Jos Bergmans cubes

I apologise for the little hiatus in posting! I felt I was getting a little stale and needed a break. But, I am back again having made a good number of new toy purchases (not told Mrs S yet!!!) and am ready to go. It is a nice mixture of special craftsman made puzzles as well as a rather extensive hoard from Puzzle Master.

Pirouette

Starting with Pirouette, I had initially played with this at the 3rd Midlands Puzzle party. This was just a prototype that Richard had made for his own pleasure. He had not at that time gained permission to sell the design so could not let any one have it. I recall quite vividly my exclamation when it came apart with such a beautiful final set of moves. Richard had only made the one copy for his own personal use and had not asked permission to produce it for sale. I encouraged him at the time that he should but it didn't seem to occur. I reminded him once and he seemed to get the idea that it might be a seller!!!

When it came up for sale on the Puzzle Paradise auction site, I couldn't resist it and bought it immediately - remembering that very first exclamation many months earlier. It is still available on Richard's Etsy store. This time it is made in a large format than the original and is all the better for it.

Richard's description is:
"This has to be one of my new favourite puzzles. It is a classic Jos Bergmans design which builds on the techniques first demonstrated in Whirlwind to create a puzzle that requires multiple rotations and coordinated movements. Jos also has a knack for coming up with great names for his puzzles and this one is truly balletic to watch as it gracefully spins in different directions as it slowly comes apart."

It is a 4 cm interlocking 4x4x4 cube with no internal or external holes. It consists of 6 pieces with 1 solution. Be warned that rotations are required and Burrtools is thus not helpful! The number of steps needed to remove each piece - 1-2-2-5. This doesn't sound difficult but just try it!

Dancing with Microcubology

A few months ago when I met Richard Gain again at James Dalgety's Puzzle Museum, he told me that he had a few more designs nearly ready to come out from the relative newcomer to the puzzle design world called Jeff Namkung. Jeff  has specialised in interlocking solids in the form of cubes most of which do not require rotations to disassemble - he has named them all after dances! Now you know that I just cannot resist these puzzles! I obtained one of the early ones called Quickstep as soon as it was announced and reviewed it here. Richard also said that he had some more of the Jos Bergmans puzzles coming too - I was beside myself with anticipation!! Weeks passed with not a word and I forgot about it.

In early March an email went around to all the Puzzle Paradise addicts subscribers that Richard had made and dyed another batch of cubes and put them up for sale. I immediately ordered 2 of the most interesting ones and because I was too excited/lazy/stupid to read the whole page I clicked on the PayPal buy link and paid for them with the American postage fee. After a little email conversation during which I admitted to being an eedjit, we decided to make it 3 puzzles with the UK postage. A few days later I was pleased to receive both Whirlwind and Pirouette by Jos Bergmans and Jive by Jeff Namkung. Then a couple of weeks ago he announced that he had made yet more!! So what was I to do except buy them too!! So now I have 5 Namkung's and 2 Bergmans' to play with - how exciting!!! This review I will focus on the Namkung puzzles. So "I'm askin', are you dancin'"? There will be a few of you Brits who will be old enough to remember where that came from!

Quickstep from Microcubology

Quickstep Front

Quickstep Back

Some of my favourites types of puzzle are the interlocking cube type puzzles and for this reason I get quite excited when I have an email from Richard Gain, the man at the helm of Microcubology. I have bought a copy of almost everything he has produced. You can buy from his Shapeways shop or you can buy dyed versions from his Etsy store. He also has been known to sell via John Devost's Puzzle Paradise auction site. I personally am not that keen on the undyed puzzles and tend to order them pre-coloured - they certainly look pretty good on the shelf - as you can see from my fairly extensive collection!

I have to keep them labeled!

Richard announced this new puzzle via his YouTube channel. It was designed by Jeff Namkung, a relative newcomer to the puzzle design scene. he had apparently been influenced by Jos Bergmans. In the few months he has been designing, he has published 10 different cubes, all named after dances! The inspiration for this cube was the Mayer's cube from Pentangle which required 7 moves to extract the first piece. Jeff took this idea and produced a MUCH more complex cube of order 11.5.3.3! Yes! You read it right - 11 moves to extract the first piece! With a 5 piece puzzle!! Richard got permission to produce this and has done a wonderful job with it.

After it was announced, I immediately started watching for them and jumped at the chance to buy one within an hour of them arriving in stock - I really am quite addicted to them!!! Richard gives you the option of paying a few £££ less to get them in the unassembled state and I took the risk of this. Not to save the money! When you tot up the amount I have spent on puzzles in the last year (shudder!!!) then you will realise that a few 'quid' won't really help my finances very much. I chose it unassembled because of the extra challenge this provides. Three of the smaller cubes had been bought this way and I really loved the extra difficulty.

Superstrings from Microcubology

Superstrings

At the recent International Puzzle Party in Berlin Richard Gain won a joint first prize from the Jury for his Superstrings 3D printed puzzle. I had a chance to preview it at the 3rd Midlands puzzle party a few months ago and was thoroughly enthralled. Richard said that he would be making more after the IPP and putting them up for sale. I did express an interest and he knows full well that I cannot resist his puzzles. I have just about everything he has produced so far! Shortly after he won, I received an email saying that 2 more of his productions (including this one) was going up for auction on the Puzzle Paradise auction site. Unfortunately I was unable to get it straight away and it got sold almost immediately!

I was sure that he would produce more (they are available direct from his Microcubology Shapeways store - but only in un-dyed form and I prefer the coloured versions). On the store he says:
"Two open-ended Superstrings with the correct spin can be merged into a super-symmetrical cube.
The idea for this puzzle emerged when I was designing shapes based on two interlocked tetrahedra.  Inspired by ideas from 'string theory' and 'super-symmetry', I began to search for shapes that were both symmetrical and as similar as possible.
Taking the two pieces apart is not too difficult; reassembling them back into a cube can be more challenging."

Last week he emailed me to say that he had produced a couple more and did I want one? I responded within a few nanoseconds that I would love one (unfortunately, for financial reasons, I had to pass on the switch cube he had also made).
A few days later it arrived and to my surprise was in a nice perfectly fitting clear perspex box which holds it in the cube shape).

My final two puzzles from Microcubology

Elevator Pieces

These last 2 puzzles from Richard gain's Microcubology store were actually bought pre-dyed direct from the Etsy store. They are not in stock at present but if you contact Richard direct then he can make them freshly for you (Just contact me for his email address). I requested that this group be supplied in pieces for a little "extra" challenge and it certainly made them considerably harder to solve!

Two More Microcubology Puzzles

I couldn't resist the new puzzles that Richard had put up for sale on his Etsy store. I asked for these to be sent out in the disassembled form which I suspect may have been a mistake!!! The first one I tried was Roll up! Roll up! which Richard claims is his most difficult design and probably the one he is most proud of. I only read this after I had done it so I feel particularly proud of myself!!!

Roll Up! Roll Up!

He actually gives a couple of hints on how to go about it on the Microcubology site. Unfortunately I had not bothered to look, so attempted this all alone. It requires a precise sequence of 14 movements including sliding moves and some "sneaky" rotations.

Shapeways 3D printed puzzles - Microcubology

Microcubology delivery

During my casual surfing the web for yet more puzzles and I found the Shapeways 3D printing site with a few puzzle designs on it. One of those designers is Richard Gain and his microsite is called Microcubology (because he makes small interlocking cube puzzles!)

From this I ended up on YouTube, where I saw a few of his cube puzzles in action. I liked the look of them but did feel they were a bit too small for my liking (one or two are the size of a fingernail!!!) More recently he has developed a technique to make bigger puzzles which are hollow and at a similar cost to the tiny solid ones so I finally decided to get a few. They can be ordered direct from Shapeways but then they arrive unassembled and all one colour (usually white for you to dye yourself) which I was not keen on. One of his pages suggests contacting him to get dyed versions at a small extra cost, so this is exactly what I did. Initially you can do this through the Shapeways private messaging service but then he gave me his email address (if you would like to contact him then let me know and I will send you his address). More recently he has opened an Etsy store to allow buying some dyed puzzles.

It did take a few weeks for him to receive the puzzles, dye them and then send them to me but communication was great throughout. I ordered Quaternary Qube, Twisting the Night Away and Pivot Cube as seen in the picture above.