Back to Basics

And Still Not Good At It!

Eleventh Hour by Goh Pit Khiam

Once or twice a year, Tom Lensch emails out what he has been working on and lets interested puzzlers place orders. A few weeks ago the email came in just as I had purchased a few others and so my PayPal was tight and I also was aware that if post brought me too much then Mrs S would Whack! Ouch! me into oblivion.......again! I resisted the urge to buy it all and just picked a couple that I figured might just be possible for a man with my meagre bwain and which would not break the bank or Mrs S' patience. A week or so later I received the Eleventh Hour by Goh Pit Khiam (out of interest, I have seen the name as Goh Pit Khiam and Pit Khiam Goh - can anyone tell me how it should be written?).

It arrived in pieces made from what looks like Maple or Cherry and has Tom's fine stamp on one of the pieces. 4 pieces to construct into a 4x4x4 cube - surely, I must be able to manage this without too much difficulty after all these years? I set to work last weekend and very quickly managed to see the final position of all the pieces - yes, this might be an easy one! I was able to assemble any 3 of them quite quickly into their correct places but always was unable to get the 4th piece in. The way the pieces were interlocked always ensured that one was completely blocked from getting past. This was nice and fun - just the challenge I had been hoping for after desperately trying to solve the 3rd in the Hoffman suite from Pelikan. Whilst I have your attention, there are still a few left of the Sukiyaki, Steamboat and Fabrick puzzles on the Pelikan store - well worth a look.

I have had a lot of work to catch up on after my holiday and must  insist on using this as an excuse for my feeble bwain failing on this puzzle for several days. I was only able to play in the evenings but was getting nowhere fast. I even emailed Tom to ask whether this was a TIC but was reassured that it is "just" a simple interlocking puzzle. Damn! I'm rubbish at puzzles! Finally on Friday evening, I assembled my cube with a sigh of relief and a memory of the early days of my puzzling "career" - this simple interlocking cube takes me back to the fabulous creations from Rich Gain's Microcubology. Over that first couple of years of PuzzleMad, I must have bought 15-20 gorgeous interlocking creations (they sit in a tray on display in my second puzzle room - Whack! Ouch!). Only toward the end did I buy them in the disassembled state and solve them that way. I had kind of hoped that I might be better at them but Tom has proved me wrong!

5 days to assemble - that's rubbish!

Goh Pit Khiam also designs some interesting packing puzzles which I usually fail to manage but the Confound Space looked solvable by a mere human and I couldn't resist:

Confound space

6 blocks to place in a box with a limited opening - this is usually impossible for me.

Interestingly, I made a couple of discoveries very quickly and my "what if" sense made me try a few things and I was rewarded with my Aha! moment after just 20 minutes! Phew! I am not a complete eejit!

A Less Than Relaxing Holiday!

Latest Pelikan release

I get an inkling that trouble is in the air about 2 weeks ago when I see a beautiful puzzle on Jakub's Facebook page and I realise that it has been about 2 months since the last batch went on sale. I show it to "she who frightens the gods" and rather than admonish me about the catastrophe that isms study and the sheer number of puzzles lying around, she reminds me that we are on going on holiday quite soon and this might make deliveries a little awkward. Just to get at her, Jakub arranges for a delivery to arrive at PuzzleMad HQ literally 48 hours before we are due to head off to Sconny Botland (that's Bonny Scotland to the foreigners) for a little hard earned relaxation (and a visit to the outlaws 😱). OMG! What am I to do? I have 8 rather bulky puzzles and I cannot fit them all in my luggage. To make things even more fraught, Jakub tells me that he wants to release them on 20/09 and I will not even be back home then. He is happy for me to write my reviews after they have gone on sale - Phew! I pack as many as I can stuff into a little rucksack much to the disgust of "she who makes me quake in fear".

Whilst away, I attempt to plough through them with only limited success and manage a couple more when I got back home. In the meantime a couple of them sell out in record time even without my wise words extolling their virtues - I might even be superfluous.

So here we go:

Minimal Frame

Minimal frame by Lucie Pauwels

Nope!

This gorgeous compact puzzle has already sold out I'm afraid (hopefully Jakub and Jaroslav will agree to make another batch). It is a very simple looking packing puzzle by the incredibly talented Lucie Pauwels. It consists of a number of pieces to be fitted into a frame...a vey minimal frame with only 2 cubies. It has all the lovely woods - Maple, Zebrano, Ash, Purpleheart, Wenge, American Walnut, Jatoba, Acacia & Padauk. It is obviously a packing puzzle where the 9 pieces need to be assembled into a square where they form a 7x7 square. This alone is quite a tough challenge. The complexity of the shapes does give a little help as certain pieces seem to scream to be together and the odd missing voxel in some assembled shapes scream to abut the single corners in the frame. Playing with this is very disconcerting as you race ahead with a nice promising shape and hopefully reach the final 2 or 3 pieces and realise that Lucie has led you astray - the last couple of pieces won't fit.

After a couple of days later I finally have it and all the pieces are fitting in. Except I haven't actually solved it - there are 39 solutions (why did it take me so long?) but the true aim is to construct the square in such a way that all the pieces are held captive and cannot just slide out sideways. Only one of the 39 assemblies fulfils this criterion - if you get a chance to try this it will need a lot of planning!

The Hoffman Suite

The Hoffman Suite by Dr Volker Latussek

I am afraid that this suite of 4 very complex packing puzzles has also already sold out. These are not for the fainthearted - if another batch are made then they are only for expert packing puzzlers. It's an odd name for puzzles if your name is not Hoffman and Volker explains himself as follows:

"I really wanted to realize the HOFFMAN SUITE according to Dean G. Hoffman’s 1978 problem using golden cuboids. However, the sum of the side lengths of the golden ratio 1.000 x 1.618 x 2.618 yields 4.236 which is greater than the 4.000 specified by Hoffman. Wanting to preserve the harmony of the golden ratio, I considered their square root: 1.000 x 1.272 x 1.618. At 3.890, their sum is less than 4.000 and they fulfil the Pythagorean theorem (as 1.000 x 1.000 + 1.272 x 1.272 = 1.618 x 1.618), which is indispensable for rotations in restricted boxes. The basic building block for the HOFFMAN SUITE is found and considering its inherent harmony, I’ve named the four packing problems after the four movements of Edvard Grieg’s 1888 Peer Gynt Suite."

This whole idea frightened me a lot! I bought the Hoffman packing puzzle from Tom Lensch several years ago and to this day have not solved it - I assembled it using the instructions and have had some correspondence giving me helpful hints but I am too dopey to be able to solve such a complex packing puzzle.

I include a pic of the original - as you can see, it is stunning and impossibly difficult!

Hoffman Suite I - Morning Mood

Here we have an unrestricted cubic box with 6 identical shapes, each consisting of the three basic blocks. I figured this one might actually be achievable by a packing eejit like me and took it with me on holiday. I hoped that it might be like a few other cubic packing puzzles where a sort of rotational symmetry was required and it would just be a matter of working out how to place pieces in a circle around the centre. Take my advice and ignore that - the solution is very clever and requires a good bit of thought based on the sizes of the blocks. I did manage to solve it after 3 days of trying!

Hoffman Suite II - The Death of Ase

Again an unrestricted cubic box but with 8 different shapes to pack in, each consisting of three basic blocks. 

Volker said: "This design came from my investigation of how many corner columns of three basic blocks are required for a unique filling. I had initially reckoned on 6, but haven’t been able to find them so far, and a filling with 7 corner columns has also eluded me. This packing problem is aptly named and should probably be avoided."

Probably be avoided? OMG!  With the clue of corner columns, I altered my approach and tried to pack the pieces into columns as tightly as they would go and actually found the solution entirely by chance. Let's just say this is difficult and leave it at that!

Hoffman Suite III - Anitra's Dance

I have not yet played with this one and suspect that it will be beyond a puzzle with my meagre abilities - I am sure that you geniuses out there will solve it easily!

Volker said this: "A restricted cubic box with 5 equal parts, each consisting of three basic blocks. Here too you’ll find your mind and your eyes playing tricks on you. Oh, and there may be some interlocking rotations."

Not only is it a restricted complex packing but it requires rotations - aargh!

Hoffman Suite IV - In the Hall of the Mountain King

Also not attempted - in fact I am too frightened to remove all the blocks from the container!

Volker said: "A restricted cubic box with 27 basic blocks. Despite the seemingly infinite number of pieces(!), the solution can be derived. The impatient can use the 21 published solutions of the HOFFMAN PUZZLE as a guide (one of which is the initial filling) – so don’t just pour out the blocks because you can learn a lot and the folks at Pelikan have filled the 27 basic blocks into the box with a lot of love."

Fabrick

Fabrick by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie not only does wonderful packing puzzles with a complex twist...she also designs interlocking puzzles that have a certain "je ne said quoi". The Fabrick puzzle is available in two versions - the one above is Ovangkol and Limba and it is also available in vibrant Purpleheart and Maple. It consists of 8 distinctly different puzzle pieces constructed in two layers with a framed tray with the aim being to assemble the pieces to form a woven pattern with the two colours forming parallel lines in each direction. It looks absolutely horrific at first glance but the constraints of the shape required and the colouring of the pieces make this a nice logical puzzle. A little trial and error reveals a set of constraints that limit where the pieces can interact and after this the assembly is a nice progression ending with a very satisfying aha!

Aim for this - it's tough but solvable!

Steam Boat

Steam Boat by Benjamin Heidt

The Steamboat burr is stunningly gorgeous! It is made from vibrant Padauk with Wenge and Cherry. Obviously the aim is to disassemble it and then put it back together again. The first thing to notice is that there are 4 burr sticks vertically forming the ship's turrets and also 4 burr sticks across the hull of the ship. Initial thought is that these will all interact and eventually allow a sideways movement which will free one of the sticks from the assembly and then the rest will come out fairly easily after that. Of course, as happens so frequently to me, my initial thoughts are wrong! I found a few nice moves that seemed to make a good sequence and freed up a progressive ability to move the sticks. I was on a roll!

That is until after about 10 moves I could make no further progress. I went back and forth searching for a missed opportunity and could not for the life of me find it. It was time to think© and look very closely at what I had. Jakub and team have constructed this very very beautifully with something perfectly hidden. Only when you have made this discovery will you be able to search again for another critical move. Once you have found it then rapid progresses made and pieces come out quickly. The endgame is still not trivial and the final pieces need another set of steps to remove them.

If you concentrate and don't lose track of what goes where then an assembly might be possible from scratch. I, of course, bundled all the pieces together to take a photo and will need to resort to Burrtools to reassemble this one. It is a stunning design and will look fabulous on display.

Sukiyaki

Sukiyaki by Frederic Boucher

When I saw this in the bundle from Jakub, I wondered whether this was yet another Minima puzzle (Frederic has been very prolific with that series!) but this is MUCH more complex than those simple designs. It is a restricted entry packing puzzle but without the rotations required by the Minimas. It consists of a rather fun looking box (dimensions 2x3x4 voxels) with a rather large but complex opening in the top and a trio of holes in a couple of faces to allow movement of the pieces. These pieces are 4 identical S shaped tetrominoes and 2 extras with a half voxel missing (making them 2 mirror images). This half voxel is going to make the assembly and movements very interesting. It is an odd name for a puzzle and is the first in a series of 3 packing puzzles Frederic named after famous Japanese foods (SUKIYAKI, TAKOYAKI and TAIYAKI). I hope that the others in the series will also be made.

Jakub and team have created it beautifully from American Walnut and Maple. I have not had time to play with this one yet but if it is anything at all like the Minima puzzles that I have previously reviewed from both Pelikan and Tye Stahly then it is one that SHOULD be in your collection.

I still seem to have a fair bit of work to do to catch up - I have not even found the fist move with Shane's Who Dares Wins, I have not managed to solve any of the three 5-piece jigsaws and have received a couple of beauties from Tom Lensch recently which are sitting tantalising me!

It Pains Me To Say It...

You Should Probably Trust Allard

I couldn't resist it - the first 12 Minima puzzles from Tye Stahly

Yes, I bought them! After Allard showed them off several months ago and waxed lyrical about them, I couldn't resist. Of course, the fact that these were designed by Frederic Boucher was of critical importance - he is brilliant! I was gutted to hear from Tye that they were out of stock and he had no plans to make any more due to the sheer amount of work that goes into them. I had to accept it but asked that I be kept on a list that if he ever does change his mind then I can be considered for them. It seems that Tye uses slave labour to make them - the present wife gets forced periodically to work at puzzle production! She does seem to have some say in the matter and maybe he is as frightened of his Mrs S as I am of mine. Luckily for me, she said that she would consider making another batch a few weeks ago and I immediately PayPalled herhim some dollars and they flew across the pond very quickly thereafter. Yay!

These are miniature puzzles - if you have very big fat fingers then they might not be for you but I am a delicate flower with fine fingers and they are perfect (if not a little fiddly). The diminutive size keeps the price down a bit, thank goodness! 

Minima 1

They don't look like much - they are all a 3x2x2 box with various shapes of pieces to be packed inside with all the holes in the box ending up filled (rotations are allowed). They really don't look like much - the pieces that you can see above on the M1 are pretty simple but don't be deceived, they can be a tremendous challenge. Some of the holes are not at one of the whole voxel position and this is deliberate. It should make you think© - why put a hole in such a place? The answer - to facilitate a particular rotational move. Brilliant fun! I have spent a week working on the first 4 and have really struggled at times. At the beginning of the week, during an on-line ½ day team meeting, I worked my way through the first 3 (much to the amusement of several colleagues). 

Usually with packing puzzles from Osanori-san or Alexander-san I start assembling the shape outside the box and work out how to assemble the shape through the limited opening but with these, the final shape is so simple that it didn't seem to help. The limited entry-hole also wasn't a help as the knowledge of complex rotations meant that the ability to insert only one way had no bearing on the final positions. With every single one of them I had to use a completely different approach - I needed to look at the box first and then insert a piece and see how the odd hole positions allowed me to rotate the piece. I did this with each of the pieces to find what was possible and then only after that use the knowledge to assemble the puzzle in the box.

Really fun challenge!

I carried on like this during my meeting working them out one at a time. 

Minima 2 was probably the easiest

The fun thing is that I have absolutely no recollection of how I had done them. During the meeting I managed the first 3 and took them apart again each time. Little fist pump of success each time and I put it away. Of course, a puzzle is not solved until it is repeatedly solved. 

Such fun!

To my shame, I found that I was completely unable to do them again with any speed despite having done them only 24 hours earlier. Wow! This means that they have longevity and will be great for a collection being able to bamboozle others and also yourself repeatedly.

It's odd how they never look difficult but really are

By the time I got to the Minima 3, I felt that I was on a roll and maybe learning some techniques. This one was a challenge but solved quicker that the previous two.

Another solved within my meeting
Maybe I should have been paying more attention?

The last I tried that day

The final one I worked on was the Minima 4 and I failed. It looks really simple with only planar pieces but it seems to be a significant challenge. The planar pieces do mean that there are more possible 2x2x3 assemblies but the tetromino is very restricted in the way it can be inserted and I quickly established that it was impossible to rotate it within the box. This leaves the rotations being for the other smaller pieces. The interesting thing here is the holes that facilitate the rotations. There are 2 special holes being just slots that are off centre. It took me several days to work out the various ways that the pieces could be rotated and surprisingly they were still quite restricted within the despite their simple shapes.

The solution to the Minima 4 took me an extra 3 days! Blush. 

3 days of work/play

These puzzles are just amazing! I cannot wait to start work on the rest but I now have to take a break and work my way through the latest of the Pelikan puzzles that I have received (keep your bank balances full for them because they look amazing!

If you get a chance to play with the Minima puzzles then you definitely should. I personally think that the puzzle community should harangue Tye and his Mrs S to make a whole bunch more. They are terrific value and really fun puzzles. Thank you Mrs S, Tye and Frederic for this fabulous opportunity.

Drilling For Oil?

Or Destroying an oil rig!

Rock-it Burr by Ali

Thank goodness! Yesterday I finally completed the last of my 6 day weeks for a little while! I am knackered and am hoping that having a little bit more spare time and recharging the little grey cells a bit might help my puzzling prowess improve a little bit.

So far this week I have solved the a huge one puzzle - I couldn't resist moving straight from Steve's Lone Star Burr (still available from here) to Ali's exchange puzzle - the Rock-it burr suitably themed for Texas with a cactus and an oil derrick (not to be confused with the the genius, Derek). It is obviously burr related with pieces that interlock and one of them also involves the rocking movement of the Derrick. After a couple of minutes there is a nice Aha! moment as the first part go the sequence reveals itself and quite quickly a piece can be removed from the burr. After this I got sort of stuck as extra movement was permitted now that the piece was out but it didn't go much further as I was expecting and I was forced to have a little think©. Luckily the thinking wasn't too deep and thereafter a few more pieces were removable. This is very nice - a little challenge but not too taxing for the bwain! 

At this point there is a flurry of possibilities ending in a pile of pieces. Just like Steve's puzzle isn't really a burr, Ali's burr is not really a burr either. I classify it as an interlocking puzzle rather than a burr. Yes, I know that burrs interlock but this puzzle is much more like the keychain puzzles of old where there are a bunch of interesting shapes to link together to make something wonderful. Here is my pile o' pieces with any spoilers hidden from view:

That was fun!

I left the pieces over night - Mrs S was demanding company that evening and I am far too frightened to refuse. The end result was a significantly better challenge. I had mostly forgotten the assembly and had to work it out fresh the following day. It was a perfect challenge for a tired man needing something to boost his puzzling confidence. It took about 15 minutes and left me smiling. Thanks Ali!

Of course, no blog post from me is complete without a tale of woe and incompetence! I have been playing with the Who Dares Wins/Haleslock 6 from Shane and the two brass monkeys and have noticed only one slightly interesting feature (yes only slightly because it's less than a mm) which I cannot make do anything more. I don't know why Shane sends out keys with these things when they don't do anything! Aargh! I have had dire warnings from "she who must to be flinched from" that I had better not drop it on a) glass dining table, b) granite worktop or c) tiled floor. If I break any of those items then I will be a dead puzzler after suffering a great deal of pain first! I waited until she had left the house before attempting to roll it, spin it, tap it on the table in various directions and even throw it up in the air spinning end over end. None of those moves worked and the key still does nothing. So far I have not broken any household objects with it and not received a Whack! Ouch!.....YET!

I also had a go at something "simple". Yes, 3 challenges from Haym Hirsh - 3 nice "easy" 5 piece Jig5aws. I need a holiday because I have tried all 3 of them for several hours and have proved that trying multiple same things over and over again doesn't work!

Hopefully after a little relaxation my mojo will return and I might just manage to solve something!

A Lone Star Burr Is Not Really a Burr

But It's A Really Fun Puzzle!

2 of the 3 deliveries in one week
Whack! Ouch!

Yes, it's been yet another 6 day working week for me and as a result not much time or energy for puzzling. Luckily I only have one more Saturday to work and then I can have a little rest. Whilst puzzling takes a good bit of time and energy, collecting only takes a message or a click of a button and is much easier! This week Mrs S found out how much easier as she ended up answering the door to various delivery men 3 times. Between her purchases and mine, we are now on first name terms with all our postmen/women as well as the Evri and UPS drivers. I had been lusting after the Minima set by Tye Stahly and Frederic Boucher after Allard's amazing review and when another set was made, some PayPal was offered and Richard from UPS came to the door. I couldn't resist adding a 5 piece jigsaw from Haym Hirsch into the box. Then yesterday whilst at work Mrs S was forced yet again to open the door and receive a delivery of Mr Strijbos' last 2 exchange puzzles. Do you think I should tell her about the big box that Ali brought back from IPP for me? I think I should pick it up direct at an MPP rather than risk her wrath by making her bring in another package! 😱😱😱

The next day was the delivery from Big Steve and Ali with their IPP exchange puzzles inside and of course, the masterpiece collaboration with Shane Hales, the Who Dares Wins lock/box aka Haleslock 6. You just cannot beat the Two Brass Monkeys for puzzling beauty.

I had to get something solved for today and after quickly putting the key into the Who Dares Wins lock and finding that it doesn't turn at all in any position, I had to try something that I might actually manage to solve this week. I suspect that the Haleslock 6 might take me a year or two to complete and certainly not in a few days. I picked up the one puzzle that the boys had described as "not super difficult" and hoped for the best... Steve's Lone Star Burr (not a burr)

Lone Star Burr

It really is quite stunning. A lovely big dodecahedron with the Texas flag on each side which will come apart into a 5 piece interlocking challenge. I had not really paid attention to the description saying 5 pieces on the site and just placed the order as soon as I knew they were on sale. This lack of attention led to a a bit of an issue with the solve for me.

On Thursday evening after work, I sat down and pushed and pulled at various bits to see what I could make happen - after a few minutes I found a section had moved a mm or so and I actually began to wonder whether it actually was a burr but that initial slide stopped and I had to squish it all back together again. After a few tries, I managed to grip it right and my squish and pull ended up with it pulling apart into two halves. This put an end to my delusions of burr-ness. My first erroneous thought was that this was a wonderful variant of the Diagonal star puzzle and that each half would then split into 3 more pieces. Before continuing with the disassembly I checked out the way the odd shaped halves slid together and marvelled at the design chops that managed to make this sort of dissection possible. Steve is yet another of those geniuses to join Derek!

I put the two halves down on the sleeping cat on my lap and the slid off and fell apart. Oh dear! It's not a variant of the diagonal star! This was "just" a dissection of a dodecahedron and was not going to be as easy as they said on the website:

Five very complex pieces

I spent the rest of Thursday evening swearing at Steve under my breath as I systematically failed to reassemble the bloody thing! Unlike the Diagonal star, this can only be reassembled in one way with the correct set of pieces in each half. Of course, I had absolutely no recollection of what had come from where and so tried to be systematic. This is not that easy with such complex pieces as it's quite tough to make any of them fit together. That evening, I did manage to successfully create two good looking halves:

Two halves - bloody useless to me!

It looked so good! I lined the halves up and tried to push together. The gaps all matched perfectly but there was no way that was going to happen for me. Time to annoy Mrs S by swearing like a navvy and starting again. I worked on it on Friday after work as well and again failed. "Not super difficult", my arse! It actually took me a third session of play after work on Saturday before it finally went back together. The way it slides together is really quite pleasing as everything just lines up beautifully and what looks like it might catch and obstruct just glides past. 

I really need to try something easier and give my very simple bwain a bit of a rest! Maybe a 5 piece jig5aw might be easier? Knowing Haym, I very much doubt it!

I think I will put the key in this one more time and see whether it turns this time - the Einsteinian approach to puzzling!

I will dare but I am unlikely to win!

Going Solo on the Stairs?

Solo in basket by Koichi Miura
Beautifully made by Mine

I had not expected to have two weeks of tributes to Koichi-san but it worked out that 4 of the 5 puzzles that I purchased from Mine's store were designs by him and they turned out to be just what I needed in times of stress and burnout. For some reason I seem to be working pretty much 6 days a week for a 3 month period and this is having a bit of a toll on my general energy levels and my puzzle solving abilities. I am just too damned tired to solve much! I know, I am the one that writes the rotas at work and should be more in control but I work one weekend day in trauma and another writing rotas and another in a non-NHS hospital and the diary fills up very quickly without realising what I have done. 

Luckily for me the puzzles from Mine are just perfect for an overworked bloke! The next challenge I picked up after the delights from last week was the Solo in basket. The reason for the name is pretty obvious from the photo and I thought that this has only 4 nice simple tetrominoes and can't possibly be terribly difficult to fit them into the 3x3x2 basket - there will obviously be 2 empty voxels somewhere inside. The entry to the basket is divided into thirds by the handle which will obviously severely limit the positioning. The bottom of that handle is elevated by a couple of mm which is absolutely critical for the solution even if I did not realise that at first.

Picking up the pieces and experimenting with the different way to create the final shape reveals that the options are very limited. There are, in fact, 11 ways to fit the pieces in that shape but the vast majority of them can be discounted due to the fact that more than one of them are oriented flat or perpendicular to the entry slots and that achieving that is impossible. I played for a while and realised that this was not as straightforward as I had initially thought. I should have realised it would be a decent challenge because Mine never chooses puzzles that are simple. He is a master of seeing the wonder in something special. Believe me...this is special!

I spent about 45 minutes failing to assemble any of the shapes I had found inside the basket and had to think© which in my weakened state was not easy. I eventually realised that a special sequence of moves might be needed and attempted it with several of the pieces and it seemed to be blocked. That is, until I tried something rather non-intuitive. I had the most beautiful Aha! moment at this point and got to understand the incredible design and the beautiful precision of the manufacture. If the shapes of the pieces or basket were even a mm out then this would not be possible but it's perfect and beautiful:

No spoilers here - Solo is now packed

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Stairs Posting - also by Koichi-san

I cannot show the complete puzzle here for fear of allowing people to make a copy without permission. The 4th puzzle in my delivery was Stair posting - it also has 4 planar pieces to be fitted inside a 3x3x2 box but this time with no spare empty voxels. The pieces need to be posted through the entry slot like a letter through a postbox. The puzzle is named because all of the pieces look like stairs if placed on their edge. Imagine all the different ways you could make stairs using a triomino, tetromino, pentomino and a hexomino and hence posting of stairs.

It arrives with one piece poking out the letterbox and an invitation to rethink it. I found this one just lovely. It is not difficult and the design has been perfectly created to allow manipulation of the pieces through the entry hole and the convenient hole in the top and once finished there are no gaps. It took me only 10 minutes to work it out but has been much more challenging for work colleagues who are not used to this type of thinking. It is perfect for the newbie or your friends.

The stairs have all been posted!

Thank you Koichi-san and Mine-san - you have really helped me keep my sanity during the last 2 weeks of overwork.

Koichi-san Bamboozles Some Operating Theatre Staff

Latest arrivals from Mineyuki Uyematsu

Mine has been very very busy this year. Life got in the way for him and the proposed puzzle manufacture took much longer than he had hoped but everyone was patient and understood that sometimes puzzles have to wait. I had requested this set (there could have been a whole lot more but I was frightened of the Whack! Ouch!) and they arrived during the week - in fact I was sitting at home in a MS Teams meeting when the delivery man arrived and I had to sneak out of the meeting to answer the door. One colleague in the meeting let out a big smile when he saw me arrive back on screen carrying a nice big box from "the foreign" - he knew about my habit/hobby/obsession. Actually, everyone I have Teams meetings with knows about my hobby because I have set my background as the first few puzzle shelves of my study. I have been asked by quite a lot of people what they are. After the meeting I eagerly unpacked and found these Japanese beauties inside - I couldn't even remember what I had ordered.

I set to work that evening on a couple of them which I will present now. The first one I tried was the rather fascinating looking Perfect Entrance by Koichi Miura (all of them have been made by Mine). I am very careful with puzzles from Mine not to show off any more details of a puzzle than he shows off on his Facebook page. 

Perfect Entrance - 2 pairs of pieces

More interesting than a knee replacement!

This wonderful 4 piece packing puzzle made from acrylic is truly beautiful. It also was an entry in the 2024 IPP design competition and won a "Top 10 vote getter prize". When I showed off my latest arrivals on Facebook, the genius did tell me that he thought that it was a brilliant puzzle and he really should know! To me, it has just the right difficulty level for any puzzler of any experience and will keep you working for just the right amount of time until you triumph having had 2 or 3 simply lovely Aha! moments.

 The 2 pairs of C-shaped pieces have interesting diagonal ends to them which must be significant. They all have the same outer dimensions which perfectly fits through the rectangular hole in the top of the case. It is very easy to fit 2 in side by side and then a third on the top layer but still within the case but after that, the 4th piece cannot fit under the lip of the top. Hmm! Maybe rotations inside are needed and off you go to try that for a bit. 

Having had no rotational luck, it is time to think like a burr and maybe the pieces move around each other inside the box to make space for the final piece to go in (this is very reminiscent of the challenges from Osanori-san and Alexander-san. Whilst attempting these moves you might find a little Aha! moment when the odd shapes suddenly make sense. Even having found the first of the Aha! moments, you will still be unable to proceed until you have been forced to think©! When I finally packed them all in, I had a huge grin on my face - I can visualise the puzzlers in the competition room with the same grin - no wonder it got so many votes! Of course I am not going to show you the solved puzzle!

The 2 miscreants in the photo above spent a good hour trying and in the end gave up and asked me to show them the solution - they too had big grins when the saw how clever it was. I gave this to several of the other operating theatre staff and they also failed but loved being shown how it was solved. It is truly wonderful!

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3Lx2 as it arrived

Having had lots of fun with that one from Koichi-san, I couldn't resist the 3Lx2 also designed by him. It consists of another 2 layer box but with a lid that slides from side to side. The aim, as you'd expect from the name is to pack the 6 pieces (3 of each different type of L shape) into the box. When it arrived, it was difficult to see how it was special because one of the pieces is protruding into a third layer and obstructing the movement of the lid. Once you have turned out the pieces (not easy without a few rotations and perfect alignment) then you get to see why the puzzle is so-named:

2 different sets of L's

I had not solved it but took it to work with me in the hope that I might have a little downtime to play. I felt brave and handed it to the 2 miscreants above to play with before I had even tried. They spent an hour on it intermittently whilst also helping me with a revision knee replacement and they were forced to give in. They handed it to me during the case and wanted to watch my approach to it. The pressure was on as they didn't want to see me fail and I did still had to concentrate on the case. 

Obviously, it is necessary to explore how the pieces can move inside the case. There are 2 layers for the pieces under the lid and yet again, once a few pieces are inside, it is difficult to get any more in. It is vital to move them around inside and make space for the appropriate diagonal insertions. I had a pretty good idea of how it was necessary to proceed and created a few possible assemblies outside the box (just as the boys had done) but then I did something they had not thought to do. I mimicked a disassembly from the shape I had created to see whether it might be possible to insert the pieces that way and also what order was required. This was new to them. I did work out that there was going to have to be a few nice sliding and rotational moves to make it happen and in just 10 minutes I packed them in:

No spoilers here!

Needless to say, they were all very impressed with my prowess. If only I could say that the present wife was quite so impressed with my prowess! Alas, that will probably never happen.

Thank you Koichi-san and Mine-san - fantastic puzzles.

Think Where You Want To Be...

A Lesson For Life As Well As Puzzling

Python designed by DDK

It's been a tough week with long working days and yet another Saturday working too (rota writing this time). I sometimes think I am getting too old for all this. I had saved the Python puzzle bought from Aaron Wang until fairly late. I had heard that it was relatively easy to solve despite the level 10 assigned to it. I figured that when I reach a time where I have only a few hours to play, solve and write about something then I will be able to use this one.

I was sort of correct but also did not figure in a bit of a hiccough in the path. This puzzle teaches a good lesson to plan ahead and think about the direction you want to travel in. My! That's very deep for me...I am usually a pretty shallow person.

The first thing that threw me when I picked this puzzle up was that my copy had been sent to me with an incorrect start position. Compare the picture at the top with the diagram to the left. The shuttle is in the wrong place. Will this make it easier or harder?

I suspected that the puzzle had not been solved all the way back to the start position and that it would have a lower number of steps to separate the shuttle than it should. An alternative horrible thought did occur to me that to save time the maker had assembled the shuttle from open wire into the start position and had done it in the wrong place. If this was the case, had he placed it in an unsolvable position? Only time would tell. I set to work this morning.

This is clearly going to be an N-ary type puzzle but made interesting by the maze pathway to be navigated. This requires the choices of direction for the shuttle to be placed through the rings to be chosen carefully. At each point the ring can be fed through from either direction and only one is the correct one. Needless to say, I got lost a few times and ended up having to backtrack to where I made the mistake. After doing this a few times, I realised that trial and error was time consuming and less than fun. Time to think© yet again. I fed through a few times and watched the response as it moved and finally managed to see how the shuttle and ring interacted in a predictable way. At last I could choose my path deliberately and know where I was going. All I needed to do was decide which way through the maze. After about 20 minutes I had the shuttle:

First part of the solve

Having taken my photo, it was time to reassemble it and to aim for the correct start position. Easier said than done. I had no idea how that final stage of the reassembly was done because I had never navigated it. I would have to work out where I wanted to be and work out a way through the last part of the maze. It looks like a simple maze but is quite well blocked by this 3 rings on the left hand side. I managed to get almost there quite easily:

Close, but no cigar!

Getting that last step proved quite a challenge. I tried something and found myself inadvertently heading back to the beginning and then had to backtrack and think© yet again. Twice in one day for me gives me a bit of a headache! Eventually I managed it and we have a correctly assembled puzzle.

Got there in the end

This is a really delightful puzzle, it is N-ary but unlike the simple Chinese ring style, there are numerous decisions to make and positive choices are essential to simultaneously navigate the maze to where you need to be. My personal journey was actually made better by having to solve it differently as an assembly than as a disassembly. I would suggest that something like this might be a good step up after a beginner has solved the Chinese ring puzzle. If you live in North America then you should have a look at Aaron's other challenges currently available in PuzzleMaster. They may end up stocking some of these in the future as well.

Thank you Aaron and DDK.