OMG! Sooo beautiful - Plus one more that I couldn't easily arrange as I
am in mid solve
I have been lucky enough yet again to get advance access to the latest creations
from Jakub and Jaroslav's amazing
Pelikan factory. This time we have 8 incredibly beautiful challenges varying from the simple
and quirky to the unbelievably difficult. There is something for everyone
here.
Luckily for me they arrived in 2 batches. The first 6 arrived 2 weeks ago with
a warning not to write anything yet due to delays of the whole release caused
by sickness. This certainly made it a little less fraught for me and I have
solved those first ones in a leisurely fashion over that 2 weeks. Then
unexpectedly another 3 arrived with a request that Jakub would like the
solutions as soon as possible. I have been feverishly trying to solve 3 of the
hardest ones in the week. There is something for everyone here - if you like
burrs then there is something from easy to challenging but fun right up to the
OMG difficult. Packing puzzles as well with something that I managed fairly
easily to another that is fabulous but really tough.
On we go:
Imogen's Cube
Imogen's Cube by
Alfons Eyckmans Incredible design and
incredible manufacture
Imogen's cube is one of Alfons Eyckmans amazing interlocking cubic designs which
he names after significant people - this one was designed and named for the
daughter of a puzzling friend. I had already bought this one from Alfons several
years ago and have so far failed to dismantle it. I was astounded when I took
this out of the box! It is stunningly beautiful made from multiple hardwoods.
There is a frame and several interlocking sticks crossing each axis of the
puzzle with 4 crossing one direction, 3 in another and 2 the final one. There is
a lot of movement in this right from the very beginning and I have managed to
get myself lost several times during my to and fro approach to solving these. On
several occasions I have found myself with a stick a long way out and nowhere to
go but then unable to work out how to get it back in again. The solution level
is not astoundingly high but the sheer amount of movement and blind ends seems
to have made this really tough for me. In fact I have yet to solve it. For those
of you who are really keen on burrs/interlocking solids or those of you who want
something truly gorgeous for the display then this will be a must have.
Another incredible design showing the skills of Alfons. This seems to be
something new from him. I have seen him design a number of interlocking cubes
and various burrs over the years but I have not really seen him spend much time
on a rather special and enjoyable type of 6 piece burr. These have the sticks
based on a 3x3x8 voxel grid which allows the construction of the obstructing
marts to be much more intricate and more like a maze to navigate. The first one
like this was the
Dracula
from the
last release (which is still in stock). This has been beautifully crafted from Acacia
with a lovely grain. The exploration is fun and with a level 10.3.2 the
disassembly is fun without being too difficult. For those of you with some real
burr skill, I definitely recommend scrambling the pieces and after a break
attempting a reassembly. It is tough but even I managed it with only a medium
struggle.
This delightful little packing puzzle by the amazing Lucie Pauwels really packs
quite a punch. It is surprisingly heavy for its' size (85x36x46mm) which I
presume is due to the density of the Jatoba box. The pieces are made from Wenge
and there is a beautifully made pin made withMaple and Bubinga. The pieces are a
small subset of the Soma pieces with 4 of them having a hole drilled through.
The aim is to assemble the pieces inside the box leaving space for the pin to be
poked though the hole into the piece which lines up with it. There are obvious 4
different solutions depending on which piece you wish to pierce. I found this a
delightful little challenge to try in the evenings and finding the final one
took me a surprising amount of time (but then I am usually terrible at packing
puzzles). This is a lovely puzzle for beginners and experienced puzzlers alike.
Just one solution
Lucie has contacted me free I posted this to correct me and tell me the true aim:
"The goal of the Pin-Up Box is to pack everything inside and fix with the pin, in a way that nothing drops out when you hold the box upside down. Four pieces with a pin-hole, each giving a solution."
Time to try again!
Turtles
Turtles designed by our very own Jakub
This one is very cute. Jakub decided that he wanted to turn his hand to puzzle
design himself and created something delightful. Turtles reminds me of the
Bison puzzle from Xmas 2021 - it is a sequentially interlocking puzzle created from
Wenge and Acacia. The secret is to find the way to remove the first piece and
then it will serially disassemble. In the end you are left with a bunch of
rather interesting pieces and a genuine laugh out loud moment when you
suddenly realise what the guys have done. When I showed Mrs S, even she was
delighted with the end result. It is not a difficult puzzle but it is
genuinely delightful.
There seems to be no end to the design skills shown by Christoph Lohe. His
interlocking/burr puzzles are always relatively simple in basic outline shape
but the design of the solution is always a wonderful and very fun challenge.
Over the years he has produced a bunch of burrs with frames and they have all
been brilliant. I think that the Timburr (beautifully recreated here by Jakub
from Purpleheart, Padauk, Wenge and Ash) is one of his very best designs. The
solution level is a very high 31.3.1.3.3.3 which is astonishing for just
a 6 piece burr. Despite the high level and a fair number of dead ends at
first, finding the pathway is a pleasant exploration and has 2 or 3 lovely
Aha! moments in the process. It took me a couple of evenings to dismantle it.
It looks so simple!
Unfortunately for me, having balanced the pieces on my cat as I sequentially
removed them, he rolled over and they all slid off into a pile. Despite this, I
was actually able to reassemble the puzzle from scratch with only a couple of
days attempting to place the pieces the wrong way around. I found the reassembly
challenge even more fun than the initial disassembly (although I very much doubt
I could have managed it without having done that first). This puzzle is simply
fabulous - one of my favourites in this batch.
Cerberus
Cerberus by Girish Sharma
Girish is a relatively new name to me. I noticed that he suddenly appeared in
the
IPP design competition winners list
this year with what looks like either a TIC or sequentially interlocking cube
puzzle. Here we have another interlocking cube puzzle made from Wenge, Padauk,
Acacia and Maple. I have always adored these puzzles ever since I got hooked
by Richard Gain's
microcubology puzzles way back at the beginning of my puzzling career. Initially, I could
only disassemble them and over the years got better and better and even enjoy
them as assembly puzzles. One of my all time favourite interlocking puzzles is
one of Juha Levonen's designs - the Juha's 12. This puzzle has a special piece
which marches up and down through the other pieces during the solve process
and is absolutely wonderful to play with. The Cerberus by Girish left me with
a similar feeling. The pieces move all over the place and one piece in
particular marches through. Once it has been removed (after 25 moves) it takes
another 5 to remove the second and then 4 to finally separate the last 2
pieces:
Absolutely stunning design and beautifully made
This puzzle was probably my absolute favourite from this release. I am really
looking forward to any new creations from Girish in the future.
On Facebook,
Tamás has
been designing and producing some
absolutely incredible challenges
and has worked with Pelikan over the last year to bring them to reality for us
all to enjoy, however, I have not seen him design a packing puzzle before. I was
surprised and delighted to see the Umbrella amongst the latest arrivals. This
packing puzzle has something special which is just what I would expect from
Tamás - all the pieces have a unique box like design which allows them to be
changed into 2 different shapes. The workmanship required to create this puzzle
is astounding - the American Walnut L shaped pieces have a stem and a box round
that stem which slides freely into each of the two positions. All the pieces
need to be placed into the Ash box. There are quite a lot of solutions and it is
a rather delightful soothing process to try and find them. There is always a
single voxel gap inside and I have attempted to find solutions which have that
gap in various different positions. This is a lovely idea and fun for all
experience levels.
The name of this was at the suggestion of Allard who I assume must have helped
with some prototyping. This name is much better than the original and whilst
the pieces are not hollow, it is a good description of what needs to be done.
Dr Latussek was heavily influenced by the now classic puzzle by Vesa Timonen,
Lox in Box which has cylindrical wooden pieces to be packed into a tray. Volker
with his amazing 3D design skills really wanted to turn this into a more
difficult packing puzzle more than just fitting pieces into a tray. When he
knew that I was going to receive a copy he contacted me with his origin story:
“Place the eight logs into the box.” This is the simple goal of the
wonderful packing puzzle LOX IN BOX by Vesa Timonen. These round rods,
beveled on one side, are just crying out to be twisted out of the plane.
I wanted to find eight round rods that would fit into an open
cube-shaped box. And to do it in a unique arrangement. For this job, I
needed to understand the shape of these round rods. At times I was
convinced a nice mix of eight round rods would fit into the cube in a
particularly clever way, only to learn that by tilting, rotating and
swapping, other fillings could be obtained. Those round beveled rods can
hurt. In the end, a mix of round rods with only two different lengths
won out. Unfortunately, after that, I wondered why I wasn't using my
typical box. A new problem was formulated and an intensive collaboration
with Pelikan ensued.
The result is TUBE IN CUBE. For this, one round rod had to be
shortened. This is not pretty, but in return the round rods unfold their
full beauty in the restricted box, at least the part I was allowed to
discover. If you want to experience the beauty of the round beveled
rods, I highly recommend practising with two rods first and only then
successively increasing the number...and so my story ends as it began:
“Place the eight logs into the box.”
An amazing design and wonderfully brought to life
Volker was not wrong! This puzzle is a fabulous creation and is tremendously
difficult without being impossible. The shapes scream out for experimentation
in pairs and different combinations but assembly outside the box is impossible
because everything is very unstable and rolls all over the place. However,
despite this, you get enough ideas to then start assembling in the box. It is
also a dexterity puzzle - the pieces just do not want to stay in place (in
fact I have really struggled just to get the thing back to the travel
position). As you play, it becomes obvious how the short pieces can interact
and then it is a matter of working out how to get them inside. Lots of
different ideas spring to mind as you play but always the last piece cannot be
inserted - not just because the lid gets in the way, but because there is
simply no room inside for that piece. Eventually there is an incredible Aha!
moment and with a lot of fiddling about the final piece can go inside. The
precision is amazing and they only just fit inside the box. This is also my
pick from the bunch.
Yes, I am sure that this is one of the puzzles that you would expect from the
amazing design brain of Tamás Vanyó! This is the third of his castle
collaborations with Pelikan. I have to admit that I have not had much time to
try this one yet. It consists of 9 pieces to fit on a frame. Each piece has
the same basic structure with a waist that is 2x2 voxels in size which will
fit into the frame and then on either side of that waist are the wonderful
characteristic castle shapes based on a 3x3 grid. This puzzle is not quite as
straightforward as that because they have added an extra twist. There are 8
ways to place the pieces on the frame but the extra challenge is to organise
them in such a way that can walk through the entire castle from START to STOP
(i.e. create one continuous path using both sides of pieces). There is a start
mark on the frame and a small arrow which serves as a sort of "checkpoint"
telling you to flip over as it's on the opposite corner of the start and
end.
So far I have managed to assemble all the pieces on the frame which alone was
a nice fun challenge but I have certainly not gotten anywhere near creating a
path all the way around the puzzle from beginning to end. I think this might
well take me several weeks to complete. The assembled puzzle on the frame
looks like one of
MC Escher's impossible 3D
creations and even unsolved looks beautiful on display.
There are some absolutely amazing puzzles here and all have been created with the precision we have come to expect of Jakub, Jaroslav and their team. You will not be disappointed! My favourites from this batch are:
Cerberus - just for the wonderful progressive movement and because I am addicted to interlocking cubes.
Tube in Cube - Volker does it again and uses a new shape to make something incredibly clever.
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