Noisy is OK in a Conference

A Nice Quiet Puzzle?

Helical (L) and Hellical (R) burrs

Last week I wrote about the Brass Monkey 4 and raved about it (have you bought your copy yet? Hurry up!) but what I didn't show off was that in the same package Steve had sent me the latest 4 piece burr design from the genius that is Derek Bosch. Yeah! I know that 4 piece burr doesn't sound like much but this is one of those Helical burrs - in fact it is the "Helical burr 2" which they have decided to call "He'll lick all bare, too" - a name which makes me shudder ever so slightly and I cannot bring myself to enter it into my database like that. 

This new design is not currently on the Two Brass Monkeys store but I am sure will be there at some point - if you are in a hurry then it is available from PuzzleMaster whilst stocks last. It looks just like the original Helical burr and the name sort of sounds like it too but, believe me, it is NOT like the original puzzle! I enjoyed the original puzzle a lot and even used to use it as a worry bead. Even Derek describes this version as a BEAST - although I always thought that I should take that statement from him with a pinch of salt...Derek often admits to me that he is completely unable to solve his own designs! However, in this case the numbers tell all - Helical burr requires 11 moves to remove the first piece whilst v2 here requires 39 moves! OMG!

Just 3 moves!

I should have realised how tough it was going to be early on when after just 3 moves thisgs had moved a very long way. But I didn't get much chance to work that out early on. After my initial failure with the Brass Monkey 4, I did my usual "put it down and stare blankly at it for a while" before deciding to have a try at the Helical burr. After approximately 1.2seconds Mrs S stared at me with daggers, or maybe I should say sgian-dubhs as she is Scottish (I actually wore one of these on my wedding day as I got married in a kilt). Straight away she warned me that there was no way I was going to play with this puzzle whilst we were watching TV - it is too noisy! The 3D printed plastic is quite smooth but they layers do scrape on each other quite loudly and was making "she who scares the bejeeeezus out of me" ever so slightly annoyed. Gulp! I put it down and went back to BM4.

I do the vast majority of my puzzling in the evenings in front of the TV with Mrs S...when was I going to be able to play with this? Luckily, last week I actually managed to get some study leave approved to attend an anaesthesia conference (now that Covid seems to be improving in the UK, we are being allowed time for annual and study leave in limited numbers). Things are not quite so great here that we are all heading to hotels and attending meetings in person but quite a lot of conferences have moved to a virtual format. It's not as much fun but certainly is convenient and slightly cheaper. 

Aluminium washer cylinder

I therefore spent two days last week sat on my bum staring at a computer screen for 8 hours! Lord, that is bloody tiring! In fact the only way I could stay awake at times was to pick up various puzzles that are around me and have a fiddle whilst listening to the lectures and watching the slides. I worked my way through almost my entire Strijbos collection and even managed to solve the Aluminium washer cylinder which gave me so much trouble all those years ago when I initially bought it. Yay! The conference was proving very worthwhile! Eventually, after I ran out of Strijbos puzzles, I picked up the new Helical and figured that noisy would be OK in a virtual conference.

I knew this that this puzzle was going to be tough after Allard showed off a picture of it half solved and the comment that it was never going to go back together again. This was a little worry as I have had a similar issue with the very difficult TwiddleDum (or is it TwiddleDee?) - one of those is currently in 4 pieces and has not returned to assembled puzzle in nearly 5 years! The Helical burr 2 has a very interesting loop in it's early pathway. At least I found it interesting for the first few hours. It kind of got a bit boring at the end of my first conference day as I had traced the same path many hundreds of times and not found a way out of it at all. On day two of the conference, whilst fully fortified with coffee and a rather sugary breakfast, I listened avidly to a discussion on the effect of anaesthetic agents and pain killers on cancer recurrence and restarted the Helical with little hope.

At some point during the first couple of hours, I had had no complaints about the noise and looked down to see that it looked different. What had I done? Could I return it to the beginning? Cue slight panic... my usual modus operandi is to go back and forth and effectively memorise the moves of most burr type puzzles. I had not been paying attention and had no memory of what I had done. I tried to backtrack and realised I had an "Allard situation" - this was only going in the forward direction! Oops. I resigned myself to adding another 4 bits of plastic to my 'pile o pieces' in a box but at least I could say I had dismantled it if not actually solved it. Even having found that hidden move it was still not an easy progression to the end. I continued to be noisy for a large proportion of the rest of the conference before I had this:

He'll lick all bare, too solved
I might as well lick it as I stand equal chance of reassembling it with my tongue as my hands!

The puzzle is a beast. I have spent several days trying to reassemble it and can't even get to the place where I had my unfortunate realisation. I contacted Derek and he sent me a nice little pdf. Apparently big Steve is a dab hand with the OpenScad software and has created a step by step reassembly diagram in it. I can barely draw a cube in it and yet he is performing miracles. I am going to try and reassemble the beast after I've uploaded this blog post.

You are all MUCH better puzzlers than me! You definitely should buy this one - it will be a nice challenge for you and I know for certain that you will manage it in just a pleasant couple of hours. Go on I dare you!
 

I have received a new batch of puzzles from Jakub and Jaroslav - I am going to power my way through as fast as I can so that they can be put on sale soon!

The puzzle geniuses do it again!

Three Helical burrs - Helical, W(h)orl(e)d and HELLical!

Not long ago I posted a review of the second (tougher version) of a new type of puzzle - that is a 4 piece burr which has been rotated into a double (?quadruple?) helix shape. The original was the Helical burr  designed by the amazing Derek Bosch and (my version at least) 3D printed by Shapeways before the terrible "PriceApocalypse" which effectively killed much puzzle design. There have also been a few copies made on his Threedy printer by my good friend Steve Nicholls. I absolutely adored the first Helical burr and was not at all surprised when it won the Jury grand prize at the IPP design competition in 2013.

Earlier this year I was chatting to Derek and he told me about his design for a significantly harder version of the Helical burr which he named the HELLical burr and was delighted to be able to get a copy from Steve. This was by first experience of a home 3D printed version and was very pleased to see how fabulously smooth the version was. I gushed about that one here and even went so far as to post videos of the disassembly and assembly to help people who were truly stumped they can be found here and here. The HELLical burr was really was extremely tough and, having practiced it so much for the video, Steve decided that he would use my skills at the last MPP! He forced me to disassemble and assemble a fair number of the ones that he had made to work out which had acceptable tolerances! Since then I think he has made and sold a considerable quantity all over the world.

I was aware that Derek had been working on another design with Steve but did not realise how far along they had got until about a month ago I realised that I had missed an announcement on Facebook that the third design, the W(h)orl(e)d Burr, was complete and actually being produced for sale! Unluckily for me the whole lot had sold out within a single evening! I tried not to send a whinging email to Steve that I had missed it because I knew that he was really busy with his new job as well as starting the massive task of printing his exchange puzzle for this years IPP. My friend Jamie did manage to obtain one of the new ones and posted on his FB page that he was finding it quite tough - this didn't surprise me initially. But I was surprised that even after a week or so he had not managed to assemble his copy. I know Jamie is now quite an accomplished puzzler and if he struggled that much then I really needed to try for myself - I was expecting a horrendous task. I was really pleased when after just a few weeks Steve put up another batch for sale on Paradise and I nabbed one straight away. It arrived (with a nice note) a few days later.

"Happy twisting and here's hoping you are soon on top of the w(h)orl(e)d"

4 rather similar looking plastic helices - how on earth to put these together?

He called me a genius!

Positively devilish - the HELLical Burr

If you follow me on FaceBook then you will have seen a late night post from me with a puzzle finally solved and an exclamation about the incredible skills of two of my friends! I posted this:

Derek Bosch - you are a genius! This HELLical burr is phenomenal - it took me quite a few hours to dismantle it! Lots of blind ends and even a loop and a hidden exit! Steve Nicholls - your 3D printing of this puzzle is nothing short of stunning! Everyone should go to http://threedyprinters.com/ to see the machine you use - I WANT one!!!

In part of the subsequent conversation that follows, Derek actually said that I was a genius too!

Kevin, you are the genius, for solving it (and remembering how it goes back together!) Even I need my cheat sheet! 

This came as a bit of a shock to me because I remain convinced that I am a puzzling amateur. Yep! I still think of myself as a newbie to this game with a bit of a fetish for burrs, twisties, disentanglements, N-ary puzzles, sequential discovery puzzles and assorted wooden interlocking puzzles. Oh dear! That’s quite a list isn’t it? BLUSH!! The present Mrs S would definitely say that I am no genius as I barely remember my own name some days and have much more purchasing power than sense!

It's Helical - such fun!

So what is all this about? You may think you recognise the puzzle at the top of the post - it is a 4 piece burr puzzle which has been twisted into a helical conformation. I wrote about the predecessor of this a long time ago - The Helical Burr. Derek Bosch designed it and won the Jury's grand prize for it in the 2013 IPP puzzle design competition. More importantly it was very high (number 3) in my 2013 puzzles of the year list! At last year's IPP he showed off a follow up puzzle which required significantly more moves which was subsequently named the HELLical burr because it was HELLishly difficult. Shortly after that, Shapeways killed off affordable puzzle production and I mourned the fact that I would probably never manage to obtain a copy. Luckily, earlier this year we heard from the equally brilliant designer and puzzle producer Steve Nicholls (one of the coproducers of the Threedy printer) and he showed off the first copy of the HELLical burr produced using an FDM printer. I drooled and told him that I wanted one as soon as he was able to produce them for sale. An email exchange took place between Steve, Derek and I and over a couple of days,  and I got progressively more excited! Between the two of them they had managed to produce an animation of the disassembly which stuttered away on my iPad and definitely did not give me much of a clue but really whetted my appetite! I was then recruited (as had occured with the original version) to use my photography and editing skills, along with my now famous kitchen granite to make a solution sheet for it. I played all keen to the boys but was actually quite worried that I would be completely unable to solve it at all!

Going round the twist

The Vapors

Just a quick post today as I am out and about visiting the out-laws (Whack! Ouch!) and haven't really had much time for puzzling or blogging. I thought I would mention a couple of puzzles I have been working on over the last couple of weeks that I have had varying success with. Both are the brainchild of the combined genius of Derek Bosch and Steve Nicholls. They have been working together on these helical variants of burr puzzles for quite some time now and I have managed to acquire a full set so far. Steve went to the Kyoto IPP this year and had printed about 100 copies of one of Derek's designs as his exchange puzzle. Luckily for me (and a few others) there were significantly less participants than that in the exchange and hence some were left over.

When I was chatting to Steve on Facebook, he mentioned that he had some new helical puzzles to show off and of course I said that I would buy them when I saw him next. At the last MPP a few weeks ago, big Steve was there with a good few new plastic toys and he promptly handed me his exchange as a gift - he is SUCH a gentleman!

One of the Toughest Puzzles I Have Solved

Helix the Burr

Many months ago I was chatting via email with that good friend of mine that I mentioned last week who has been giving me such great advice on which puzzles to buy. He suggested to me that I should hunt around and see if I could obtain a copy of the Helix the Burr Puzzle as he thought it was something really special. I immediately shot off to Bill Cutler's website to have a look at it. Bill had designed it in 1982 - he had been looking for burrs with an interesting structure and sequence to them. It was originally intended to become the Wausau '82 puzzle, however, the design quickly became too complex and it was formally introduced at the Sixth Annual International Puzzle Party at Jerry Slocum's house on April 2, 1983. The first solution was received from Edward Hordern.

At this time Bill had designed it entirely in his head and by real model prototyping. It must have been quite a feat to achieve something like that and is just a small hint at the incredible brain that he must have. His website describes the puzzle as follows:

"This burr features the most interesting disassembly sequence that I have ever created. The name comes from the spiral structure that is created by the 8 pieces surrounding the central 5-piece core."

The original batch of 20 puzzles made by Jerry McFarland was sold between 1990 and 1992 and I am not sure whether Bill ever released another batch (his site suggests that more may be made available in 2017). Brian Young made a batch of 30 of them in 2004 as a Limited edition. Both Bill's and Brian's editions have been long sold out and have been seen at auctions for enormous sums. In 2015 Eric Fuller made a batch of them too (using Maple and Bubinga). He made 40 copies in total and they sold out quickly. I am not sure how I missed out but I suspect I had already spent my budget. Of course after being told how essential the puzzle is, I had been kicking myself. You may notice that the puzzle actually appears on Eric's home page.

Recently Eric has sold off his backlog of spares to free up space and I tried to get one from him then. I put in a fairly decent bid and unfortunately missed out again. I had more or less resigned myself to never getting a copy when another one turned up at the last Cubic auction. I hate auctions with a passion because I never seem to win anything and the couple of times I have done so I got carried away and spent far too much and ended up resenting the puzzle I bought. But the last auction had so much good stuff on it that after lurking for a while and watching a few items that rapidly spiralled out of control, I noticed a copy of Helix the Burr not having too much interest. I put in a last minute bid and was astounded when I won. I was pleased to see that the owner was based in the UK and I wouldn't be caught by the customs men.

After a few days of admiring my purchase I found some time to play and noted that there are 3 or 4 moves that didn't seem to go anywhere. Luckily there is no long dead end. I then noticed the wonderful helical arrangement of the cross pieces and wondered whether they were in that arrangement for a reason? Of course they are! After a couple of days of getting nowhere, I made a big discovery. There is a truly beautiful and very precise helical sequence before the whole puzzle suddenly becomes very loose and spreads apart. This movement scared the bejeezus out of me and I immediately reversed my tracks! After a gulp, I repeated it a few times to check that I knew what I was doing and continued with the search. Despite it all becoming incredibly rickety and looking like it might collapse in a heap, I realised that it was still very stable. This is quite amazing to me and a huge tribute to both designer and craftsman. With everything really loose, I hunted for the next move. And hunted. And hunted! Nope! Nada! Not a thing! I put it back to the beginning and whinged about it to my friend Derek!

Derek asked a pointed question about what I had tried and the result of his questioning led me to a horrible realisation. There is another reason why the puzzle had to be designed in Mr Cutler's head....it was not just the year. Think© about it! This realisation opened up a whole realm of ideas but interestingly not a lot of them were possible. In fact, only one piece was movable and in several ways. I went through them all and of course the very last thing I tried produced something fascinating. After some more interesting helical themed ideas I had a nice pile of wood:

Just look at the notches on that bottom piece!

Looking at the pieces, it can be seen that the notches are made in ½ and ⅓ thicknesses. The central piece is a masterpiece! Now it was time for the reassembly. Gulp! Now, I am NOT terribly bright but I am not completely stupid! A puzzle that cannot be modelled with Burrtools and without a printed solution is not one I am just going to disassemble and pile up the pieces. That would be a recipe for disaster and I already have one burr that has sat in pieces next to me for a couple of years and I don't want another one! So I had taken a very nice sequence of photos with my phone and had actually kept all the pieces in sequence on the table:

All in order and orientation

It was time for the reassembly and after collecting all the pieces up for the obligatory photo on my kitchen granite, I set them all out in the order of the pic above. I started following my disassembly pics in reverse order. I was ready for a huge triumph and a big blog post......and failed! I got to this bit:

Looks easy?

Something was wrong.....the position above and insertion of that piece was impossible! HELP!!! I tried for hours and failed again and again and again. Mrs S was getting fed up and it was time for me to cook. The pieces were gathered up and put away for a later attempt.

Three days later I proved to myself, and am confessing to you all out there in puzzle land, that I am not terribly bright. I had not been able to follow my own pictures! It would appear that I cannot tell the difference between a half height notch and a third height. Let me tell you that in puzzling size really does matter - I had a single piece completely upside down. After 3 days of trying the same thing again and again, I forced myself to start from the beginning. The very first set of 3 pieces can be put together incorrectly but still look ok. However this allows the subsequent moves to continue correctly until this one and you WILL hit a wall. If only I had been clever enough to look carefully or to start at the beginning, it would have saved a whole lot of chest pain and mumbling to myself with the subsequent laser burning stare from she who frightens me to death.

I have now solved it several more times and can now follow my reassembly pictures every time! I haven't dared attempt it without them. I must agree with my puzzling mentor; the Helix the Burr is a fantastic puzzle and well worth adding to your collection.

Plastic Fantastic!

 Or...Perpetual Plastic Puzzlement is Positively Propitious

Switch cube pieces

Switch cube failed yet again

You may remember the suffering of the poor puzzler from last week? He had foolishly ordered a plastic interlocking puzzle from the rather clever Richard Gain and decided to take the advice of another rather clever puzzler that it would be a really great fun challenge to accept this in pieces as an assembly puzzle. This advice and decision was simultaneously absolutely brilliant and, paradoxically, also a powerfully preposterous preference!

Ok! Ok! Even I am getting fed up with the P words and it's getting tough to find new ones that make sense.

I was left after last weeks' blog post with a bunch of vibrantly red pieces that were supposed to make up a 5x5x5 cube. I had worked out where they all were supposed to go but, for the life of me, I was unable to find a sequence that would lead to an assembly. No matter what I did, I always had one or other piece that I could not insert. On Facebook it was suggested that Burrtools might help but I was loathe to try that and cheat. Dammit! I wanted to be a good successful puzzler for once and actually solve something myself. Richard, chimed in to that conversation to say what I had already worked out - BT would not easily solve the puzzle - it was a TIC (Turning Interlocking Cube). I had noticed that one pair of pieces could only be interlocked with a rotation but I was worried that there might be a whole load of them. Richard said there was only the one rotation - Phew!

I persisted at it. Every evening this week until Thursday, I worked at it. I tried every possible starting sequence and wasn't getting anywhere. Finally on Thursday evening whilst watching TV I realised the source of my problem...it was me! I had got fixated on which piece was going to be the last one to be inserted and that simple insertion would complete the cube. To be honest, I don't know where the fixation began. It did seem like a perfect end to the puzzle as it slid the piece into the cube very nicely but, after days and days of failure, I forced myself to reset my methods and expectations. I began to place this piece earlier amongst the others and kept the blue piece out to be the last one. This still failed me but led to a realisation that there was a fabulous sequential locking movement involving multiple pieces. I couldn't put the blue piece in last but this spurred me to find a way to insert it earlier without blocking the locking sequence. On Thursday evening I thoroughly pissed off Mrs S with a shout:

AHA!

OMG! It is absolutely incredible!
The closing sequence meets the "switch cube" name perfectly 

I have subsequently dismantled and solved this cube dozens of times and absolutely adore it! An amazing design - the TIC element is a nice touch to prevent a puzzler just giving in and resorting to Burrtools but really the puzzle is almost a pure linear assembly puzzle but with multiple steps. The disassembly is level 11.3.2.1.2.2.2 which doesn't sound like much but for a puzzler of poor prowess it was a humongous (and very rewarding) challenge. I have made a BT file which solves it using groups but that is just for the fun of it and because making these files is part of the fun. All that I need now is for someone to make this in wood and I will throw money at them! If you get a chance to add this to your collection then don't hesitate...buy it and ask for it to be sent in pieces.

Sweeney Todd - complete with stand

Oh yesssss! I never thought I would be typing such a thing but again I have perfect plastic puzzling on my kitchen granite to play with! The genius that is Derek Bosch has done it again  - he has designed another helical burr puzzle but one with a real difference. The last one I absolutely raved about...it was so difficult that Allard surprisingly failed at it and of course, who could resist yet another one which was supposed to be the "highest difficulty level yet".

The name is spot on - it has been 3D printed to look like a classical barber's pole and I guess that because it might just kill you to solve it, the murderous barber of Seville is appropriate. I hadn't properly realised until I picked it up (yes I bought it without even looking properly) that it has been designed differently to all the other helical burr type puzzles. Yes, it has 4 pieces like most of the others (the Vapors and Pole Dancers have 3 pieces) but instead of 2 inner and 2 outer pieces, it has a single central pole and 3 outer helical pieces. This monster apparently needs 43 moves to remove the first piece! How could I resist? 

Mrs S was not particularly amused when yet another puzzle delivery interfered with her day - I did reassure her that one of those deliveries was her birthday present to me but she seemed unmoved by it. Following my enormous (but slow) success with the Switch cube, I decided I had to jump straight in with another plastic puzzle. This has been printed by the ThreeBrassMonkeys a bit differently to the others. The inner pole seems to be a different material to their usual - it has silver flecks in the grey plastic and is textured as well. It makes for a surprisingly pleasant tactile experience and something quite nice to look at. The stand stops any of the outer pieces sliding whilst stored upright as well as making it stable for storage on a shelf.

The previous puzzle (Polar Burr) was a wonderful sequence with only a few blind ends and was a very nice discovery puzzle as the correct path needed to be found. This monster, on the other hand, has multiple blind ends right from the beginning and several loops in which you miraculously find yourself back towards the beginning of the puzzle without realising how one achieved that. 

I did my usual to and fro approach and explored the blind ends and back-tracked each time before advancing further. The "maze" has been printed on a smaller scale than most of the other puzzles and so you will require smaller moves each time as part of your exploration. Some of the moves are unexpected and complex which definitely justifies using the to and fro method and at times some of the moves are of the central pole and the interactions with the outer pieces are hidden. At one point about 15 moves in there is a way to remove a piece using an illegal move. It is quite clearly a cheat so I resisted the urge and put it back to continue with the proper solution.

On several occasions I got stuck - I could not back-track and I could not advance. This frightened me to death and really annoyed Mrs S because apparently when this occurs I start to heavy breathe and mutter to myself about being lost! There is nothing more annoying to a wife of 27+ years than a husband who still breathes so I tried my best (unsuccessfully) to do it quietly. Each time I got stuck, after a frantic 10-20 minutes of trying everything I could, I managed to get back to a place that I could remember...

Until I couldn't!

Probably about 25 moves in I did something that I couldn't undo! Not because it got jammed, not because something went wrong with the puzzle. It was my own stupid fault - I do most of my puzzling in the evenings after dinner whilst watching TV with Mrs S. Now I am a bloke which means several things:

1. I snore sleeping on my back (little clue to all you girls - you do this too! I have a huge experience of sleeping women - it's my job!)
2. I enjoy watching violent crap on TV
3. I cannot multi-task! Well we sort of can but it doesn't end well (as we will see)

I was watching TV and doing an extremely complex multi move puzzle! This was one task too many and something happened - I reached yet another place where I could not backtrack. I spent all Friday evening trying to work my way backwards and a fair bit of Saturday as well. Nope! That was not happening. Time to try just to advance only - except I was in a loop. For a couple of hours I went round and round in a circle getting more and more desperate. Suddenly, whilst explaining to Mrs S that the heavy breathing was necessary, I was out of the loop and had no idea how. OMG!

Interestingly, at this point the pieces all had reversed their order on the pole and started to dance in the opposite direction - I was having fun again. I had given up all attempts at keeping track of my path - there was no way in hell that I was going to reassemble this without help. I know Ali had managed it but it had taken him 6 hours and he is a savant! Apparently these things can be modeled in BT as well (I have never managed it).

It's very pretty like this which is just as well
I suspect it is going to stay like this!

After about 6 or 7 hours of fiddling, swearing (and being sworn at), the 3 outer pieces slid off one after another. Photos taken this morning and I now have to contemplate asking Big Steve or Derek for a solution file to help me reassemble it. After that I will have to do it again, and again and again. Until I can say that I actually understand the solution.

This is a fabulous addition to the series - I have a lot of these now and I think this plus the Polar burr are the very best yet. The series has been progressing nicely over the years in difficulty and fun factor. You definitely should add one of these to your collection whilst they are available (Polar burr is available whilst you are there). Steve and Ali sell the plastic puzzles via Puzzle Paradise and keep the TwoBrassMonkeys store for their metal marvels. If you are in North America then you may prefer to use PuzzleMaster for purchasing.

Stay safe guys and gals! It is still taking huge measures to keep things under control around the world. As you can tell, in places where mask use and vaccination levels are low the virus is running amok. Even here, where our idiot government won't do what they are advised, our numbers are going through the roof and our hospitals (including mine) are filling up. This is making the work extremely difficult. It is a really simple thing to do - keep socially distanced as much as possible, where a mask when in public places, get your vaccination (and booster if offered and eligible) and this will keep you and your loved ones as safe as they can possibly be. Unfortunately Coronaviruses don't behave the same way as other viruses and transmission can still occur after vaccination but it is decreased and the level of illness suffered is hugely diminished.

The Best Helical Ever - Polar Burr

 aka Twisting the Night Evening Away

Polar Burr

Over the years of this blog you will have seen quite a few of these. They are helical burrs all designed by the genius, Derek Bosch. It is quite a telling thing that out of all the incredible puzzlers in the world, only he has designed this sort of puzzle - this is for several reasons...primarily he is a genius but also because he thinks in 3D in a non-linear way that the rest of us normal human beings cannot think and especially because he has a very twisted mind! I personally would be grateful to have a mind at all let alone an evil twisted genius one. Mrs S often berates me for my lack of brains and she is absolutely right (see, I admitted it and she is not standing behind me brandishing her lochaber axe!)

I had reviewed the "He'll lick all bare, too" a few months ago and described how I had dismantled it whilst having gotten lost in the move sequence and then had no idea how to put it back together again. I survived the daggers (aka the Sgian-dubh - my, aren't I full of the Scottish weapons of violence??) that Mrs S threw at me with her glare at the noise. The nature of the 3D printing process always mean that these are built up in layers and they make a rasping noise as you move the pieces about and this noise is particularly annoying to wives (or is that just my wife?). 

Big Steve (from the TwoBrassMonkeys store) showed off the latest creation from Derek's twisted mind and claimed that the Polar burr (named for the snowy white peak) had the highest number of moves yet for any of these helical puzzles. Of course, how could I resist and a short chat with Steve had me sending some PayPal his way and he posted me the next in the series the following day. "Yay!" said Mrs S. Except she didn't. In fact when the box was opened and I gleefully showed of the puzzle that was supposed to have 36 moves to remove the first piece she stared at me long and hard as if to dare me to play whilst we watched TV. GULP!!!

Being extremely frightened of Mrs S and her assorted weaponry, I took the puzzle to work and annoyed a few surgeons with it but couldn't really work on it there because the stuff that I tend to anaesthetise requires a lot of concentration and attention to what is going on (I probably cannot afford to lose focus when doing an AAA repair). This meant that I had to risk possible retribution from Mrs S and play in the evenings. I would wait until she had a cup of tea and a cat on her lap to pin her down before I would get the puzzle out and hope that she had not brought her throwing knives into the living room.

Over the next few evenings I explored the burr in a back and forth manner as I usually do to lay down the pathways in my memory. There is quite a lot of movement in this puzzle which makes it a lot of fun. I personally find that burrs with too many false paths rapidly become less fun to play with because it is really tough to keep the decision tree in my head (I have a minimal capacity brain). The Polar burr is nice because it has quite a few false paths but none are so deep or have multiple branches to leave you getting lost. Several times in the process, I got very close to removing the first piece but it was always blocked. One problem with these rotational puzzles is that false movements are sometimes possible if pieces are rotated in an unintended way. With Polar burr this is not possible - a few times it did become a bit rickety and nearly ready to fall apart but remained stable.

Nearly there? Not for a while yet.

During the process there are several lovely moves that make you almost gasp in delight. Back and forth the pieces dance around each other gradually moving towards the exit. I say "almost gasp in delight" but remember that "she" is armed and dangerous and I cannot afford to risk upsetting her any further. 😈

Finally after 4 evenings I removed the first piece and yelled silently (see my reasons above). I was slightly concerned that I had not really understood the last few moves as I had been watching TV at the same time. Without moving anything else, I decided to put it back together again and relearn all the steps...except I could not reverse the 2 or 3 moves that I had done to take the piece out. Damn! Swearing at my stupidity I spent a rather fraught ½ hour desperately trying to put the loose piece back in much to the amusement of Mrs S who delights when I am in pain. Eventually it went back inside and I returned to the beginning. Now, how did I manage that last move? It took me one more evening to finally solve it and completely take the puzzle apart with the confidence that I could return it to the beginning again:

Just 4 pieces but rotational moves make for a huge challenge!

I have to say that I think this is the very best one yet - the level 36 is huge but this is very solvable even for a puzzle idiot like me. If you want to play with it then Steve has put a few up for sale on PuzzleParadise - they take a very long time to print so will only be made in small batches - keep an eye out for Steve's items there if they are sold out - the Twobrassmonkeys store is kept for metal puzzles and the plastic goes up on Paradise. I seem to have been quite busy with these over the year:

Lots of helicals (one might be lost somewhere in my collection)
The one in pieces is either TwiddleDum or Dee - I can't remember and can't reassemble it

Stay safe everyone - despite what the UK government has said, it's probably too soon to be abandoning masks in public - the Delta variant is extremely infectious so every little thing you do to protect yourself will help. The numbers in our hospitals here are increasing inexorably and this includes the younger population. If you can have a vaccination then take it - any of the vaccinations are effective. We have had hundreds of millions of doses now with almost no significant adverse effects (a few hundred blood clots out of hundreds of millions of doses is insignificant). We know for certain that the vaccine works - pretty much ALL the patients admitted to hospital with Covid now in the UK are the un- or partially vaccinated or those with immune compromise. GO GET A JAB...NOW!

Pole Dancing - Earned me a Whack! Ouch! and Worse!

Pole Dancers

Despite being on annual leave this week, I have actually not had much time to do that much puzzling and don't have enough time or energy to write much today. This is partly because my fitness drive started this week (and nearly killed me) and also the stress of my mother's illness has left me more sleep deprived than ever. My concentration ability has not been great as a result. I also was forced by "she who must be feared and cringed from" to tidy up my study - the results of which can be seen on my New additions page here. At least after many hours of tidying I have made a bit more space for any new toys that might be coming my way Whack! Ouch! No dear! I promise I am not expecting anything at the moment! Apart from...... Whack! Ouch!

I seem to have an awful lot to go!

My mojo seems to have abandoned me! I continued to work on Wil's exchange puzzle and finally after several days managed to solve the first 2 challenges in a way that was repeatable and that meant that I understood them. Remember that it is important to be able to solve a puzzle repeatably before you can claim that it is conquered and the challenges in Wil's leaflet are surprisingly difficult for such a simple design. Number 3 is killing me and I haven't even begun to use the extra piece yet. I have also singularly failed to solve Allard's exchange puzzle!

Luckily a few days ago, Steve sent me a copy of his IPP exchange puzzle - It is called the Pole dancers and was designed by the helical genius, Derek Bosch. I have reviewed every single one of these puzzles so far and could not resist playing with this as soon as it arrived. Unlike all the others in the series, this consists of 3 pieces instead of 4 and the core is a solid stick - hence the name as the other 2 helical pieces seem to dance around the central pole. Steve printed it himself on one of his Threedy printers and used a pair of beautiful vibrant colours. The layers have been beautifully smoothed so I assume that he also used an acetone vapour chamber to produce such a spectacular finish.

Yin Yang Disentanglement

Helical burr

I've been a bit delayed recently due to work commitments and Mrs S going off up to Edinburgh to visit her parents meaning more chores for me to do! I've also not wanted to put out too much stuff when the deluge from the IPP is going to be out soon! First of all may I give my hearty congratulations to Derek Bosch for winning the Jury Grand prize in the design competition with his marvellous Helical burr which I gushed about here.

Jean Claude Constantin - Yin Yang

This week's post is about a disentanglement puzzle that I had thought was particularly attractive and involving string, I thought it would be a real challenge. I also would like to get more puzzles by the amazing and prolific Jean-Claude Constantin. This is the Yin Yang disentanglement puzzle (not to be confused with the puzzle of the same name made by Puzzlemaster that I reviewed here). It was originally rated as a level 8 on their difficulty scale of 5-10 and that was a major attraction for me - I was really hoping for a string puzzle that wouldn't hurt my head too much! Subsequent feedback from me has led to it being re-rated as a 5 (Easy) and is certainly good for beginners to this type of puzzle.

It is made from a nice quality anodised wire and a decent string with a bead on the end and arrived in just a small plastic bag with the name of the puzzle typed on a label. Certainly a decent quality and in size it is 6.2 cm in diameter and the bead makes it about 2cm thick. It is extremely cheap for such nice quality at only $5. The name is obviously related to the soothing Yin yang symbol it forms and it's not difficult enough to upset your inner peace! I haven't seen any other reviews of it anywhere and no one has commented on the PuzzleMaster page. Interestingly there is no downloadable solution on the solution site either but don't let this put you off! You really will not be needing it!

Cast Valve - I Think They Need to Speak To Derek

Cast valve - level 4/6

Cast valve - Damn, these things are hard to photograph!

Last week I started with my return to the Hanayama Cast puzzles/Huzzles with the pretty easy (level 3) Cast Dice. I have not had much time for puzzling this week apart from continuing with those nice pocketable puzzles and working my way up the difficulty levels. I unfortunately have to report that my Cast Snow remains in a locked up position with only a tiny amount of wiggling possible. 

The Cast Valve seems rather oddly named - I work with several different types of valves in ventilators and obviously have valves for my car tyres and none of them look like the shape of this puzzle but, to be honest, I cannot think of anything better to name this one. It was designed by Vesa Timonen who has been extremely prolific over the years and has had nine other Hanayama puzzles produced as well as several others over the years. His designs are always fun and usually just the right level of difficulty to challenge you without putting you off. Hanayama has rated it as level 4 out of 6 and PuzzleMaster as level 8 (in their silly 5 - 10 scale).

The puzzle here is a rather attractive hexagonal shape with a frame into which there are three further pieces inserted. It is 4.5 x 4.2 x 1.6cm in size and made from a yellow brass-like metal frame and matching colour centre piece and two shiny silver semicircular pieces that fit between them. The aim is to dismantle the puzzle and then put it back together by navigating the interior moving maze formed by the pieces. Now, the master of this sort of puzzle is the genius himself, Derek Bosch, the designer of the original (and many subsequent) helical burrs which I have gone completely bananas over on this blog. Having solved this puzzle by Vesa, it reminds me of the very first of Derek's designs, the Tubular burr which is effectively a stick burr in a frame but with circular pieces that can rotate around and through each other. The Cast Valve is just like this.

My early fiddling showed a fairly constrained bit of movement as the pieces lock and unlock each other. I realised early on that I would probably need to take notes to keep track of the moves that I try so that I don't go around in circles (literally as well as figuratively) - I sort of needed to make up my own notation for it. Within about 10 minutes, I had made great progress and the pieces were rotating and rising and falling within the frame nicely. Great I thunk, I'll have this done in no time and have one in the bag for the blog. Except, I felt I had made reasonable progress and could not advance any further. I must have missed an exit of the maze pathway somewhere so time to backtrack and trace it out with pressure on different bits to try and find the hidden path. It's a fiddly bugger when you try and do that - just a bit too small to allow you to do this with ease. After an evening of playing and swearing (I seem to do that a lot!) I realised what was going on - yes, it is just like any other burr in that it has blind pathways that lead you the wrong way. Yes, of course, my first exploration had taken me completely in the wrong direction.

Having realised my error I made pretty good progress again until I reached a point where I was almost able to remove a piece but not quite. Here again I got stuck for a while. The tolerances on these are very very tight. Things need to be lined up just right to let you progress at certain points. After a couple of days I had managed this:

Not a spoiler - you cannot possibly see enough to work it out.

I put the pieces aside for a few hours before attempting the reassembly. I have to say that this would be a huge struggle if I had not spent so much time going back and forth on the disassembly. I had enough muscle memory that I was able to reassemble it with only a short period of getting lost. The level of 4/6 is just about right in my opinion.

This is a nice little puzzle which I enjoyed a lot. What it did reinforce to me was that Derek's helical type burrs would be fabulous made as a cast puzzle (the original would be a perfect difficulty level) - I am sure that Steve and Ali have looked into making one out of brass but they would be hellishly tough to mill - it would be perfect to cast. Please Hanayama, have a little chat with our friendly genius!

Something old, something new....

Something borrowed, something blue!

No! I have not taken leave of my senses and no! I am not getting married again! I don't think the present Mrs S will let me! I just decided that this might be a nice title to get your attention! I have had rather a lot of puzzle deliveries recently and some are rather special so I thought I would bring a few together into one post.

Hectix revisited

First we start with something old. It's old because I have had it quite some time and because it is based on a very old design.

Going Spirally Mad!

Twiddle twins

Last week I mentioned how I had asked Big Steve for some assistance and his memory had failed him (along with mine). Quite a few months ago Derek (yes, the genius) had designed a new pair of helical burr type puzzles and Steve had made a bunch of copies and sold them on Paradise - they were called Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum. Quite a few of us had snapped up a copy of each and expected to be bamboozled a bit but eventually to come through with a shout and a solve (plus or minus a Whack! Ouch!). However, this time the shout was very much subdued all around the globe. These puzzles had proven to be very much harder than everything that had gone before.

Nice collection!

This pair was the fifth and sixth of this series that I had acquired for my collection and I fully expected to have a fab time solving them and quickly produce a blog post about them. But it was not to be. I am aware that my friend Ali is the tester of these puzzles for Steve - he has been handed the pieces of quite a lot of them to see whether he can assemble them from scratch and, as far as I know, has always succeeded. This is abso-bloody-lutely amazing!

When they arrived, I dutifully put them on the overloaded tray next to my chair and had a quick fiddle. I quickly discovered that there was a lot more possible moves to them than the other ones and with the spiral nature of the shape it was nearly impossible for me to keep track of what moves I had done and so even back tracking was hard. I got one of them to the point where there was just a tiny overlap between the 2 outer spirals but they weren't going any further than that and I returned to the start. After that, I couldn't even repeat that feat! Which one was it? I think it was Twiddle Dee.

Cast Helix

Cast Helix

Taking a small break from the Puzzle Master wire puzzles, I decided to go back to one of the Hanayama puzzles. This time it's the Cast Helix. I thought I should work out how to solve this one because a friend of mine at work had been attracted to the shiny metal puzzles as a direct result if playing with some that I had brought in. She had bought the Cast Marble which she has so far dismantled but not reassembled and also bought the Cast Helix. She has spent weeks on this one and gotten nowhere and I knew that I couldn't help her if she asked. So it was time for me to work on it.

The usual black Hanayama box beautifully displays this puzzle. It consists of 2 disks of antiqued brass attached back to back with multiple slots in each. A robust metal helical piece passes through both disks. Size is 4.3 x 6.2 x 6.2 cm with a nice solid feel to it. The helix can be rotated around the disks through the holes that appear as you rotate the 2 disks in each other and can get to more or less any position you might want. The disks have a number of shapes on the surface forming the shape of a logarithmic spiral and some gaps which move as the disks rotate. The aim is to remove the helix from the disks. There looks to be a fairly obvious exit point so what can be so tough that has kept her going for so long?

But remember it is a Puzzlemaster level 9 (Gruelling) or Hanayama level 5/6 so it is certainly not going to be trivial - it should be pretty tough. The reviews on the Puzzle Master page are generally good with the only negative that some force is required for the solution. This idea was confirmed in the review by Gabriel. No solution is provided but it can be downloaded from here.

Architest

The Architest Puzzle.

Despite having been off work this week, almost no puzzling has been achieved! Sob! She keeps making me do DIY! This time it was the main bathroom - aka "hers". It needed de-grouting, re-grouting and then silicone sealing plus other numerous household things that never get done except when I am off work! Hours of puzzling...NONE! The PuzzleMad foreign correspondent didn't know how much I would need him yet as always he came to my rescue at the end of last week with yet another wonderful guest post. He always seems to pick puzzles that I wouldn't choose for myself or have not managed to solve and produces something wonderful to keep you entertained for yet another week. I am most grateful to Mike Desilets for yet another fascinating post...


Aloha Kākou Puzzlers,

As you may have noticed, my recent series of guest posts have leaned rather heavily on Hanayama releases. Although this is great for driving up the page hits, its probably time we returned to the lesser-known, out-of-production puzzles that I also love. If your sources of puzzle information are restricted to the major blogs and YouTube, then you may be under the mistaken impression that all cool, creative, and desirable puzzles have been made by high-end craftspersons in the last few decades. That just isn't so. There is a much bigger puzzle world out there to be explored. I can’t remotely do it justice, but some of my past posts should at least give a hint at what is available.  (Ed - and I am extremely grateful to you for broadening my horizons!)

We won’t actually be going very far back in time today, as it happens. Sorry if I got you all worked up. Today we will look at a puzzle from the late 1980s - Architest, The Spiral Stair Puzzle.

The cover.

And contents.

Architest is the invention of architect Tim Leefeldt who registered a trademark for the name in 1987.  It appears the trademark has since expired. If you Google “Architest”, the vast majority of your hits will be for a modern edition of the classic six nail stacking puzzle, currently sold under that name.

The new Architest puzzle - not reviewed here.

Judging from the packaging language, Mr Leefeldt intended Architest to be a series of architectural puzzles, of which The Spiral Stair Puzzle was the first. I’ve looked around quite a bit and unfortunately can find no other Architest puzzles from Leefeldt. Rob Stegman’s compendious site contains only the Spiral Stair Puzzle, which is a strong indicator that there are no other Architests.

Instructions

The objective of The Spiral Stair Puzzle is stated succinctly on the box: “Construct a spiral stair of radial blocks around the post.” Very straightforward (Ed - I'm not so convinced!). The completed helical stairway will have 14 courses, each of which is comprised of three quarter-circle blocks. The challenge is to overcome the sagging and deflection that will occur if the blocks are improperly placed. The miniature edifice is meant to be a running series of cantilevers. and it is thus critical to form tight, properly supported running bonds. In order to build the stairway, it is (ostensibly) necessary to utilize a “key block” which fits into a slot about midway up the centre post, better known to architects as a newel post. Utilizing the key block properly is the crux of the puzzle - that and choosing a proper cantilever between the courses. 

It is not especially difficult to get the stacking correct. The average puzzler will need no more than about three tries. It is a very pleasant experience though. This is one of those puzzles where the difficulty is not the main point. Rather, it is to learn (by doing) about form, force, and structure. The puzzle aspect comes into play because, like all puzzles, there are a limited number of ways to achieve the solved state and a much larger number of ways that will result only in catastrophic failure. 

The spiral stair built;
Architest passed.

Architest is a fairly unique puzzle and I have not come across anything quite like it in my puzzle journey (Ed - me neither). As the name suggests, it is an “architectural” puzzle, which might put it in the stacking/balancing category. Master puzzle collector and compiler Rob Stegman slots it into the dexterity category, but even he would probably admit that this is a bit of a kludge.

Dexterity is not essential for solving the puzzle, its mostly just basic physical manipulation (stacking). I think it could just as easily be called a “put-together” puzzle, with gravity telling you when you have not done that properly. But I am not huge on classification (Ed - I am absolutely fascinated by it and visit Rob's site frequently). I probably would be more so if I had to keep track of thousands of puzzles like a real collector (Ed - Don't say that! Whack! Ouch! Too late!). But that’s not a problem for me presently (YET.....).

The cantilevered side really seems to levitate.

Close-up. It needs a lego person for scale.

Once you have built your beautiful spiral, there remain other interesting challenges. These puzzling opportunities, not included in the instructions, greatly enhance the value of this puzzle. The first and most obvious question is, can the stair be built without the newel post? This means the loss of the critical mid-post support wedge, incidentally. Since I made up this challenge, and since 99% of you will not ever have a copy of The Spiral Stair Puzzle, I feel at liberty to dispense spoilers. If you intend to hunt down a copy, then perhaps reconsider continuing with this post.


(Ed - I have inserted a few lines of a gap here - don't scroll down if you don't want any spoilers)

My first attempt at a three-block, self-supporting spiral came apart at the seam
Excessive deflection due to weak running bond. This stairway is a deathtrap.

It can be done—the free-standing spiral stair with 14 courses.
Dexterity comes into play for this challenge, a steady hand at the very least.

The answer is yes, it can be done, but definitely not with the same cantilever used in the main solution. The steps must be quite a bit narrower so as to increase the vertical downforce and prevent lateral sagging. This, however, means that you have increasingly weaker bonds since there is less overlap between courses. So it is a tricky trade-off, but one that can work for the 14 courses available. It is extremely unstable at the last course and I think 14 may be the limit. Other Architests can be conducted, such as trying to build the tallest possible single and double block spirals. The following images show how far I was able to get: 8 courses for single and 12 for double. Decreasing the step length might allow one to squeeze on another course. At this point, however, although it would be a spiral, it would not make a reasonable stairway.

Single block spiral. Watch your step.

Two block spiral. Significantly higher, but still perilous.

The Architest Spiral Stair Puzzle is a very enjoyable diversion. If you are lucky enough to come across a copy, I recommend snapping it up. It will give you an hour or two of stimulating play and may just expand your architectural horizons. As a bonus, you will probably end up spending hours looking at images of spiral staircases online. Many are so strikingly beautiful they will bring a tear to your eye (even your jaded sleepless eye, boss) SOB! I won’t bog down this article with examples, but I do think this endless stairway, designed as outdoor sculpture by artist Olafur Eliasson, is worth including. I don’t know if you can build this with blocks, but maybe there is a way. It would be a true architest.

Double helix staircase sculpture “Umschreibung” by Olafur Eliasson. It's at the KPMG building in Munich.

If you are like me - don’t worry, only my editor is like me (Ed - hahaha! It's true!) - this puzzle may also inspire you to research the spiral form more generally. That was a big part of the inventor’s intention with this puzzle. There is a virtually inexhaustible literature on all aspects of spirals ranging from the mathematical to the artistic. We here at the Puzzlemad Hawaii Branch Office (Ed - one day I'd love to visit that branch) are committed to providing a full-service blog, so I’m including a PDF copy of one of my favourite works on the topic here. This is a 1903 book entitled Spirals in Nature and Art. It was authored by Kevin’s fellow countryman Sir Theodore Andrea Cook, a gentleman and a scholar in the truest sense. It is a great read and I highly recommend you take the time. The book is no less than: “A study of spiral formations based on the manuscripts of Leonardo Da Vinci, with special reference to the architecture of the open staircase at Blois, in Touraine...“. Even that much-abbreviated abstract should be highly motivating for the genuine puzzler.

Other-than-spiral uses for Architest blocks; pillbox-style apertures supported by strong running bonds.

Other spiral construction puzzles have been released in recent times including the Quadstair by Oskar:

Oskar’s Quadstair, a tight quadruple-helix stairway.

Ed - I have a gorgeous hex version of this made by my good friend Neil.

In conclusion, I have little else to say. It is my deepest regret that Mr Leefeldt was (apparently) not able to continue adding puzzles to the Architest line. Certainly, there is tremendous potential in the concept and my guess is that arches, vaults, and flying buttresses would have been the subject of later issues. As with real architecture, the initial challenge for these puzzles would be understanding the balance of forces, and the second figuring out how to construct an object which is only stable once complete. There is no reason some puzzle-loving architect or architecture-loving puzzler cannot take up Mr Leefeldt’s torch and run with it. The puzzle pieces are just little wooden blocks, after all. We certainly have no shortage of craftsmen in the community who are very very good at fashioning little wooden blocks. With that, I return you to Kevin for the weekly farewell address...


Thank you so much, my friend! As always, you have come to my rescue at the perfect time with something absolutely fascinating on a subject I would never have learned about had it not been for you. I always look forward to your posts for the added value that you bring to my otherwise boring old blog - you keep it fresh and interesting and I am sure that a lot of puzzlers visit more for your knowledge sharing than my old drivel.