dump a Hoffman Packing Puzzle into a mixing bowl, add some glue, and stir vigorously, losing some pieces in the process.  Well, you’d end up with glued bits that would certainly be less elegant than a Hoffman cube.  Even if it looked like a Hoffman Packing puzzle, it wouldn’t be genuine without all the pieces.  This, I suspect, was the genesis of the Inelegant Fake name.  However, it really is a misnomer since there is nothing inelegant about it.  It looks like a lot of care went into the design and construction beyond a mixing bowl.  I also doubt that anyone besides myself makes puzzles using a mixing bowl.

Inelegant Fake is the sixth puzzle in Haym Hirsh’s Inelegant Series, aka: Let’s Abuse The Hoffman Packing Puzzle Line.  Prior puzzles in the series include Inelegant Soma, Inelegant Box, Inelegant Cube, Inelegant Snakes, and Hoffman JR.  Before you get all worked up about the name of that last one, it was originally named Inelegant 5x5 before the marketing department got ahold of it.  I have it on good authority that the puzzle design reviewer insisted that his initials be added to the end of the name to memorialize his contribution.  {Of course, if you know enough to recognize who this is, you also know it couldn’t be further from the truth.}

Inelegant Fake was one of the many beautiful puzzles available in the last Wood Wonders release from Brian Menold.  The pieces are made from a variety of exotic woods and a frame is included to display the solved puzzle.  The frame is also very handy for holding the cubes as you assemble the puzzle.

Each of the pieces is made by joining 3 or 4 smaller bits together.  You’ll notice that there is not a single 2-bit piece in the bunch.  Adhering to the Hoffman Packing Puzzle design, each of those bits is an identically sized cuboid where the length, width, and height are all different.  

In complete opposition to the Soma cube, Inelegant Fake has 6 pieces with 3 bits and 1 with 4 bits.  Doing some extraordinary complex math and rounding off wherever possible, I deduced that the puzzle consisted of 21.3 22 bits.  Since the Hoffman Packing Puzzle consists of 27 bits, roughly 5 bits escaped the mixing bowl.  So, this raises quite a few questions of how those missing bits are being utilized to frustrate the puzzler.  In fact, so many questions were raised that I started to call it the IF puzzle.  If I assume that the missing bits were here, I could…  If the 4-bit piece were located there, I could …  If the designer were as evil as Kevin claims I am, he would have …

It turns out that Haym is not that evil.  The missing bits were exactly where I initially assumed they would be and so was the 4-bit piece.  Armed with prior Hoffman Packing experience and the fact that my initial assumptions were correct, I was able to produce a nice inelegant fake cube for display within the stand.  Now, the only question is, what other 3x3x3 construction should become an inelegant puzzle?

15 Steps to Success - Stairs Cube

Down the stairs to get a puzzle off the unsolved pile; up the stairs to solve it; down the stairs to put it on the solved pile.  Unlike some puzzle collectors, the majority of my puzzle collection does not reside on the same level of the house where I spend most of my time, requiring me to go up and down the stairs when puzzling.  Who said that solving puzzles wasn’t an aerobic exercise?

After recently going up and down the stairs several times to organize my puzzles, I decided that it was time to take a look at Stairs Cube by Osanori Yamamoto.  This puzzle, made by Wood Wonders, has been patiently waiting for some attention as it listened to the sounds of other puzzles being carried up and down the stairs over the years.  It was overdue to come upstairs and be appreciated.

Stairs Cube is a level 10.3.2 puzzle that consists of 4 pieces.  My version from Wood Wonders is made from Swiss Pear and Wenge.  The 2 woods contrast very nicely and couldn’t be more different.  The Wenge is very dark with a very noticeable grain pattern.  The Swiss Pear on the other hand is very light and so uniform it almost looks artificial.  Together, they make a very attractive puzzle.

If it looks like this puzzle would not be that difficult, you would be right.  It’s obvious where the pieces have to go and pretty easy to get them there.  There are some rotations involved, but they aren’t difficult to navigate.  This puzzle would make a good introduction to burrs requiring rotations.