The remainder of the puzzles just released by
Pelikan
If you had not been informed by email from Jakub, then you should know that the
puzzles from the current release are now up for sale in the
Pelikan store.
All except the Minima Magnetik and Rising Peaks - Everest are still available.
If you still want the Minima Magnetik then you badger get the version Tye
Stahly from the NothingYetDesigns store to make another batch of
his version. I don't know whether Pelikan will make any more.
Today's blog is about the remainder of the summer release from Jakub and
Jaroslav. I am sure that I can help you spend some more money!
This is yet another tray packing puzzle from the amazing
Lucie Pauwels. Except it is not “just” another tray puzzle! Lucie seems to have the
unique ability to design these puzzles with something about them that makes
them more than trial and error. Jakub obviously is very good at recognising
the value of these amongst all the designs that he must see. The
Broken Frame and Window
is a brilliant, beautiful and challenging logical design. It consists of a
complex tray made from Maple (137 x 137mm) with a very specifically shaped
gap where the frame should be and then a square hole in the centre (the
window). To be fitted in, there are 14 unique pieces made from a deep
vibrant Purpleheart.
When I first looked at it, I sort of quailed, thinking that this would be
many many hours of trial and error and I have the memory of a demented
goldfish so have a huge problem remembering previous patterns that I had
tried. However, when I set to playing with it, I quickly realised that this
is very much a logic challenge. There are some pieces with very restricted
placement choices and a couple of gaps in the frame that have very limited
options for which of the pieces can go in them. This made the puzzle much
more compelling.
It still was not easy and took me several hours of play before I reached the
point where the frame was filled. Much to my chagrin, I had made one
assumption about one of the gaps in the frame and kept trying the wrong
approach until exasperation made me think a different way. I am sure this
was a deliberate design feature by Lucie meant specifically to trap me! The
central window is just a 5x5 square and should be relatively easy to fill
once you have worked out which pieces are left over from the frame. The only
problem is that there are 5 different ways to fill the frame and only one of
them leaves the correct pieces to fill the window. There is still some trial
and error but it is great fun!
Over the last few years of reviewing the puzzles designed by
Volker Latussek, I think the
Flop series
is my favourite because of the fabulous accessibility and challenge. I had
thought that the series had ended but was very gratified to see the
Coffin-Flop
in the current batch. This one is beautifully made using American Walnut and
American Cherry. It is beautifully chunky and consists of three tetracubes and
three pentacubes. They are to be fitted into a 70mm across box with a 3x3x3
cavity. The pieces consist of a total of 27 voxels which will completely fill
the box with no gaps.
Volker designed this and named it as a tribute to the great Stewart Coffin -
there was even a conversation between the two puzzle powerhouses:
"Dear Mr Coffin, when your HALF HOUR was published as a packer at
Cubicdissection last year, I myself played with your basic idea of
splitting a 3x3x3 into three penta-cubes and three tetra-cubes to add a
cube-shaped box with six pieces to my FLOP SERIES. That doesn't work with
your HALF HOUR, but there is actually a similar set of six pieces that has
nice movements in and out of the box. I wonder if I can call the puzzle
COFFIN-FLOP? Pelikan will publish the puzzle.”
STC: "After all these years, what a surprise. I never was very good with names.
Often that was the hardest part. I have been so busy with other projects
lately that puzzles are now in my past. But they were fun, especially
dissections. No opinion on type of wood. I used whatever was available.
Keep up the good work.
Stewart Coffin (STC), Massachusetts"
You know from the beginning that this is going to be a huge challenge of first
construction of possible cubes and then finding the single way they can be
inserted through the limited opening (less than 2 voxels across). There will
be rotations and there will be swearing! In fact there was swearing right from
the beginning as the special transport placement of the pieces actually proved
a challenge for this puzzler to remove from the box just so that he could get
started.
The solution of course requires rotations and also the ability to control
rotations deep inside the box with no room to insert your fingers - if you can
find a way to control gravity then you will have a significant advantage. If
you are one of us normal humans who cannot change the direction of the
gravitational field as required then some real dexterity is required.
Yessssss!
Taking it apart and returning it to the transport position is another huge
challenge!
I adore these puzzles and was very gratified to solve it after just 2 days of
work! If you have any of the previous Flop series then you should buy this one
- it is brilliant!
Another incredibly challenging packing puzzle -
The Real Euklid
has seven cubic and cuboidal pieces to fit in the 9x9x9 box with the usual
limited entry at the top. It is rather lovely to look at being made from
Mahogany and Wenge - using these woods also gives the puzzle a nice weight.
Yes, Dr Latussek has done it yet again! There is yet another puzzle in his
incredible
Euklid packing series. This one must be really special because Volker named it as “the
REAL Euklid” as if all the previous ones had been fake. Volker
wrote the following about this design"
"Finally, we've arrived! After a few wrong turns and some significant
misjudgments, such as seemingly unique solutions suddenly turning into
double-digit numbers of solutions, I am now proud to present THE REAL
EUKLID. The task I set myself over six years ago should now be complete:
Find a 9x9x9 cubic box with a centred 5×9 opening and seven different
cuboids with an edge length of between 3 and 6 units AND A UNIQUE
SOLUTION!
In fact, I changed my design strategy for THE REAL EUKLID. Until now, I
have always focused on the most beautiful sequence of movements possible
for seven cuboids, but this time I did it the other way around: I let
the possible cuboids sink in and saw which sequence they showed me - I
tried to take on the role of the solver who wants to discover the
designer's idea but initially only sees the pieces. Looking at the
cuboids without any preconceived sequence of moves broadened my
perspective so much that I was able to complete the task. When I saw the
solution for the first time, I couldn't believe that I had achieved my
task. I was very sceptical because of my experience with EUKLID. Maybe I
didn't want to believe it because I secretly hoped that there was no
solution to my task. Overall, I had a great time designing THE REAL
EUKLID.
Now take a look at the seven cuboids and the interplay with the box for
yourself. Then you too can have a great time with THE REAL EUKLID."
There are at least two in this series that I have still not solved despite
going back to them on and off for years now. I would not be surprised if
this one joined that group. I have only really had an hour or so to play
with this one so far and have not got a clue as yet. These puzzles are not
for the faint hearted. All the shapes to be fitted inside have a side length
as a multiple of 7mm (21, 28, 35 or 42mm) and the interior is 63mm in all
directions - there is a sort of beauty to that and I am sure that knowing it
will be a help to some of you but to me - I haven’t got a clue. Good luck to
all who buy - it will be a great challenge.
You know you need this one for your collections - it is lovely, it’s a huge
challenge and the continuation of the series. No puzzler can truly resist a
puzzle series - especially if they are this good.
I am sure that there are some puzzles for you here! There is so much to
choose from with puzzles from 3 of the best designers in the world. Get them
whilst they are still available.
Last week I
wrote in frustration
about the final one in the numbered Minima series (number XIII or as Allard
would make it - XXXXLIII). I have owned this one (from Frederic himself) for 4
years and a delightful portable plastic version from
Tye (if you ask him nicely, he might make some more). I had failed and failed
on this and eventually owned up to it as a catharsis on my little corner of
t'internet.
Of course, as soon as I confess to the puzzling world about how useless I am
at packing puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, boxes etc, I have one of those
wonderful Aha! moments. This time was no different. The day after my
confession, I was working from home chairing a meeting and then in the
afternoon we had our departmental Morbidity and Mortality meeting was held on
MS Teams (No I didnt have to confess to any mortality!) I tuned in from
the comfort of my conservatory with a pile o'puzzles next to me. My colleagues
are now used to me playing with toys during these meetings and I get quite a
few comments from people when I solve a particularly fearsome twisty during
the meeting. For some reason, they think I'm some kind of genius and they are
unaware of quite how bad my failure rate is.
The pieces of Minima XXXXXXXXXCIII were in a pile waiting to be put away and I
couldn't resist another period of self flagellation and set to work again.
This time, after a few minutes of trying the same tricks over and over again,
I looked at the slanted cut on the tetromino and wondered to my self:
"Self, what could you do with this odd cut?"
Suddenly a new idea hit my rather like the back of Mrs S' hand and I found a
new and interesting possible movement that I hadn't thought to try before. It
was too beautiful a move to be anything like chance - it had to be designed
in. Suddenly, this made me look at the slanted cuts in the two triominoes, and
again I was slapped on the back of the head - these pieces could be positioned
in such a way that the fancy first move would slide by. Oh wow! What an
incredible idea!
All that was left was to use the more conventional Minima type rotational
moves to set everything up. It's a rather gorgeous sequence of moves to end up
with all the pieces packed into the box and almost left me gasping with
delight.
Four years of puzzling!
The Minima 13 was the first of the series I received and was, I assume, the last
of the series that Frederic designed. To my mind it is the very pinnacle of the
Minima puzzle design - if you don't have a copy yet then try and find one to
complete your collection (I assume that you have the rest of the set from
Pelikan???) In
the title of my post this is the "sublime".
The look of exultation on my face when I finally solved it during our
departmental meeting did not go unnoticed! I saw a few colleagues grinning and
got a couple of messages. It was time to carry on with some more of them.
The Minima series from Frederic is really quite extensive now. Not only has
Frederic expanded beyond the original 13, others have jumped on the bandwagon
and seen the huge possibilities of "simply" packing a 2x2x3 box with smaller
pieces that may or may not require rotations. Lucie Pauwels, is a very prolific
designer who has appeared on these pages
many many times. Lucie decided to try her hand at Minima design and here is one that I have
had sitting waiting but not tried due to lack of time. It's the the Minima Nest which I purchased from Tye at the end of last year. It is also currently
sold out but again, if you ask nicely, maybe more can be printed. Lucie took the
standard 2x2x3 box and stood it on its end and then shifted each of the 3 layers
a half voxel sideways. She then took some simple pieces and shifted several of
them a half voxel across as well.
Solved it in a single afternoon! Maybe I'm getting better at puzzles?
That puzzle was ridiculous - so clever but not too hard.
Finally we return to another sublime one - it's probably a bit ridiculous
too!
Minima Twig by Frederic Boucher
Frederic hasn't finished with the Minima designs! This one was released
around the time of the last IPP and produced again by Tye of
NothingYetDesigns. It's also sold but there's no harm in you all sending him thousands and
thousands of emails clamouring for a remake. It has also been sitting in my
pile to be solved in the conservatory (yes, Mrs S is not really happy at how
many piles I have dotted around the house). I still had another hour of
meeting to go and therefore picked up a third challenge of the afternoon.
The Minima Twig again consists of the standard 2x2x3 box but in this case
there is just a single entry hole in one corner and each of the six faces
has either a single drilled hole or a track the diameter of the hole. There
are 6 domino pieces to be placed made from a choice of woods (I cannot
remember what the one above is) and with a steel pin in the centre of a
single voxel on each of the 6 pieces effectively making triominoes. There
are 3 L shapes and 3 straight lines. Obviously each of the metal pins is
intended to protrude from a hole drilled in the box. Rotations are allowed.
Placing the pieces in the box and posting the pin through the holes can
restrict the movement of the pieces and cause blockages. This will require
careful planning. I found that the requirement to pierce the holes made it
much easier to work out possible assemblies and then in my head working out
whether a disassembly would be possible was quite fun. There is a wonderful
critical sequence to rotate pieces into the box that is required and within
about 45 minutes I had my third puzzle of the afternoon solved. I
personally found that my afternoon Mortality and Morbidity meeting was
a very productive time. Maybe I should ask the bosses to allow us to have
more frequent meetings to get me out of the operating theatre so I can play
with my toys.
Three in one afternoon!
Speaking of operating theatres, I am in one just now doing a trauma list -
Trauma doesn't stop and weekends. I have written this in advance and set it
to auto publish. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? I hope that you all
have had a wonderful puzzling weekend.
Wow! What a pressured week! Not only did I have an enormous set of puzzles from
Jakub and Jaroslav, but I also worked about 80 hours this week as well doing
some rather stressful stuff. Luckily for me, I find that puzzling is quite a
nice way to relax. It doesn't matter to me if I am failing to solve the puzzles
- the process of admiring them, the beautiful wood and playing with them to
admire the genius of the designers. I just find the whole process rather
soothing. It made a difficult week much more palatable.
Today I need to finish my reviews of the remaining puzzles - some of them have
already sold out but there might be a possibility that if people contact them
about these then a further batch might be made.
The Horns of Booth
Interesting delivery arrangement
5 pieces to fit in the box
Who can resist a new packing puzzle from
Dr Latussek? This gorgeous creation using highly grained Acacia and Purpleheart has a
box with 5 very interesting pieces to be fitted inside. The opening in the box
is not big enough to have a piece enter sideways - there will have to be
rotations at some point during the solution - why doesn't this surprise me?
Volker is the master of restricted rotations. Looking at the pieces it looks
like there should be lots of room with maybe a number of large gaps between
pieces but despite this, the L shapes of the pieces interfere with each other
and the required rotations don't seem to be possible. This should be fun.
First, I had to read the thought processes that the good Dr went through
during the design process. He said:
"When I experimented with the tricube v some time ago to find a suitable
box for a certain number of v’s, I stumbled across some surprises. I was
thrilled with the new ideas that I hope to publish one day with
Pelikan.
I will start with a particularly nice experiment: I wanted to put six
broken v’s into the FRITZ-FLOP box, into which six v’s fit without much
challenge. When a v is broken in the middle two identical parts are
created, which I wanted to put back together in a staggered way. The
result should be six parts that look as if the two ends of the Tetra
cube L have been cut off. As so often happens, I was unable to solve the
task I had set myself. I couldn’t find a move that would convince me and
would have given you a headache in the search for it. But when I left
out a piece and experimented with only five pieces, THE HORNS OF BOOTH
was quickly found.
I found the movement convincing, especially because this puzzle has a
feature that I appreciate: the box and the pieces have to be turned and
tilted to fit. This is the only way to ensure that the pieces move
harmoniously around the box without getting stuck. I really like that.
THE HORNS OF BOOTH is not suitable for a solution video with a rigid
focus on the opening in the box. Discover and enjoy the interplay of the
five pieces and the box with me. Then you won’t need a solution video
either."
As usual, I started with searching for a 3x3x2 assembly and found a couple
quite quickly. Obviously, the shape created can be rotated 90º 4 times as
well as inverted giving a lot of possibilities to search through. With most
of these types of puzzles, working in reverse from the assembled shape is
helpful for me - several of the starting positions are obviously impossible
with no piece even remotely removable if it began in that state. After an
hour or so, I had honed my search down to 2 possible assemblies (I have to
say that the insertion and removal of the last piece to go in the box is
rather lovely. Having done that, finding a way to insert them through the
reasonably large but not quite large enough hole is a fun challenge. I did
bear in mind the Fritz Flop puzzle and some of the moves required for that
which did help. If you have done a few other packing puzzles with angles of
45º then you will have a head start but there is quite a lot to do. When I
found the required move, all I could do was sit back and gasp at the beauty
of the sequence. This is a stunning puzzle - unfortunately sold out just now
but hopefully another batch will be made. Dr Latussek is a genius!
PSI
PSI by Girish Sharma
This beautiful
burr
designed by
Girish Sharma is still in stock as I write. It is a classical 6 piece burr shape made
from absolutely stunning Bubinga that Girish has altered to make a whole lot
more interesting. He has taken the standard 2x2x6 burr sticks and added an
extra voxel or two along one of the short axes to make a few of the pieces
2x3x6 and yet still assemble into the standard shape. You can see that there
is something rather different from the outside by the presence of odd extra
cubies visible where you wouldn't expect them. The upshot of Girish's
alteration is that it makes the burr much more interesting to explore. Parts
get blocked when you think that you are making progress and also the level
increases enormously.
I managed after a couple of evenings of play to get to a fairly widely
separated bunch of pieces but nowhere further to go. I went back and forth
(creating a muscle memory for later reassembly) and really struggled to find
the next move. Finally, after a lot of work changing the orientation of the
puzzle in my hands and searching inside the shape I had, I found a lovely
clever move that effectively split the puzzle in half. After that, I was able
to fully dismantle it and take a photo:
Not "just" a six piece burr!
Only the very best of you will be able to assemble this from scratch (you know
who you are). I had to resort to Burrtools to tell me the placement of the
pieces but was able to reassemble it from there by muscle memory. This was a
wonderful little challenge.
It would appear that there is a second challenge"
"By the way, another side goal of the puzzle is to figure out the full form
of PSI"
I'm afraid I have no idea what this means - to me PSI means pounds per
square inch but that's not really helpful. 😱
Sym Duo
Sym Duo by Frederic Boucher
This
delight
from
Frederic Boucher is also still available for sale. It was originally sent out to me in the
assembled state but I have convinced Jakub that it should be sent out with a
false assembly to give you all an extra challenge. It is very nicely made from
Limba, Ovangkol and Cherry woods. I originally thought that the primary aim is a
packing puzzle to place all the pieces in the box so that the entry is filled.
This part of the challenge is fun and not terribly tough for those of you who
are used to TICs or doing the amazing packing puzzles by Osanori-san and
Alexander-san. There is a rather clever little move to get the pieces in
correctly which is rather satisfying.
The real challenge from Frederic is to use the two shapes to make a series of
symmetrical shapes. I have found 1 rotational symmetry and 5 mirror symmetries
- I am not particularly good at these types of challenges but with these
shapes they are remarkably fun and tactile to play with. It will keep you
going for a good couple of hours.
Yes U Can
Yes U Can by Frederic Boucher
My goodness! Frederic Boucher is having a good time these days! This is yet
another puzzle
designed by him in this release. Made from a particularly beautiful
combination of Wenge, Padauk & Mahogany, this will be delightful to fiddle
with. Unfortunately it is now sold out but maybe it will be recreated if
enough people ask jakub. Like the Sym Duo, this is a two-fer - there were two
challenges in one puzzle.
The obvious challenge is to place all the pieces in the box. It is made
significantly more difficult by the present of 2 glued cubies inside the box.
Rotations are required and add to the challenge. I found two assemblies that
would fit in the box but I think the aim is to place them all inside with the
single tetromino hidden by the pentominos. Make sure that you look for and
find both.
The next, and to my mind, much more difficult challenge is to take the 6
pieces and arrange them in such a way that the red tetromino is completely
surrounded by the U-shaped pentominos. This is possible in several ways and is
a fun thing to try but much more difficult is the challenge to completely
surround it so that the red piece cannot be seen through from any angle
through any of the drilled holes. I have never tried puzzles like this and
find that I do not have the skills to do it. Embarrassingly, this took me a
good hour of trial and error. I do not know if there is a good method for this
sort of thing -
let me know
if you have any techniques.
5 Balls
5 Balls by Frederic Boucher
Don't you love a puzzle that has an instruction sheet?
OMG! Yes,
another incredible design
by Frederic! This wonderful series of challenges is made from Wenge and Maple
with 5 nice large chromed steel ball bearings - it has it's own case to store
the pieces and will keep you occupied for quite a long time.
Challenge two is to create a symmetrical shape using the 4 L's on their sides
with the balls sitting in the cavities. To make this particularly hard, the
shape created by the L's should be mirror symmetrical but also the position of
the balls should be symmetrical too. I do not know whether the whole thing
should be a single symmetry or the wood and the balls are different
symmetries. Yet again, I have been at it for a week and haven't got even close
to a solution. My brain just doesn't work this way - I remember that the 2
piece
Symmetrick puzzle
from Tomas Linden took me many many months to solve. I just don't stand a
chance but it is fun to try.
The final challenge which I did have more success with is to take the pieces
from challenge 2 and to created a 3x4 rectangle with the balls assembled into
all of the 11 shapes in the diagram above. Some of them are relatively simple
but a few are a huge challenge and I think some might be impossible! At least
I have completely failed at a few of them so far. There is a lot of puzzling
for you money with this one and who can resist a puzzle with a storage box?
Serial Squares NTC
Serial Squares NTC by Lucie Pauwels
This gorgeous tray packing puzzle by Lucie has been made from Ash, Wenge,
Acacia and a vibrant Padauk. It also remains
in stock. When I first took it out of the box, I wondered whether it was a sliding
piece puzzle but in the configuration it arrived in that was impossible and
after that I thought it might be a packing puzzle. A little thought told me
that would be trivial. There must be something more to it. I then decided that
the aim was to pack the pieces in the tray in such a way that no single colour
shared an edge in common. This was a fun challenge but did only take me about
10 minutes:
No edges of the same colour touch
I have played with many of Lucie's puzzles and none of them are as trivial as that! It was time to read the instructions! Oh boy! She wanted the pieces to be packed in with no adjacent pieces matching colours on either edges OR corners! That was going to be a massive challenge - there are apparently 2 solutions but I have completely failed to find them myself. I do not have any idea how you go about doing this sort of thing. If you do put by trial and error then how do you keep track of what you have attempted after a few failed tries? I also have to ask, how do we know that there are only 2 solutions?
This is a beautiful and frustrating challenge that will keep you all busy for hours if not months!
This may well be a little late for many of you who don't keep an eye out on the
Pelikan website or follow me on
Facebook. I
received a package out of the blue about 10 days ago and had very little time at
first to do any more than open it and take my photos. I am definitely not clever
enough to solve all of these challenging puzzles in just 5 days and Jakub wanted
to get them up for sale before he and his team go off on their well-earned
Christmas break. These puzzles went up for sale on Thursday and I'm afraid that
at least 2 are sold out already. If there is anything that you particularly want
to buy then keep an eye on the auction sites or see whether Jakub might agree to
make another batch - sometimes if enough people ask then he does get agreement
from the designers to make a few more.
In this release there are some truly stunning and clever designs: Minima
Smiley by
Frederic Boucher Trimini Frame by
Lucie Pauwels Euklid's Cabrio by
Dr Volker Latussek Nested Soma by Dr Volker Latussek with Lucie Pauwels Lunchbox by
George Miller
Minima Smiley
There have been quite a lot of Minima puzzles over the last few years. The
series started out as fun small packing puzzles with relatively simple pieces to
fit in a small box with restricted entry and usually some odd holes or slots to
allow rotations to occur. I have now bought lots and lots of these and
thoroughly love the combination of thought, fiddling and Aha! moments. Several
other designers have jumped on the Minima bandwagon and I have, of course, added
these to my collection (partially thanks to Tye Stahly's Nothing Yet Designs
site as well as Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan puzzles.
When I received this one, I really wasn't sure what to make of it. All the
pieces were inside and there seemed to be a ball in there too as well as a
bolt in the side. What on earth was going on here. It cannot be a packing
puzzle - is it an unpacking puzzle? Does such a thing exist? It would appear
that Frederic has branched out into other genre's again (remember the amazing
Res Q
and my own special
Visitor Q?) This time the aim is to work out how to release the ball.
Initially only the ball moves from one empty space to another but no further
than that and therefore the only thing available to me was to remove the
bolt. I got a bit of a surprise at the sheer length of it! After removal,
there was suddenly the ability to slide a piece around and this opened up a
bit of pathway for the ball. Except it wouldn't go very far and then nothing
else happens. I was able to work out what the shapes were inside the box and
map them out - there is absolutely no way any more is going to happen. Now I
know that Frederic is a sneaky so and so and Jakub is very happy to
encourage this sneakiness. A little exploration with fingers revealed
something interesting and also some rather strong magnets. a tiny bit more
progress happens but I get stuck again. Whilst exploring at this point, I
realise that a piece can rotate and I eagerly encourage it only to find it
doesn't really help me. Once I realised this, I tried to get it all back to
the start and, OMG, it wouldn't go! Cue, minor panic before I got it all
reset after 15 minutes of swearing at myself whilst Mrs S giggled at me and
said that I don't seem to be very good at this puzzling business - oh, the
shame!
I was stumped and had to draw the shapes and the box to work out a possible
alternative sequence. Only after I had drawn it out was I able to make
further steps and I could see the reason for the name of the puzzle:
Now I have to get the little bugger back inside
Having taken my photo, I tried to reset it, only to hear a lout "clack!" as
the pieces reset themselves. OMG, my heart leapt into my throat again and I
was forced to work it out from scratch again. For a while I kept trying it
wrong and repeatedly heard that clack again and again until I realised the
move needed to prevent it.
This is wonderful - very clever and shows that Frederic is able to set his
talented brain to all types of puzzle. It has been absolutely beautifully made
by Pelikan in Mahogany and Maple.
Trimini Frame
Trimini Frame by Lucie Pauwels
There have been a couple of incredible packing puzzle/antislide puzzles by Lucie
this year (Minimal Frame and
Open Frame which is
still available
as I type). I really struggled even to solve the basic packing element of these
and completely failed with both of them to solve the antislide challenge. I was
amazed at the last MPP when Wil Strijbos sidled up to me and showed me the he
had solved it in about 10 minutes. I shouldn't have been surprised as the man is
a total genius at design and solving. That display made me all the more
determined to succeed at the latest of the challenges. Based on a triangular
grid there are 8 oddly shaped pieces to place in a frame with only a single
triangular voxel at the corner to hold the pieces in place.
Pepper Castor (another triangular grid)
This time I decided to be more analytical rather than just randomly place
pieces in the tray. My usual approach to packing puzzles really isn't terribly
efficient. A little trial and error revealed that certain pieces would either
have to be oriented a particular direction if the abutted an edge or they
would need to be positioned in the interior. This realisation was the key and
significantly decreased the number of random moves. It didn't make it easy by
any stretch but a true analytical approach made this solvable even by an eejit
like me! After about 30 minutes of swearing under my breath, I had a true Aha!
moment and it was solved. Absolutely wonderful to play with a triangular grid
for once (very few designers do this - the best that I can recall is Alexander
Magyaric's
Play-girl
and
Play-boy
puzzles as well as his
Pepper Castor). There are still 13 in stock as I type - well worth buying to challenge
yourself and even non-puzzlers.
Not only is this a packing puzzle...this is a sliding piece puzzle. Getting
everything in place is going to need careful placement and then careful
jiggling about inside to make room for subsequent pieces. I needed another
couple of days to figure this one out in my head (luckily there is plenty of
space in there). I let out a huge shout when I finally closed the box with all
the pieces inside - that man is a genius!
Make sure that you pay proper attention to what you do and how the pieces sit
inside because it will require an exact sequence of moves to get them out
again and initially you will be blind with a box that is closed or only opens
a little bit. As you would expect, I got the box stuck in the closed position
for a panicked hour as I shook it about and desperately tried to work out how
to open the bloody thing! I actually had to sit down for a bit and think to
open it and felt a sudden urge for a gin when I finally did it. I have managed
it a few times since then and it is incredibly clever. This is an essential to
all followers of Volker and all packing aficionados.
Nested Soma
Nested Soma - a collaboration by Lucie Pauwels and Dr Volker Latussek
Lucie has recently designed a new puzzle in the Minima series, the Minima
nest (I haven't gotten around to it yet), and she decided to try and create a
bigger version using a shifted 3x3x3 box. When Volker saw the puzzle idea, he
suggested that she try and use slightly altered Soma pieces and sent her a
couple of designs for the pieces and then the Nested Soma was born.
The manufacturing skill for this puzzle is totally off the scale! It is
stunning made from Elm and Bubinga. The puzzle screams to fit the pieces
inside and as you do so it quickly gets blocked up leaving spaces inside that
cannot be reached. Time to solve it outside of the box and then you realise
that it isn't very stable when the pieces are piled up on a table or your lap.
A combination approach would be good. My trial and error approach rapidly
failed. There are some very peculiar shapes which have to be fitted into a
very restricted part of the box and quite quickly I saw that one piece could
only fit in a particular orientation and, gulp, it needed a rotational move -
Burrtools won't help much here.
I spent about an hour having increasingly useful breakthroughs and inched my
way forwards progressively. The final Aha! moments are delicious. I have
posted the solved puzzle because it appears on the Pelikan page - it's a
minimal spoiler as most of it cannot be seen.
Solved - really not much of a spoiler here
Lunchbox
Lunchbox by George Miller
I think this might be my first puzzle by George which is strange because he
has been very prolific for a very long time. Recently he
and Roxanne have
been focussed on creating the greatest puzzle museum in the world.
George wrote this about it:
"Lunchbox is a variation of a puzzle I found in a pile of puzzles I
had purchased in Prague. One of the puzzles was simply 10 pieces of
wood with no clue as to the goal. I guessed it had to be a symmetric
solid shape and began to explore all of the possibilities. This was,
in essence, a meta puzzle – that is – and the goal, then solve the
puzzle by stacking the pieces into the shape of the goal. The ten
pieces were all the ways four 2 unit squares of one unit thickness
could be glued together at with two unit cubes cubes glued to the
squares to form a checkered patterns on each piece.
I made a copy of the ten pieces on a 3D printer. I used BurrTools to
test using these ten pieces to pack a 4x5x3 shape I called a
“sandwich”. I forced the squares to the top and bottom and the red
cubes to the middle making it look ever so much like a jelly
sandwich.
A simple packing puzzle is fun, but making a good puzzle involves a
presentation mode plus a theme or story. A presentation mode too often
is simply the solved puzzle. This takes away the pleasure of a
discovered solution. Again, using BurrTools I found a solid packing of
a set of steps with a unique solution. This led to the development of
a box in the shape of a lunch pail with the inside conforming to the
shape of the set of stairs. The story then becomes that of a young lad
taking to school a lunchbox prepared by his mother. When he opens the
box he finds his lunch in many pieces he has to pack together into a
delicious sandwich before eating his lunch. Putting the pieces back
into the lunchbox presents a puzzle unto itself."
This challenge is incredibly well presented - it arrives in one of the
solved positions with the pieces packed in the box. Tipping them out
reveals the wonderful variety of ways that 2 cubies can be placed on the 4
tetrominoes with gaps.
All the tetrominoes with checkerboard patterns
The first challenge is to create a sandwich from the contents of the
lunchbox. Jakub has made the pieces in such a way that it looks like a piece
of meat between 2 slices of white bread. I initially attempted to make it so
that only checkerboard pieces were next to each other. This seriously
restricted the pieces that I could try in each position but left me unable
to form the 4x5x3 shape. Once I had determined that it might be impossible
with pure checkerboard positioning, I looked at other arrangements and with
some thought created lunch:
One ham sandwich
Burrtools tells me that there are another 3 ways to make my sandwich - I will
keep working on it. Getting the pieces back into the box has so far proven
impossible for me. I know the shape to achieve and it is not a simple cuboid
which seems to be confusing me. I will be using Burrtools in the
meantime.
Unlike the sandwich, the orientation of the white bread is not all in the same
direction which seems to confuse my feeble brain a lot. It is very similar to
the Tabula cubes I
wrote about
way back in 2013 which I really struggled with:
Tabula cube 1
Tabula cube 2
Tabula cube 1 pieces
Tabula cube 2 pieces
These puzzles are selling very fast - order them quick if you don't want to miss out. They are all amazing. My favourites are Minima Smiley, Nested Soma and Euklid's Cabrio.
