I have had a rather hard week at work this week and have been working on some
tough new puzzles. This has meant that I have solved nothing! Yes, Nothing! I am
rubbish at puzzles - you heard it first here. I wish I was a genius like Steve
and Derek or a puzzle solving machine like Louis but unfortunately I seem to be
much better at accumulating puzzles than solving them.
BM6
The Brass monkey number 6 arrived nearly 2 weeks ago and I have singularly
failed to find even the first move. Remember that if you want one then it
goes on sale
NEXT Sunday. I am sure that you will have a lot of fun with it and solve it in
a reasonable amount of time whilst I spend months and months trying to find
the first move.
Oleg's Wardrobe
I also received the Oleg's Wardrobe from Dedwood Crafts. It is absolutely
stunning and rather huge. It is NOT a box! Even if it has a cavity in it -
Dee has said that it is a wardrobe and there's nothing that says I can't
have wardrobes in my collection! Mrs S is muttering about storage again but
has admitted that it is very very beautiful. Again, I have played for a bit
and followed the easy first steps which lead you nowhere and then stopped
dead. Yet again, I have accumulated something and haven't managed to solve
it. Aargh! I am trying not to cry thinking about the previous 3 from Dee
which also remain stubbornly closed.
Erm! I seem to have failed at these as well - I really need to find my Mojo.
Orbit
Uplift
Burner
All three by Dee Dixon remain unsolved - only one has revealed any steps at
all to me!
Al Bus by Jordi Gallen
Then after that, Having seen the Al Bus (designed and created by Jordi
Gallen) raved about by several people at Peter Hajek's EPP and also enthused
about by Derek, I decided that I should try and get a copy. It is available
to purchase now from
PuzzleMaster but when I looked at it and made my decision, a copy was put up for
auction to go to charity commemorating the late Eric Fuller. I bid and I won
and several rather gorgeous pieces of plastic arrived. I haven't had time to
do much more than fiddle so far. It is rather lovely!
Having gotten nowhere with several rather complex puzzles all I can do is
show off a rather lovely Stewart Coffin puzzle that I managed to acquire
from Bernhard. This copy of the Four Corners (STC#6) was made by Josef
Pelikan using 3 woods and is a lovely variant of the
diagonal star puzzle. It slides apart beautifully to show 6 identically shaped pieces with the
classic base and slightly altered ends:
Instantly recognisable piece types
At this point I noticed that there are 4 different woods appearing at the ends
of the pieces (3 Padauk, 3 Wenge 3 Mahogany and then 3 Oak. When the puzzle
had arrived, as you can see at the top of the post, all the colours at the
ends were mismatched. I hadn't read anything about the puzzle and wondered to
myself whether the aim is to reassemble ensuring that each of the 4 poles is
the same colour/wood. I also wondered whether there were any alternative
assemblies. I quickly discovered that despite the simplicity of the pieces,
there seems to be no other way to assemble the puzzle. If you try to put it
together with pieces the wrong way then it is blocked.
Sliding together blocked
After fiddling for a little while, I discovered that this one is a little awkward to assemble the halves. I found it quite confusing - I could assemble the top half with the single pole but struggled to manage the differently shaped bottom half. I got there in the end and now have the puzzle arranged with a different wood at each pole:
Much better!
Looking at the online version of "The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections" kindly hosted by John Rausch, there are other challenges involving different arrangements of the colours and symmetry. The four different ways in which the Four Corners Puzzle can be assembled in color symmetry are represented in in black and white below. The one on the left, in which each "corner" is a solid color, is the easiest and most obvious and is how the puzzle got its name. Each has a pair of solutions.
Finally, to extract one more bit of recreation from this puzzle, discover the 24 ways of assembling it such that the patterns of all four colors are identical but not symmetrical. You may skip the 3,808 ways that do not have either property. Hint: in general, these color symmetry problems are not the type that one solves by trial and error. One must try to discover the principles involved and the simple rules that transform one solution into another. You may not even need the physical pieces.
I have managed a couple of these and then got side-tracked by other toys! Now it's time to get back to these blasted sequential discovery puzzles and hopefully solve something for next week - wish me luck!
For the last couple of Xmases Alex has made me a lovely and not so little care
package of puzzles he has both designed and 3D printed himself (Sigh! I wish I
was allowed a 3D printer but if I wish to keep all parts of my anatomy
attached then that is not going to happen). I received 14 of them this time
and Mrs S was less than impressed (one thing about 3D printed puzzles is that
they do look like child's toys and are not attractive i.e. no "wife appeal").
I reassured "she who frightens police officers to death" that they would be
kept out of sight and not left on display anywhere and put them in my study in
yet another box of puzzles to be solved - my goodness, I have a huge backlog
just now!
This last 10 days "she who makes the sun hide in fear" was up in Sconny
Botland visiting the outlaws and I was free to leave stuff lying around and
play with them at my leisure. I actually did not have much time to myself due
to work but the advantage of tray puzzles is that they take up very little
space and can be carried around easily. I had some other toys in transit from
various parts of the world and until they arrived had nothing that "had" to be
solved fast. Time to play with the packing puzzles.
I couldn't resist this one as my next challenge - it looked relatively
straightforward - the aim being to create a full heart with it placed in the top
left corner. This is Alex's first sliding tile puzzle. I usually find these
unrewarding due to the large number of random moves to try and an enormous
decision tree that eventually gets created. This apparently can be solved with
45 moves (I did not manage to do it that quickly). Having had such a great time
with the previous puzzles I felt that there must be something special about this
one too and I was not wrong. Unusually for one of these, the first bunch of
moves are very constrained and there is only one path for quite a while. After
that, I reached a decision point and took the wrong turn (as usual) but was not
led up a huge long dead end with lots of other paths to rule out on the way. The
blind ends are relatively short and sweet, requiring a backtrack and searching
elsewhere. My memory is awful and this puzzle never required me to commit huge
long sequences to memory. I found hot quite rewarding to finally reach the end
point - I suspect that about 150-200 moves was used in the end after false paths
and backtracking. I may even try it again to see if I can do it in a shorter
sequence. Don't look if you don't want to see the end positions.
Possible in 45 moves? Not by me!
Finally, I couldn't resist one of Alex's multiple challenge puzzles. The fun
thing about a huge number of his packing puzzles from last year as well as
this year (and even some of the Pelikan puzzles like Sliders) have multiple
challenges to them. I decided to strat with the rather beautiful ICEbreaker:
I have only played with a few anti slide puzzles before and have found that I
just do not have the skill set to solve them. Many people at IPPs have loved
them and a few have been entered into the design competition. I have played
and failed before. But Alex has challenged me and I had to at least try. The
problem here is that the pieces are all quite open and the tray quite big when
you are only using 2 sets of pieces. I was very surprised at how much fun this
was. I initially had pieces freely sliding in an ocean of space and then
worked to get them tangled. Progress is very much stepwise as I found that
changing positions of some pieces sort of locked bits up but not enough to
prevent them all from sliding. I gradually worked my way through moving more
and more pieces until there was a big Aha! moment. I had solved my first anti
slide puzzle and it was good! I doubt that this will become a favourite genre
but it's definitely worth a try and a big bonus as an additional challenge in
a tray packing puzzle.
I still have a whole bunch of these to try and a few will always be in my work
bag to be taken out during a quiet time. Thank you Alex for a wonderful gift
and restoring my faith in my abilities!
Brass Monkey Sixential Discovery Puzzle (BM6)
Yes, it has arrived and the preorders close today. If you want the chance of a slightly early arrival and free shipping then get to the Two Brass Monkey site quickly and place your order. Allard loved his experience of solving the prototype. I have spent a several hours on mine and have not even found the first step (sigh, I am not very bright!) There is a lot of interesting stuff to be seen and it is going to be a huge challenge.
If you wait then it goes on sale formally on February 4th.
Gravitational Burr by Junichi Yananose
Gorgeous wood!
Well, what a way to start the year! First, I start on the amazing PicoLock and
now I have a stunning and fun chunk of wood sent all the way from t'other
(getting in touch with my inner Yorkshireman) side of the world.
This beauty has been made from a rather gorgeously grained American Black Walnut
and Juno has mixed and matched the light grained pieces with the dark to make
something arrestingly beautiful (I am a sucker for lovely wood) and the fact
that it is a fabulously tactile 117mm across in each direction makes for a
really nice thing to play with. The only downside is that my Juno puzzle
collection is currently stuffed into 2 shelves of my Billy bookcases and this
(plus the equally stunning Dual Meanders Box I also received) will now no longer
fit in that space and I will need another reconfiguration.
Looking at it, you would think: "so what! It's just another 6 piece burr.
Surely everything interesting has been done with this type of puzzle?" You
might be right about that as I have multiple burr sets and am always on the
lookout for more but this is NOT "just" a 6 piece burr. Juno has added a ball
bearing inside and a track for it - therefore it is a 7 piece burr and the
seventh piece needs to move around inside to allow the other 6 to move.
In fact, it is even more amazing than that. It is actually a level one 6 piece
burr with a solid key piece which Juno has made into a level 2 one by having a
tiny locking move that needs to be pushed to allow the key piece to slide. The
locking mechanism is held firm by a pair of magnets. Once the key piece is
unlocked then the first movements are possible and it quickly becomes clear
where the name Gravitational burr" came from. You cannot initially see the
ball bearing but you know it is there and the only way to manipulate it is to
rock the puzzle side to side or turn it over and over. It is clear when the
bearing has moved because you can hear it click to a new position. It is only
after 4 moves that you can actually see the ball bearing and at this point a
small part of the track/maze that it is in can be seen.
4 Moves in and the BB with some maze is revealed
Having found the bearing, I return to the beginning and try it again - it is
weirdly satisfying just rolling the ball around and controlling where it goes by
holding the key piece tight and clamping the ball in place and not allowing it
to roll or fall until I was ready. I found a choice at the 5th move and I
carried on deeper into the maze. After a few more moves I lost my courage and
returned to the beginning again...except I couldn't get back to the beginning!
GULP! Lost already? I knew that I was in good company because
Goetz had got
himself into the same difficulty. It was a little early for a full on panic and
I just wiggled it about in every direction I could whilst manipulating the
movable piece and, after a rather fraught 10 minutes, it was back at the
beginning again. Phew! I was unable to play with this whilst Mrs S was around.
She often takes the piss out of me for listening to puzzles and she very rarely
will sit in silence - there is always radio or music or TV on around her and if
it's too loud or too distracting then I cannot tell where the bearing is going.
I carried on with my exploration and found another pathway and all of a sudden
my ball bearing was peeking out at me in a different part of the maze on a new
section of the puzzle. How on earth did I get there? Back-tracking was really
hard as I hadn't been really paying attention to orientation as well as piece
position and I must have missed an opening. It took me a whole evening to
return to the start.
In the end, I actually deliberately worked my way through the pathway
section by section until all of a sudden the key piece is in a very extended
position to allow the extraction of other parts and full disassembly of the
burr. Again, the genius of Juno is shown by the presence of a magnet which
holds the ball bearing in place so that it doesn't fall out and get lost in
the furniture or swallowed by a cat. In retrospect, I realised that magnet
also held the bearing in place at the start of the puzzle - there is no
rattle if you listen to the closed puzzle.
All 6 (7) pieces and Juno's stamp is revealed.
Once the puzzle is in pieces then the true genius is on show and you can
look at the complexity of the pathway. Not really a spoiler but if you don't
want to see the key piece detail then don't click the show hide.
Only half the key paths shown
Now it was time for reassembly. Juno has provided a quick assembly method
which doesn't use the maze at all - there is a big cavity in one of the pieces
where you can store the bearing and just assemble the 6 piece burr without it.
Ball in the hole and then assemble the burr for a level 2 puzzle
As usual, I had not paid attention properly to the positioning of the pieces
and which order they came out in. Have I told you before that I am truly awful
at assembly puzzles? To my eternal shame, it took me several hours to
reassemble the burr without using the maze.
Blush!
Once I had worked out the burr assembly I was then able to deliberately work
out my sequence of moves whilst able to see inside the puzzle and plan out the
true reassembly. It took me about an hour to work it out and be certain of the
sequence and orientation. Such fun even when you can see everything in place.
This puzzle is a masterpiece! It looks gorgeous, it looks simple and has
layer upon layer of complexity and is definitely not solved by chance. It
requires initial blind exploration followed by a reveal or 2 or 3 and then
definite planning of your moves. Finally the reassembly is not just a
simple backtrack - I wanted to truly understand it in its' entirety and
that took some time and a lot of fun. Thank you Juno!
The Dual Meanders Box is waiting for me and after just a tiny bit of
exploration, I have to say that it frightens me a lot - there are 506
moves to open it!
Are you a Brass monkey fan? You should be! The BM puzzles are
amazing. The 6th Brass monkey burr has just gone up for preorder/early bird sale! The previous 5 were amazing and this is set to be the very best yet. Go buy it now.
Ouch! Allodynia after surgery is a bit of a bugger! It is not helping me solve puzzles! It is very hard to prevent clothing touching your groin whilst sitting or moving or doing much of anything. I'll leave you with an image of me maybe solving puzzles naked to try and decrease my pain! 🤣🤣🤣😈
I watched as a bunch of people picked up the latest locks from
Boaz Feldman and always intended to buy them for myself. This was especially
reinforced when Allard reviewed both
Loophole
and the
PicoLock and really seems to enjoy them. But with me being me, I kept buying
gorgeous wood and kept running out of money before I bought the new shiny locks.
Eventually, I managed to save up enough cash and quickly sent it to Boaz before
any more wood showed up and both the latest puzzle locks arrived at the
beginning of December. I took my customary photos and set to work on the
Loophole
first (encouraged by Allard's review) and having failed to turn the key I looked
elsewhere and, you guessed it, failed to find anything else! Yep so far I have
found NOTHING useful. I put it down and played with a few other
shiny things that had arrived at roughly the same time and then, having been coshed by
Tramadol, stopped solving anything for a little while. I put the locks aside on
my newly cleared desk for later investigation.
PicoLock is a standard Nabob padlock from Israel which has been obviously
tampered with. There is a hole in the side through which you can sort of see
into the keyway and on the opposite side something has been drilled and
filled. Boaz always provides the key on one of those wire keyring things keep
it safe.
Yes, I know that it won't be helpful but I have to do it - I put the key into
the lock and turn. We all know that it won't be helpful but if we don't do it
then those pesky voices won't stop muttering in the back of your head ("maybe
it might to something or maybe you might learn something"). I probably should
worry about those voices in my head! I turned the key and.... it wouldn't
turn! Not entirely unexpected. Time to inspect it properly and see what you
can see/do. I often use the light on my phone to illuminate holes etc and as a
man of a certain age, use the magnifier function of the phone to be able to
properly see inside said holes. Not terribly helpful. Poking at the holes with
the tip of the key and my fingernails is not helpful and I'm beginning to
worry that it will be another total failure.
I can see why this was in the top three puzzles of 2023 for several puzzlers. It is fabulous! I was significantly helped by buying and paying with two at the same time. There is a subtle difference between them that gave me a little clue for one of the steps. You definitely need to buy two puzzles to help Boaz and definitely help yourself with a clue.
I think this might be one that I might take to work to show off to colleagues. I think the orthopods in particular might appreciate the metalwork that has been created here.
If you live in the Americas then it may be easier for you to buy it/them from PuzzleMaster here and here.
