Livewire puzzles part 11 and helping a hero

Roller Coaster

Incredible! An 11th post devoted to just one puzzle type and manufacturer. In January I began to update my Livewire puzzles sojourn with a look at the most recent ones added to their site. I am very sad to see that they have discontinued several of my absolute favourites from my previous posts. They have a huge range and some are absolute blinders! Have a look here for some of the older puzzles.

So the next one in the series that I picked up was the Roller Coaster - this is the very latest addition to their catalogue and I was very lucky to be offered the chance to buy it before it actually came on the market. It has a striking similarity to the Ringleader that I reviewed last time, with the big beautiful spiral. This spiral really complicates the solving process and gives you the dreaded opportunity to not only tie the string in knots but also to have it wound around and around the spiral. Livewire have rated this one as "Very Difficult" and hell yeah! it certainly is.

Cast Cylinder

Hanayama Cast Cylinder

Not so long ago, I appeared to have finished all of my last hoard of Puzzle Master deliveries. Very quickly suffering from withdrawal symptoms, I decided that it was definitely time for some more - and spent a very happy half hour or so rampaging through their emporium of goodies for more toys to play with and of course even more to write about for you. I really do like to have a few mass-produced puzzles to write about to ensure that I am not only writing about things that are unobtainable for many of you.

What I try to do is make an occasional large order because Canadian post is sooooo expensive that I try to get the package weight to the point where it is worthwhile buying and before it doesn't get really exorbitant! So during the week, I received another big box of new goodies to keep me occupied.

One of the first that I grabbed to try was the Cast Cylinder from Hanayama - this was released in August 2013 and has been raved about by friends of mine and by other bloggers. It just took me a while to get around to adding it to my collection. However, the wait was definitely worth it - it is a really clever puzzle with some very interesting challenges. As usual, the packaging is delightful and everything nicely held in place - no chance of breakages or it solving itself in the box as has happened to me with other company's puzzles. The instructions on the box are simply to dismantle it and put it back together again. They are so confidant in the difficulty that they actually show the pieces on the box. Rated as a level 4/6 by Hanayama and 8 (Demanding) on the 5-10 point scale by Puzzle Master, it should be a nice challenge to most puzzlers. Having been designed by the very prolific Vesa Timonen who had designed the Cast Donuts (one of my absolute favourites), I had high hopes for this one.

It has been reviewed before by Jerry on his blog here, and by Gabriel here (both of them failed to manage the puzzle reassembly without help). The customer reviews on the product page have been very positive. No solution is given with it but if you need one then it can be downloaded from here although, to be honest, I'm not sure how much help it will be for the reassembly.

Out of the box - it is made of shiny chrome (really hard to photograph!) and I think would have been nicer as an anodised black but either way it's very enticing to pick up. It is 3.6cm diameter and 3.5 cm high - it is a nice solid feel in the hands

Another milestone passed!

Incredible!

I appear to have passed the 300,000 page view mark and am very grateful to you all for continuing to read my drivel! It constantly amazes me that I get 400-1000 page views per day and I guess that not all of them can be my mother!

I will try to keep it up for you - I'm having too much fun to give up now and a large part of the fun is the writing and communicating with you. I still consider myself an amateur puzzle solver and hopefully with all this practice I might improve!!

It gets easier - so I thought!

Box Packing

Last week I highlighted a few of my recent purchases from my friend Jakub, the co-owner of the New Pelikan Workshop. The puzzles I showed were fabulous interlocking solids which were a really nice little challenge and a packing puzzle that even I was able to solve in a reasonable period of time despite being rubbish at them (that puzzle is now in the hands of a true lover of packing puzzles who will really appreciate it - a birthday gift for a friend).

This time, I wanted to showcase the rest of the puzzles I bought in that series. The picture at the top is Box Packing designed by William Hu and it initially confused me because I thought that was the wrong name. I actually thought that the All tetra stick was the Box Packing but Jakub's pictures put me right as did Ishino's site. As soon as I saw the picture I knew I had to have it - it is so different to everything I have seen before.

Interlocked and even packed successfully!

What's the collective noun for a group of Pelikans?
A gorgeousness?

Recently I received another rather large delivery from my friend Jakub. Every few months he whispers sweet somethings in my ear and my brain falls out along with the contents of my bank account! My last purchase consisted of 7 gorgeous puzzles which I have shown above. I initially thought they were all either interlocking puzzles or burrs - little did I know it but one of them was a packing puzzle! I try never to buy packing puzzles because I can't do them but Jakub bewitched me and I just bought them all! I haven't told Mrs S about the cost of my collection and it's on a need to know basis......She doesn't! Luckily Jakub's work doesn't break the bank.

Over the last few years you know that I have a trouble with getting wood! Stop that!!!! I just can't get enough - now, stop that thought again!!! I am a sucker for most puzzles but particularly when they are made by a good craftsman in fabulous exotic woods. I have been buying from Jakub for a couple of years now and can only say that the quality of his workmanship just gets better and better - at the last Midlands Puzzle Party both Allard and myself came to the conclusion that Jakub was now up to Cubic standards. Luckily for me (and the rest of the community) they seem to focus on different puzzles. Jakub has also been very successful in getting his work stocked bu puzzle sellers from all over the world.

In Europe they are available at good prices from Bernhard Schweitzer at his Puzzlewood site, in N America they all seem to be stocked by Puzzle Master here and Brian & Sue Young stock them at MrPuzzle for those of you in Australasia.

Cast Coaster

Hanayama Cast Coaster - hard to photograph!

Todays blog post will be a short one - I am on call yet again and may be called in at any moment! I am definitely getting too old for all this working in the middle of the night business - last Tuesday was horrendous and it took me until Friday to recover!!!

I am finally coming to the end of my last Puzzle Master delivery and I have to say it has really been fun. I got a whole load of toys that have been marvelous fun to solve and have kept me in torture equipment for my friends and work colleagues for ages! In fact seeing the bottom of my Puzzle Master stash is a bit depressing and I think I might have to order a whole lot more - I will explain to the present Mrs S that I have to get more for the sake of my loyal readers! OUCH! My that burns!

As you all know, I am a big fan of shiny things and that very very mad bad girl, Roxanne, has been trying to entice me into buying some Berrocal puzzle statues. She's even gone so far as to give me some links of auctions that are starting soon! Help me - they are soooo shiny and soooooo gorgeous!! I really would love to get some but unfortunately my budget is blown just now! In the absence of being able to own any Berrocals I will have to limit myself to slightly more affordable shiny things. This time I am discussing the Hanayama Cast Coaster and it definitely is very nice and shiny.

It was designed originally by a member of one the very famous puzzling families, Serhiy Grabarchuk. As a little aside, the Grabarchuk family have been trying to set up a Puzzle social network based around one of their apps, Puzzlium, which may be worth a look if you are that way inclined.

Hanayama have packaged it beautifully and decided that it is a level 4 on their 6 point scale or level 8 (Demanding) on Puzzle Master's 6-10 scale. I personally think that it may be slightly easier than that but Gabriel thought slightly higher in his review. Brian reviewed it here and enjoyed it - he certainly thought it is unlikely to be solved by chance. Jerry's review found it extremely challenging and required him to find a solution after a couple of hours of fiddling! On the Puzzle Master item page the user reviews are all 4 or 5 stars and very positive descriptions.

It is flat and looks very like a cup coaster and a very nice weight to it. Dimensions 6.4cm diameter and 0.5cm thick and have I said that it is very shiny? There is a blurb on the box about coiffure which can be completely ignored and all you need to know is that you need to take it apart and put it back together again! No solution is provided but it is easily available from here.

The circle, the MPP and the Aftermath!

My MPP display

I need a small catharsis here! I do apologise, but it's necessary for me to get it off my chest! Recently you have read a fair bit about Shane's latest puzzle 'The Circle'. I mentioned here that it took me over a week to find the first two moves! I worked and worked at it for absolutely ages and earned a 3rd degree burn in the centre of my forehead from the laser stare of the present Mrs S because there's a significant amount of metal inside the circle and it doesn't just jingle - it clangs....very loudly!!! I then read that Allard (who is MUCH older than me.....in the puzzling sense!) managed to get his copy solved in just about 1/2 hour! In tears I huddled in a corner and rocked myself to sleep muttering to myself that despite practicing my puzzling skills for about 4 years, I was obviously still rubbish!

Now Shane and I have been communicating frequently for nearly 18 months and when he mentioned that he was qualified as a Master cabinetmaker and was interested in making puzzles himself, I provided lots of encouragement and just hoped that he'd let me buy one of his masterpieces! Over the months we became really good friends and it transpired that not only is he a Master craftsman, he also owns and runs a huge (yes HUGE) building company. As well as that he has a family to maintain too. So I am really flattered that he makes such an effort to communicate with me and has even said on several occasions that I (little me!) am the only reason he wanted to have a go at making these puzzles and this is why I always receive puzzle number 1! So why was I so much slower than Allard? Surely Shane wouldn't have made mine much harder? He's much too good a friend for that...isn't he??? Well it transpires that Shane had moisture problems and not the kind that can be fixed with a prescription deodorant! My puzzle was made to MUCH tighter tolerances than the subsequent copies and this was the reason for my slow progress! That IS my story and I am going to stick to it! Having been told this I was very keen to compare them at the upcoming MPP (Midlands Puzzle Party).

They look identical - mine is on the right - tighter!

Some history..... The Block was shown at an MPP where it went down a storm and even bamboozled Louis (The puzzle solving machine) and Wil Strijbos (The pusher). So it was very fitting that we take the Circle to the next one and test it on the "Machine" again! I also wanted to convince myself that I wasn't a total failure!

A Quick Update

An additional menu choice

Whilst many of you follow me on Facebook and get my update photos there, there are also many of you who do not like or use Facebook so I thought I would add an extra page to my blog. At the top there is a new option - it is the New additions page. I will post very intermittently to it just to show photos of what I have received recently, what I'm working on or stuck on and maybe even what I have solved.

It's a new URL but everything just works

Blogger doesn't allow a second page to have posts added - the extra pages are supposed to be static. To get around this I have copied my template and started another blog called Puzzlemad extras and made links to it from the main blog. It is a bit of a kludge but that is the only way I can work out how to do it!

I suspect it may be time to leave blogger and go elsewhere (maybe Wordpress or Squarespace?) Any thoughts on this will be gratefully received!

Man the Torpedo

Man the Torpedo

Having been to the first Midlands Puzzle Party of 2014 yesterday, I am absolutely shattered today! A good time was had by everyone and luckily there were people newer to puzzles than me so I was actually teased a little less than normal! At least this time I did not do anything too stupid to give them too much ammunition! Pictures can be seen here. Shane also made it and we tortured quite a lot of people with his Circle puzzle - I was very relieved to see that Allard's copy was considerably looser and easier than mine - phew! Confidence restored......for now!

I usually don't like to take along any puzzles that I am frightened to have someone else scramble, dismantle, undo or partially solve because I always end up with a good number to resolve at the end of the day. When I got home last night, I had 4 twisties, 2 N-ary puzzles and an interlocking puzzle to solve when I got home! Yesterday I had actually taken my Hexaminx crystal - a Pyraminx crystal converted into a cube shape by the amazing Traiphum. I have never had the courage to scramble it but decided that if it happened yesterday then that would be fine! But no-one scrambled it for me! Oh well, I'll just have to do it myself!

Pyraminx Crystal

Same puzzle in cube form!

So today, with my fatigue and having someone with a laser stare breathing down my neck to do some DIY asap, I will be posting just a quickie on another of my more affordable puzzles. I do like to keep going with the puzzles that are less expensive and within the reach of the more (shall we say) "normal" human being! I am well aware that I have been buying rather a lot of expensive bespoke puzzles over the last few years and many cannot do this. In fact one of my colleagues actually asked me whether I had developed some kind of terminal disease because I was buying things as if there was no tomorrow! I can assure everyone that I don't! I just am sort of.......addicted! Plus I am lucky enough to have a good job and no children! Hence all the toys are mine, MINE, MINE! Hahahahahaha! Blush! Ahem! Sorry for that!

This week the puzzle I am showing off is a very nice looking thing called Man the Torpedo from Puzzle Master's own metal puzzle collection (note this is a separate category for you to peruse to their wire sets). I own several puzzles of a similar type in wood which I got from the Puzzle pusher, Wil Strijbos and they are part of a very large series from either Hungary in wood or Japan in plastic. I have been thinking for a while that I should get a few more because they look so simple and yet each one is subtly different and requires slightly different techniques. Two of my favourites have been the Canary in a cage, cylinder in a cage and best of all the Dinosaur and box in a cage!

Canary in cage	Cylinder in cage
Dino and box in cage

Now I am always interested in trying new variants of puzzles that I have already and especially if the materials have changed. So when I saw that Man the Torpedo was a similar idea but in brass and aluminium I jumped at the chance - it is only $18! Puzzle Master have rated it as level 8 (Demanding) on their difficulty scale of 5 to 10 and I probably think it would be better rated as a level 7 but I can't be sure that it's not just because I have done a few similar ones before.

It arrived in a fairly large box and was very nicely presented. It looks very nicely made although there were a few marks on it but they were fairly easy to smooth out with my fingers. It could be better made but not for that sort of price - the aim obviously is to remove the spiky torpedo from the cage. No solution is provided in the box but it is available for download here.

Understanding Parity part II

Just 2 pieces to swap? Hmm! Impossible!!!

2 weeks ago I showed you all the fantastic 10x10x10 cube that I got from Cubezz.com and used it as a beginning of an introduction to explain my approach to parities. The parities I discussed were the ones that every beginner to twisty puzzles hates because they seem to be so inexplicable and require such complex solutions. I recall that when I first started on my twisty path, I avoided the even order cubes like the plague because of these parities. But ultimately an understanding that the problem was caused by the reduction technique has given me enough knowledge to be able to work out how to beat them. In fact I know that by avoiding this sort of reduction can prevent these parities completely!

Initially I thought that solving in a layer by layer fashion would avoid the problem but unfortunately all it does is move the parities to the very last layer. Even though that does not solve the problem you should all try it - take your 4x4 up to 6x6 (or larger) and solve it layer by layer. It is a really fun challenge! The final floppy parities can be VERY tough to resolve. One way to prevent the parity situation is to perform an edges last solution - my friends Derek Bosch and Andy Chillingworth have convinced me to try this and it really is a fun thing to do and there are absolutely no awful algorithms to learn! Give it a go! My first approach was to reduce the 4x4 to a 2x2 and solve that way. For the 4x4 this was a fantastic challenge (watch SuperAntonioVivaldi go through it here). Recently he has posted another series of videos showing that it can be done with a 6x6 cube too! I recently got given a 6x6 cube by a Dutch friend (KattenVrienden on Twisty Puzzles) so I will be attempting this myself very soon.

So having explained parity - there is nothing left to discuss? I'm afraid not! The parity so far is that caused by the reduction technique. There is another sort of parity which we see on simpler puzzles including the Void cube (a 3x3 with no centres) and also on various other shape mods of the 3x3. This parity was explained to me (again by the amazing SuperAntonioVivaldi) as the "parity of false equivocation". This sounds horrendous but, again, it is not! It is just a simple way to understand where the misplacement arises and from then it is a "simple thing to fix it".

The puzzle at the top of the post is another fascinating cube that I also received from cubez.com - it is a new puzzle made by Moyu and is called the Evil eye (closed/version I) - like most twisty puzzles it is not expensive and Cubez do it even cheaper than anywhere else at $16.50. The both versions are pictured below. Version II is the "open eye" one and has little holes that reveal colours inside.

Evil Eye I	Evil Eye II
Scrambled and looking horrendous!