This is a rather quick blog post. I have just spent 45 minutes on the phone
trying to provide computer support to my 86 year old Mother-in-law for her 10
year old iMac. To my utter horror, TeamViewer no longer supports her ancient
operating system and everything had to be done by her describing what she saw on
screen over the phone and me trying to give instructions. She is not very
computer savvy (unsurprising given her age) but she does try and manages reasonably well for the most part. I am not sure who was in worse
condition at the end of it all. I think she was a bit frazzled but had mostly
managed to achieve what she wanted and I had chest pain. As a result of this, plus the puzzles only arrived on Thursday, I only have two little reviews for
you.
Yes, it has been a few months and it is coming up to the IPP so it is time for
Jakub and team to release the next batch of puzzles. There are a good few,
including one of the greatly anticipated Pelikan design puzzles.
Five Helicopters
Amongst this release are a few tray packing puzzles which is one of the less
common types for Pelikan to release. Of course, they won't do one with
plastic pieces, they make theirs out of an assortment of rather lovely woods
which have been laser cut and a wooden tray as well. This one was designed
by
Tibor Mikloš
who was last featured on this blog and from Pelikan back in
December 2023
with a padlock burr that one was a very nice design and this also doesn't
disappoint.
Usually, I am terrible at this sort of puzzle - I find that I spend most of
my time performing lots of random trial and error packings and can't keep
track of what I have attempted. This means I go round and round in circles
before giving up in disgust at how rubbish I am. I have many many puzzles
from Mine that I haven't managed to solve for this reason.
In this one there's a lovely large space to fill and 5 identical helicopters
to place it it. The thing about this challenge is that the helicopters, with
their blades and tails are very spiky and take up a large space and don't
seem to interlock together in any intuitive ways. I played with the pieces
outside the tray for a while and found a nice way to put 3 together which
didn't leave a lot of space between them. Maybe there would be a fun
mathematical tiling to use? I placed them in the tray and picked up my 4th
piece only to find that if I tried to continue the logical sequence, it
wouldn't fit. I tried the same thing many times and singularly failed. maybe
it's not a mathematical solution? I then looked at the pattern on the side
of the tray to see if I could place some pieces closer to the edge and make
more space as a result. This was a key thought! Unusual for me to have
thoughts but I had better make the most of it. After another 30-40 minutes
of playing I had a major breakthrough and had my 5 helicopters in the tray
and a photo taken. Hooray! Ive solved a packing puzzle without just trying
random things! It's pretty good this one - perfect for a beginner or an
expert!
Swan Cube
The wonderfully talented Lucie has appeared on my site many many times and I
have gushed every time about her designs. She has not disappointed here
either. The Swan cube is made using Wenge, Maple and wonderfully vibrant
Merbau. It arrived assembled as a sort of cuboid structure with gaps in it so
obviously not correctly assembled. Obviously, the aim is to dismantle it
(quite an easy feat) and then assemble it as a proper cube shape with no
gaps/holes. In the assembled shape above there is no indication of the reason for the odd name, but once the 6 pieces have been separated the reason immediately comes clear:
 |
| Six swan shapes |
The pieces all have a hole in the side and a swan shaped neck and beak that clearly needs to engage with the hole. Once all beaks are in all holes then we should have a completed cube - easy? Nope! Luckily, I did have the forethought to take a photo of the assembly orientation so that I can store it in the transport configuration.
I began looking to see how the walls, holes and beaks would interact and quickly made some good progress...until I had a piece where the beak wouldn't reach the hole. Damn! I knew it had been going too well. Starting afresh with a different set of beaks and holes and I had something that really looked promising as it would make a nice half cube around one corner. The problem here was that whilst the three pieces should interact nicely, it would require a coordinate motion to achieve it and that wasn't possible with these shapes. Sigh! After yet more failure, I realised that two of the pieces had an extra cubic on them. That was getting in the way of what I wanted to do. Time to think©.
After a little more time I had a rather good idea. I worked on my idea for a while and made progress gradually until my last piece fitted perfectly into place.
 |
| Oooh clever! |
This was very gratifying and a perfect logic puzzle. I dare say that it can be solved by randomly putting pieces together until you get the right assembly but this should be solved as a pure logic problem. It is very clever and looks lovely in both assembled and false assembly positions. Probably best for the more medium experienced puzzler rather than absolute beginner.
I will be working on the rest of the puzzles over the coming week or so and get my reviews out to you as soon as I can. However, my experience with providing remote computer support has given me the overwhelming urge to lie down for a while! 😱😱😱
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