Clawing Back From The Edge...

Or Can You Have Too Much Of A Good Thing?

A Tetralogy of Tetra-Claws

When the genius (yes, it's Derek Bosch again!) produces something for the IPP, everyone should sit up and pay attention. Derek, has an ability to visualise and create 3D structures better than anyone I know (probably the only person who comes close is Lee Krasnow and unfortunately I cannot really afford any of his wonderful toys. 

Derek had discussed with me the design woes as he developed the Tetra-claw puzzle and I was delighted for him when he created a really clever puzzle which falls into the N-ary/Gray code genre as well has having a bit of a dexterity aspect to it as well. I wasn't able to attend the IPP last year in Texas but I heard that the exchange went well and Derek duly risked the wrath of Mrs B when he acquired about 80 extra toys to squeeze into his already crammed house. Oh boy! I definitely know the pain of trying to squeeze more toys in than I have space for under the baleful eye/whip of a pissed off woman!

I had absolutely no expectation of receiving one myself but did hope that I'd get to play with one at an MPP sometime. To my grateful surprise, Derek told me that he would print me a copy when he found some time. I was, of course delighted and a box arrived last week much to the displeasure of "she who causes the seasons to change from fear". I was even more surprised to find a group of 4 very similar looking puzzles of different sizes. 2 of them are made from the most amazing plastic I've ever seen - they have an iridescent sheen to them and they have a colour gradient from one end of a piece to the other. I have no idea how this works as they show no sign of interchanging spools of plastic.

On questioning, Derek told me they are small Mini-claw, 4 colour standard Tetra-claw, Purplish Tetra-claw plus and monster sized Tetra-claw extreme. He suggested I work up in size with the mini really just being there to show me how the initial piece assembly was organised. Of course, I couldn't resist and set to work almost straight away in front of the TV.

Mini Tetra-claw has lots of movement and comes apart in just 4 moves. I didn't know that until it fell to bits in my lap! OMG!

Whilst it was all very exciting to see that happen, I had absolutely no idea how they had been organised or what order they went back together in. I was texting with Derek as it happened and he was helpful enough to send me a trio of photos showing the order and general organisation of the pieces for assembly. Thanks mate! 

Without those photos I would still be fighting with the mini Claw!

Well, that was a shock!

With the photos and his text in front of me I was able to gather the pieces into an appropriate shape to have it fall to bits in my lap again and a wild expletive got Mrs S' attention. She said I had gone rather pale. The reason for this was that I had a sudden thought that I might have 16 pieces of plastic and no way to put them back together again! In some trepidation, I asked Derek how much dexterity might be needed and also how many hands. Unfortunately in PuzzleMad HQ there is only one pair of hands that will work on puzzles - no assistance is available. Derek reassuringly told me that all that was needed was 1 pair of hands and a table. Maybe I should not be attempting this on my lap?

In the end it took me another 6 or 7 attempts before I had the little orange monster back together. After this, I at least had a rough idea how the pieces needed to be held to get them to begin their interaction.

I immediately set to work on the exchange puzzle/basic Tetra-claw. I was vewy vewy bwave and continued in my armchair whilst watching TV and not a table in sight! 

This one, straight away, revealed itself to be N-ary in nature with the legs moving in and out around a hidden maze and after one sequence, the moves of another leg becomes available. Fun and interesting. 

The sequence is not very long and I did not need to take any notes. I went back and forth multiple times to lay down a muscle memory of the moves but with it on my lap I did not dare actually take it fully to bits at that time. I left it until the following day to attempt the full disassembly:

Almost there

Different mazes and pin count visible

Having taken it fully apart, I was able to appreciate the extent of the genius design. It becomes obvious that there are pins on the ends of the claws with one having 3 pins and no mazes, 1 having 2 pins and one maze and so on until there is one with 3 mazes and no pins. Brilliant!

I had not actually paid enough attention to how the pieces were actually oriented when they came apart and so, even though I knew from derek's pics how they should be aligned for initial assembly, I did not know which claw should align with which part of the next claw. Time to Think© which hurt me a lot. Even though I think my 3D visuospatial ability is pretty good because of what I do for a living (converting a 2D ultrasound image to a 3D knowledge of a space for nerve blocks should be useful), I really struggled to work out how the pieces needed to interact initially.

Reassured that I could do it with one pair of hands and a table, I sat down and after a few false starts, I managed to created my widely separated shape which could then be collapsed down using the reverse of the sequence that I had learned and I had it back to the beginning in about an hour - Phew!

It's gorgeous!

Did I even dare try the Tetra-claw plus? I wasn't sure at all but I knew I had a potential blog post with this and I had to be a bwave boy!

The Plus version started off fine with me learning the sequence gradually but I began to catch glimpses of the mazes and realised this was going to be a huge undertaking. I had better return to the beginning and take notes as I explore. Except...

Aargh! I managed to do something odd. I found myself going round and round in circles and not managing to get back to the beginning. What was I doing wrong? I have no idea! It obviously is not a good idea to multitask whilst doing these. Eventually I managed to reset and then started the sequences on each arm and developed my own notation to describe what I was doing. It probably took me an hour to find the final moves to release the claws for disassembly (it would seem that the final part of the sequence is different to the rest and quite well hidden. I fully explored back and forth a few times and then screwed my courage to the sticking point and took it apart. Oh my! It is a beautiful thing to behold:

Nearly apart

Much more complex mazes!

Whilst it was fully extended and rather rickety, I was very careful not to jiggle it and ensured that my notes included the rough orientation of the pieces. Even though you can work out the orientation of the pieces from scratch as you try to assemble, I did not feel terribly confident and just noted which maze was visible on each claw. Of course, this didn't help me at all!

After taking the photos for my records and the blog, I started to put it back together again and full of confidence, managed to get the 4 claws interacting with each other. Hooray! Maybe I am less of an eeejit than I think? Nope...I'm a fully qualified eejit! My notes did not take into account how I had turned the puzzle during disassembly and whilst they stacked with the tips all engaged, they would not actually interact with each other. Bugger! Back to square one and work it out from scratch. 

The working out didn't actually take very long - After about 15 minutes, I had the tips ready to go and the puzzle started to be slid together. The sequence was going well until I found that I could not get one of the claws to engage with its' maze - oh hell! I went back and forth with increasingly strong swear words (I can swear like a trooper in Tagalog much to the amusement/horror of the Filipino nurses I work with and this was less alarming to Mrs S who was sitting with me). I ended up returning to the beginning many many times and trying different orientations of the 3 maze claw before realising that I had that correct all along but had missed my entry point moment for that particular maze. Derek, I don't know whether you did that on purpose but it scared me to death! Finally after about 2-3 hours I had reassembled the Tetra-claw plus! I was petrified of the next challenge. I went to bed last night considering writing only about the first 3 but I knew you would all be disappointed in me if I did.

It's extreme!

This morning I bwavely decided to "go for it" and maybe be left with one unasssembleable puzzle.

I started out as I did before with a quick exploration to see which pieces moved. I have worked on a technique where the first 2 claws to move are kept as back left and back right and then the third piece to move becomes front. After that the last piece to move will be oriented at the top. Those in the know would quickly tell me that this is not a very good choice as inevitably the first piece to come out seems to be one of the back claws. I probably should make it that the first removed piece is the top claw but I had my technique and my notation and did not dare change anything. 

The exploration of this showed me quickly that the mazes were significantly more complex and a couple involved a sort of loop/hook which made the sequence more of a dance as several pieces deeded to go back and forth multiple times. I got lost a few times initially before I properly started taking notes. Here is what my notes look like for the extreme:

Yes the writing is bad! I can understand it...sort of!

Eventually, I was getting towards the exit with one claw fully extended but this time, there was still quite a lot of work to be done to actually release the first piece despite that fully extended claw not taking part any longer. I got lost a couple of times trying to find the moves to open the exit - it was well hidden in the maze. Once I had found it, the whole thing was fully extended and rather unstable (hence no photo) and I took it apart for the obligatory photo:

Some very complex mazes on this one!

I was feeling a bit cocky by now! This was the fourth one - I MUST be able to reassemble this one. I had not taken note of which way the mazes were facing when disassembled. I figured that I had had to work them all out so far and this would be just more of the same. I was right but it took me quite some time to get the bloody thing back together. I had the same problem as the previous one getting the claw to engage in its maze. Multiple attempts and backups finally got me there! Phew!

I have had 4 days of fun with these - they are amazing. Thank you Derek for the gift and the opportunity to bask in your genius again. I can conclude that the answer to my question at the top of the post is that you CANNOT have too much of a good thing!

If you get a chance to play with one or maybe even buy them for your collection then jump at the chance. They are NOT just an N-ary puzzle. There are multiple sequences and then the work required to find the way the pieces will interact to get them assembled. Of course, a bit of dexterity too but not so much that you need to "phone a friend".

MiBinity 1 - Allard Got There First...

And He Is Right Yet Again!

MiBinity 1
A collaboration between Michel van Ipenburg and Jack Krijnen

Quite a long time ago, Michel sent out an email to a group of his friends telling us all that he has been working with Jack to create something that anyone with an interest in N-ary puzzles would be delighted to own: "would we like to buy a copy for our collections?"

I think that about a nano-second went by before I emailed back to say that I was in! As you know, I have a bit of an addiction to N-ary puzzles (I still need to order some of the latest ones from Stephan Baumegger but I have sort of run out of money recently for after my latest purchases). I also cannot resist anything made by Jack - he doesn't produce may puzzles but when he does they are amazing. There was a short delay once everyone had replied to Michel and Jack made the correct number. It arrived in a surprisingly neat little package. 

The original design remit was to make a 3-piece N-ary burr and just this description alone caught my attention - how can you make a significantly difficult burr with 3 pieces to be challenging? And how can you possibly make a 3 piece N-ary burr? Well, this combination of puzzlers made it not just possible but really good. 

The small leaflet included

Challenges listed

On the  other side of the leaflet was a list of challenges - who can resist?

The puzzle is beautiful to look at and very tactile - it is an interesting burr that only moves in 2 dimensions. I don't think that I have seen anything like it before. I am very used to pushing and pulling in 3D that this new idea must have upset me somehow because I found it a little confusing at first. The key to an N-ary puzzle is to find the repeating patterns and I struggled to do that with this one.

After a few moves

Each of the pieces moves along an axis back and forth along a track that Jack has cut in the inside. To make it N-ary there must be more than one track - there is indeed one on each side of the inside of the puzzle. Being able to see small segments of the tracks doesn't seem to help much with the solution - it's all down to exploration. I'm a little ashamed to admit that it took me 2 or 3 days to work it out properly.

Two different tracks show how the N-ary solution is created

Having worked out the correct repeating sequence, it gets much easier. At level 25.5, this is not a hugely difficult puzzle but it is very different from everything else in my collection. This is a delight and I am hopeful that there will be a MiBinity 2.

Have I managed all the challenges? I dismantled it, I found 2 maker's marks and mostly explained the name. Fab!

A Puzzle For A Scrub Nurse?

Shuttle Run

Another 6 day week has meant that I have not managed to solve anything for you. In the few hours I did manage to find, I think I...erm...bit off more than I could chew! The Shuttle Run puzzle is yet another of the incredible designs by the amazing Chinese designer, Shuai Chi. It was one of the designs recently offered up for sale by Aaron Wang from his Facebook page. The puzzles that he puts up for sale are always incredibly complex and ALWAYS very difficult. Most are Level 10 or 10+ and the ones that he does occasionally label as lower than that are, I reckon, actually level 10 for us normal people.

The workmanship in these puzzles is superb and they are priced accordingly. Everyone thinks that wire puzzles are extremely cheap but this one was $47. I must add that it is worth every penny/cent.

I could not buy every single one that went up for sale for fear of spending several hundred dollars and receiving a Whack! Ouch! from Mrs S who has returned from Edinburgh and is unimpressed with the proliferation that has occurred whilst she was away. I bought the few that I felt I might (possibly if the wind is going the right way) stand a chance of successfully solving. I still have a whole lot of his previous puzzles unsolved and persistently beating me.

Recent disentanglement puzzles
The sheer length of string is very intimidating!

You may be wondering why I have called the Shuttle Run a puzzle for a scrub nurse? The operating theatre staff out there who are stupid enough to read my drivel (I know there are a few surgeons and anaesthetists and who knows, maybe even the odd theatre nurse) will all be aware of the vital role that counting plays during any operation. At the beginning and end of every single operation there is an exhaustive count of every instrument, swab, neuro pattie and suture to ensure that nothing that shouldn't be is left in the patient. It is an odd fact that scrub nurses can only count to 5! Any higher number than that and they count to 5 again. The very senior nurses (i.e. old) might manage to count to 10 but never higher than that. If a nurse has counted above 10 then she has taken her shoes and socks off! I often work in a vascular theatre and and counting the patient's digits is no use as the leg count is often less than 2 and the toe count almost inevitably less than 10!

The Shuttle Run puzzle seems to require counting to 5 and no higher! Perfect for a scrub nurse. The only downside is that this puzzle needs you to count to 5 in odd creative ways:

1, 1 2, 2, 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 3, 3, 3 4, 1 3 4, 1 2 3 4, 2 3 4, 2 4, 1 2 4, 1 4, 4, 4 5 etc...

Being a bear of little brain, I could not do this sequence in my head! I had to speak it out loud and this REALLY did nothing to improve Mrs S' mood. She has a cold just now and is not really enjoying my monotonic counting in funny ways. Periodically she interjects random sequences of numbers which has on several occasions forced me to stop puzzling and may have contributed to me backtracking inadvertently back to the beginning.

Is this progress? I hope so, but am not entirely certain!

That sequence is just what is required for the top section of the puzzle - that is obviously a binary sequence. Unfortunately, the sequence has to pass back and forth for each single unit advance of the lower section. I have not yet managed to work it out properly yet due to dementia/confusion, but I think that the bottom section has 2 states to go through for each column supporting the shuttle and thus I am tentatively categorising this one as a ternary puzzle. I may be wrong on this and it may be higher than that because I have managed to get stuck several times and been inadvertently backtracked at least 5 times due to stupidity and interference by Mrs S.

I will persevere for a while and fully expect to fail dismally. However, I am having some fun trying to work it out. 

My plea to Aaron - please please please make a few easier challenges? There are very few people on the planet who can solve your incredibly difficult and beautiful contraptions. Maybe you could make a few level 6-9? This would be helpful to those of us who are less capable than you!

Finding the First Steps Usually Helps...

but not in every case!

Lock & Key

Always useful to have a diagram

Only level 7!

I seem to buy a LOT of puzzles from my friend Aaron Wang! I don't solve very many puzzles from my friend Aaron Wang! I put this down to a deficiency in my own brain because the puzzles are all very nicely made and well illustrated with an instruction diagram. Plus, I know that Aaron himself has solved them all - many of them he solves in his head. You would think that I should have no problem with these, I have had lots of practice and have a lot of empty space in my head (according to Mrs S) so there should be plenty of room for solving. Alas, that does not appear to be the case...not even occasionally. I think I have only managed to solve 1 of the previous batch which was allegedly a level 9. The MUCH easier level 7, Telescope (pictured right), still has me beaten. I keep all the ones to be solved in a little basket in the conservatory where I can idly pick one up periodically and do battle before putting it back having been humbly beaten yet again.

During the week, I had an idle 15 minutes with no assigned chores and some time to myself. I, yet again, picked up the rather beautiful Lock & Key puzzle, designed by the rather incredible DDK who is responsible for rather a lot of designs that I cannot solve. I keep returning to this one because it looks lovely and also there is a quick release in the string for the (frequent) occasion when a knot is formed. I have to say that I think that ALL string type puzzles should come with these as I have permanently murdered a few puzzles by getting into an awful tangle that I could not return from. It is hard to tell from the picture but it is not actually obvious how to start the puzzle solve - there is no direction to feed the string that screams go this way. In actual fact the first step on this one requires a twist of the loop which I always hesitate with. Eventually I bit the bullet and just tried a few different first steps and always ended up in either a knot or a dead end and had to restart. This time, however, I tried something and realised with a start that this puzzle is N-ary! I had had thoughts but wasn't really sure until this point. 

I lurve N-ary puzzles and this one is particularly fun - it is fiddly due to small rings and quite easy to get lost in the sequence and find yourself at an impasse or back where you came from. Having had my Aha! moment and made what looked like progress, I found myself at another spot where it wasn't really clear how to progress (another first step problem). This time I stuck with it and tried a few different "late first steps" and food what I was looking for - the N-ary sequence was underway again. After getting lost a couple of times I could breathe a sigh of relief and put it down ready for a new photo:

At last - 5 months of attempts!

I will be using the clasp to reset it and then solving again before attempting the reverse assembly process.

Having solved that one which I belatedly realised was N-ary, I had yet another try at the Ratchet puzzle (bought in September 2001) which quite obviously was N-ary:

Ratchet - beautifully made in steel

Diagram less helpful?

As soon as you look at it, you know that it is N-ary. The initial step in the solution was also not immediately obvious to me. There is a tiny clue to the first step in the wiring diagram but it is very subtle and I had missed it for 5 months. I should have found it much sooner but being made of steel, this one is not just jingly - it clangs and clanks! If you think that jingling upsets Mrs S then you should see what clanging does! The bruises were visible from a distance! I could only play with this infrequently when I was properly alone. After solving the Lock & Key and filled with N-ary strength, I started on Ratchet (this one had been entered into the 2022 IPP design competition) and for the first time had an Aha! moment - I found something special and then was able to see it on the diagram. Progress at last!

And that is where it stopped. Having found an obvious first step, I cannot convert it into a second step! The string is quite long which will almost certainly be deliberate and unfortunately there is no quick release mechanism so when I try a few things, I quickly get scared of a knot and return to the beginning. To be perfectly honest, all the possible second steps that I have attempted have not really led to anything good anyway.  

Alas, just because I find a first step does not necessarily mean I can find the next. It has gone back in my naughty basket of puzzles still to be solved - Sigh.

If you would like to be tortured by Aaron then he shows off his creations on his Facebook page.

Getting Ziggy With It

Ziggurat

This has been written ahead of time and set to publish at my routine time. Having had some time off work, I have to pay the price by working two weekends in a row! Sob!

Whilst I am here, can I ask that you all think about the awful atrocities that are going on in Ukraine. One of our fellow puzzlers, Peter Grabarchuk, has asked that I highlight to you what is happening and request that you consider doing anything you can to help out. Either give to a charity that is helping in Ukraine or that is helping support refugees. Anything you can do will help out and ease a terrible situation. 

Back to the puzzling…

My friend Eitan has been rather busy with work and having a family over the last few years and seemed to have almost withdrawn from Puzzle design and manufacture. My other puzzles of his were the incredible Eitan's star (one of the most difficult and marvellous twisty puzzles ever mass produced) and the Master Curvy Copter which he designed and used Shapeways to 3D print for me. With some considerable surprise I saw him offer up a new design called Ziggurat, which he was 3D printing himself. The Ziggurat is a massive Mesopotamian pyramid-like structure usually with 2 to 7 stories. Eitan was going even more massive with EIGHT! How could I resist? I jumped on the offer and sent off some electronic money (not actually a lot) and got some feedback from him that the colours that I had chosen were great. I waited for the US and UK postal services to get their acts together and finally took delivery.

In the meantime, Michel van Ipenburg had written about it in his newsletter as well as pronounced on Facebook that it was a very nice fun design which was a great relief. Michel is the foremost connoiseur of the N-ary puzzle group and if he approves then it is definitely worth purchasing. 

Eitan had thoughtfully sent the puzzles out with 6 of the plates already assembled into a stack connected to a display stand and another 2 extra plates were loose in the box ready to be added to the stack. Initially, I did wonder why he had started the puzzle off for me and possibly gone halfway but then I realised that he had actually been very clever and thoughtful. The stack of 6 was definitely not ready to just start adding the other 2 to. The stack had to be completely dismantled before the reassembly with 8 was going to be possible. Having 6 ready assembled allows the puzzler to explore the sequences and understand the puzzle before embarking on the main odyssey. Once apart, the clever design of the plates and how they interact with each other across 3 layers is apparent and I was further impressed with Eitan's skills. The 2 colours have plates that are mirror images of each other.

I spent a couple of evenings on my chair watching TV working out how it worked and got ready for the full assembly - there were going to be a LOT of moves that had to be done in the right order and in the right direction.

A very interesting beginning

Hidden by the spoiler button is the initial stage for the first assembly - having to do that was completely unexpected and very nice to realise. Once I thought I had it begun, it was time to begin the arduous process of working my way through the many many moves to stack the plates tidily. Everything moves very freely and easily despite the 3D printing. I initially just worked my way through but on 3 occasions realised that at some point I had turned myself around and was heading the wrong way. In fact, the first time this happened, I only realised that I had done this when I returned to the start position...DOH! Having inadvertently back-tracked 3 times, I decided to take notes to prevent further errors and to also allow me to take a break and obey Mrs S' commands with work to do around the house. I hate to think how many extra moves that I actually ended up performing but I got there in the end:

All 8 plates locked together

Stacked! As Eitan intended

I love it! The sliding mechanism places no strain at all on the very delicate thin tongues of plastic and it is a fun puzzle to explore. It will not be something that you solve multiple times but the experimentation and assembly was a pleasant diversion and even getting lost in the path multiple times only added to the enjoyment. It is ready now to go on display in my N-ary section.

Thank you Eitan, I look forward to future designs from you now that you are back designing again.

Aleksandr Terned My Head...Again!

Ternary Pin Burr

My Russian friend Aleksandr Leontev is another king of the N-ary puzzle (alongside Namick Salakhov) and when he emails offering toys my brain just starts to dribble and I immediately hand over cash. You see, I just love N-ary puzzles - some might say that they aren't really puzzles but I argue that if you need to explore a sequence to discover a logical sequence of moves then that is the very definition of a puzzle. Plus if one of the best puzzlers in the world, Goetz Schwandtner, collects them, solves them, writes about them and catalogues them, then they are certainly going to be good enough for me.

Ternary burrs

Initially I had just been wanting to add to my collection of Ternary burrs - above is Eric Fuller's reproduction of the Ternary burr (designed by Goh Pit Khiam and originally made by Brian Young) and alongside it is the wonderful extension to it "designed" and made by my genius friend Derek Bosch. Whilst I always prefer wood, there is definitely something special about the plastic ones too. This little collection got me thinking about other puzzles I had that may belong with them - how many Ternary puzzles in my collection? I found quite a few with the help of Goetz' site and even managed to find a good few of them (there are a few missing in action because I have them stuffed into chests of drawers and not on display).

As many Ternary puzzles as I could find

After placing my order with Aleksandr, it only took a week for it to arrive and then it sat around whilst Mrs S quarantined it in the porch and then I needed to find time to play. Yesterday I was forced to write our on call rotas a week early because I'm an eejit and put myself down to work next weekend when I would normally have written it. Luckily catching everyone by surprise with an early rota meant I had less requests to contend with and it took quite a lot less time than usual. I was therefore able to play afterwards and only fell asleep once during my playtime.

Grooves give a hint

First few moves

According to Puzzlewillbeplayed, the N-ary sequence for the Ternary pin burr is 162 moves long which, by the standards of Aleksandr's previous puzzles, really quite short and very pleasant. In just a few minutes I had the sequence worked out and completed with a piece falling onto a cat's head (he barely noticed - another advantage of plastic puzzles):

161 moves done

N-ary pieces removed

At this point I had a little blow to the head! It occured to me rather stupidly to try and look inside. This didn't end well as the pieces move against each other very smoothly and easily under gravity alone. I turned it out of the horizontal orientation and peered inside just in time to watch several pieces drop out onto the cat (who began to pay attention). I desperately tried to prevent them from falling out and dislodged several more and it became very unstable and collapsed in a heap on the cat who ran off my lap with rather sharp claws - OUCH (but no Whack!) scattering pieces everywhere. Oh boy! Now I had a REAL puzzle on my hands:

What was I thinking?

Ternary burr pieces

With the previous Ternary burrs I was able to dismantle them slowly and organise the pieces and learn the (dis)assembly method but here I just had a whole bunch of bits and only the vaguest idea of what goes where. First of all I had to separate them into types and take a photo - then it was going to be time to Think© which may hurt quite a lot! 

Mrs S told me I had to stop last night and then it was time for bed and then it was time for breakfast and blog post writing - this puzzle currently sits on the Kitchen granite nicely ordered and taunting me - can I put it back together? I am sure I can do it if I enter all the pieces into Burrtools but am not so sure if I try and use my very small tired brain! I'll give it a go and report back next week:

It may stay like this for a while...unless the cats get to it first...
It may end up partially under the fridge!

This was my first puzzle acquisition of 2021 - if this continues then I'm hoping for a VERY good year!

I have finally received my second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and am hopeful that this will allow me to be a bit safer and certainly prevent me from reinfecting Mrs S as I did in June. She was not impressed with the size of my viral load!

Stay safe guys - it's improving out there but nowhere near what we need to allow us to relax our vigilance.

I Needed Some Zen Puzzling!

Quadrupled Quadlooplet

Life at PuzzleMad HQ has been pretty stressful the last few weeks! There has been some hard (and occasionally quite sad and harrowing) work at the hospital which has kept my mind from any decent concentration when at home. Plus some general life and health stuff at home has also led to a general inability to work on any puzzles. What I needed was to regain my Zen focus. I don't mean that I should go and read my friend Ken Irvine's blog (which I do religiously)...I needed to do something requiring focus and a certain degree of repetitive movement to help achieve me achieve an inner balance again. I decided it was time for a bit of a focus on N-ary puzzles again!

The first one that I began to work on was from my Azerbaijani friend, Namick Salakhov. Last year (2018) he had 2 entries in the IPP puzzle design competition and I had already bought and solved the amazingly complex Loopy Lattice puzzle and had asked for a copy of his other entry that year. These puzzles are terribly difficult to make and hence the wait can be prolonged. It arrived a month ago - I was surprised by the enormous beauty of it. Called the Quadrupled Quadlooplet puzzle, there are 2 challenges:

1. Start with the looped rope threaded through adjacent holes of the core plate. Release the rope, and then return it to the starting position.
2. Start with the looped rope threaded through opposite holes of the core plate. Release the rope, and then return it to the starting position.

If you get stuck or tangled then Namick has included a quick-release link within the string loop which I am ashamed to say that I did use a couple of times. It looks absolutely horrendous but luckily for me, it is quite intuitive and a positive pleasure to work out and I quickly achieved my required trance-like state of puzzle-solving! Very therapeutic.

Phew! That was fun. 

The disassembly was fun but did not lead to a full understanding as I discovered when trying to put it back together. I think that Zachary understood it before me - at least he realised that chewing on the string was very satisfying and had I not snatched it away quickly may have lead to an unsolvable puzzle and kebab shits!

He's studying hard!

After 4 or 5 days of experimentation I think I had the puzzle understood and could move back and forth between end states:

String through two opposite holes.

As usual, Namick has designed something captivating and confusing at the same time but definitely solvable with just a little concentration and help from a cat. His workmanship in this very unique material is wonderful and I look forward to the opportunity to obtain more in the future. 

So far my fevered mind has achieved a very small boost from my first N-ary puzzle. I was still far from soothed and not yet able to concentrate on some of the very complex new puzzles I have received over the last few weeks and months (most of the TICs remain unsolved)! I still needed more relaxation. Next N-ary puzzle to be played with was the White Bow Tie made from 3D printed plastic by Aleksandr Leontev:

White Bow Tie

This version is the smaller version of a puzzle (Black Bow Tie) that I spied in Allard's possession at the recent MPP. This lovely object is a rotational version of the Kugellager. The large one was determined by Goetz to be a 9-ary Kugellager requiring 13,122 moves for disassembly. The one I had bought was a dual puzzle - a ternary and a quinary Kugellager requiring 170 and 1251 moves respectively. I was not sure how it had been made as both possibilities and so I set to find out. There is a lovely sequence of moves to be discovered and of course, it had been supplied to me in the quinary assembly. The interesting feature of the quinary puzzle is how the logical sequence that is apparent at the beginning changes over to another sequence partway through and does it again at least another 2 times. This became quite confusing and caused me to get lost on several occasions putting my move count considerably above the proposed 1251. I discovered that this is not a puzzle to work on when one is sleepy as the zen aspect leads to automatic movements and dozing off and then getting inadvertently backtracked whilst dazed. Having woken back up, I discovered my mistake and continued in the correct direction until I had my 5 pieces and could see how the ternary version could be possible:

Even more brain soothing done here!

A game of 2 halves - the Ternary version is flipped

The ternary assembly is achieved by flipping the ring and assembling from the opposite direction - very ingenious. My savage brow was soothed even more by the 170 moves in the opposite direction! I really couldn't face all 1251 moves in reverse!

Next up was a puzzle that I had initially thought was a disentanglement puzzle but it turns out is actually also N-ary, the Chinese Soft Ring! I can never resist buying any of Aaron Wang's amazing wire and string puzzles even if I struggle to solve many of them - they are all beautifully made and a pleasure to play with. I have one of Aaron's puzzles with me pretty much at all times.

Chinese Soft Ring produced by Aaron Wang

The puzzle is supplied as above with a 3 loop assembly on 2 end rings - needless to say - the string does NOT fit through the little gaps in the rings. There are also 2 more rings and 4 more loops and a sheet of paper with a number of challenges. At the IPP design competition, it was supplied in the 3 loop version.

I am rather ashamed to say that this took me several weeks to understand even vaguely understand how this worked. I honestly thought that it was a simple disentanglement puzzle and set about trying to undo the provided version. I got absolutely nowhere. After a couple of weeks, Michel van Ipenburg shamed me by describing that he had solved it fairly easily and I joined a couple of other people who had failed. In the end, this appears to be a binary puzzle (according to Goetz) and at this point, I had an idea. Maybe I should keep the triple assembled as a reference and try and make a simple one or two with the other loops? It required a little thought© but I managed something easy in an evening of TV (I was supposed to be watching the TV series "Chernobyl" but it was so frightening that I was pleased to be looking elsewhere).

Easy peasy!

OK! I might be understanding

I think I am getting there.

I had quite a bit of help from my own string expert and managed to get up to 6 loops:

Zachary is very good with string!

I said on Facebook that I was thinking of stopping there as it had been quite difficult to get to that point in terms of concentration and dexterity. Unfortunately, the puzzle-solving machine that is Louis Coolen took offence at me being a wimp and taunted me with a photo of his own success. Zachary looked me in the eye and told me in no uncertain terms that we were GOING to do this! The following evening I set to and after only a couple of knots and having to backtrack, I had my Chinese soft ring seven loop set:

Man! That is a really unusual puzzle and very enjoyable to work out!
I even achieved a zen state during it once I had understood what was required.

If you like disentanglement puzzles and are interested in N-ary puzzles then you really cannot beat this as both types in one. Multiple challenges make it even more value for money. I still need to work on the further challenges at some point but I sort of got sidetracked yet again...

Vertical by Aleksandr Leontev

I had been putting this one off for a while because of the sheer number of moves required. However, my mental turmoil demanded yet more soothing repetitive motion. The Vertical puzzle is based on Goh Pit Khiam's Num Lock puzzle but set in a cylindrical frame to be compact. The original was Ternary and I think that this version is too. I discussed a beautiful multiple base version of this made by my Woodmaster friend in South Africa, Johan Heyns but I could not resist a new version. This puzzle is supposed to require 14,999 moves to dismantle.

Tongue poking out!

I started work one evening trying to find the sequence. After about 20 minutes of experimentation, I was on my way and gradually settled into a wonderful rhythmic sequence of moves which I could do whilst watching the TV or otherwise sitting with a blank head! Mrs S did comment on several occasions that my expression during the solve of this puzzle was rather like that of my puzzling guru, Zebedee. We both often sit there with our tongues hanging out having no brain power left over to be able to retract it into our mouths!

At times I was able to solve this one at about 1-2 moves per second but had to rest periodically because my tongue was drying out the most moved piece was actually causing me to develop a callus on my finger which was really quite painful. The puzzle was a mammoth effort spread over 4 evenings. Finally, this morning, I had this just in time for this blog post!

OMG! The effort!

Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to the reassembly! My zen state will need to be re-instated to put it back to the beginning! Lord help me!

I do hope that all this zen-puzzling has helped my fevered mind recover a bit so that I can begin to solve some other puzzles soon - only time will tell.

If you are intrigued by the idea of a lovely N-ary wooden and acrylic puzzle then Johan has one left of his Septenary cubes which require a pleasant 4802 moves to open. If you would like to buy it then let me know and I will put you in touch with him. Don't wait too long!

Septenary cube - last one available