This is a fabulous puzzle - both in looks and in solving but I am writing about
it with a heavy heart...I had not actually intended to write about it this weekend. I have to admit
(yet again) that I'm not terribly bright! I have spent weeks on my solving
odyssey of the
Brass Monkey Sixential Discovery puzzle
and really thought that I had it beaten (it took me 3 weeks to find the first
step!) and whilst uploading my photos and looking at what I had done and the
pieces I had found (OMG there are so many pieces!), I had this sneaky suspicion that I was missing something. I
checked Allard's review and realised that I am truly a rubbish puzzler - not only had
I taken an obscenely long time to get to where I was but I also had convinced
myself that I had reached the end when I really had not and in retrospect it was
obvious! Aargh!
As a result of this, I am having to discuss the
Icosaminx which looks fearsome but is a minor challenge compared with the recently purchased
sequential discovery puzzles that I am failing at.
Most puzzlers seem to be
geometry freaks (another reason that we are "not normal") and with a large
number of tetrahedral, triangular prism, cubic, cuboidal, pentagonal prism,
hexagonal and dodecahedral puzzles there is always room for something with another wonderful shape and yet more sides/vertices. Enter the Icosaminx...who can
resist a 20-sided puzzle? Not me! I had to buy it as soon as I saw it on
sale.
As you can see, it's a corner turning puzzle which means that it is
EASY to solve despite it's looks:
Corner turning makes for an easy puzzle
The effect of being corner turning means that the only parts that scramble are
the face centers and the edges in triads. My usual approach to any twisty puzzle
is to explore simple move sequences first and undo them and look at the effects
to see how they can be used. Often I scramble by accident but within 5 minutes
of performing an up, up, down, down I could see that those triads were being
moved around like any edge piece series would. This is useful as the edges would
be easy to place but what about the centres? Remembering the easy approach to
commutators that I have learned many times I could see that with so many
vertices, it would be easy to turn one and move a single center out of the triad
and undo the up, up, down down which would make for a nice easy 3-cycle of the
centres.
Even this can be built partially by intuition
Hooray! within just 5 minutes of playing with the puzzle I had a
beautiful solution approach. I would orient the corners, build up most of the
bottom half of the puzzle by intuition and block building (this is easy
because there is so much space on a 20 faced puzzle - I even was able to do
this on the incredible Eitan's Star from many years ago.
Once half of it is built by intuition, I can then 3 cycle to place the edges
and finally use my 10 move commutator with a few easy setup moves to rotate
all the centres into place. I figured that taking 5 minutes to work out how to
solve a twisty puzzle was pretty brilliant of me and then I failed the Brass
monkey 6! Sob!
Time for a scramble:
It looks great scrambled and much harder than it actually is
Having admired the apparent chaos of so many pieces, I set to and am gratified
to tell you that it really was as easy as I have told you. It's a bit laborious
with so many pieces to place but a remarkably satisfying puzzle to solve. It
took about 15 minutes to complete and left me with a big grin. I have taken it
to work to show off and yet further convince my colleagues that I am a genius.
They look at the puzzle with horror and then amazement when it is solved so
quickly. At least some people think I am a genius whereas the puzzling world, my
poor readers, well know the truth of my meagre skills.
As a follow up to last week's blog post, I can tell you that the puzzles I reviewed from Pelikan went on sale and as expected the really fancy ones sold out very quickly. I have been told that Jakub and Jaroslav intend to make more copies of the MRI and Matchbox Playground (and maybe the Filling V) in the future. Keep an eye out for them.
I did manage to finally solve the MRI with a very big smile on my face. I had completely missed something in the week that I had it and when I found it laughed at the simplicity and beautiful implementation of the mechanism:
At the beginning of the week before last I took delivery of a VERY large
box from Jakub and Jaroslav containing 7 puzzles and a request to have reviews
as quickly as possible. I am just human and with my simple brain cannot possibly
solve all of these in that short time (especially when you realise that there
are hundreds of challenges here and some are really very difficult indeed.
Here we have:
Back row:
Matchbox Playground - an extension of Oskar's
original design by Péter Gál
Middle row:
Filling V by Dr Volker Latussek
Flummox by Benjamin Heidt
Appletree by Benjamin Heidt
Front Row:
Parallel Burr Cube #2 by Osanori Yamamoto
Rattle Twist Duo by Osanori Yamamoto
MRI by Benjamin Heidt
My picture does not do justice to the beauty and quality of them all (for
that, you should wait for the official photos from
Ivan Danik
which appear on the Pelikan site.
Pelikan 2024 Feb
Stunning series this time with what looks like one of the most gorgeous puzzle
sets I’ve ever seen.
Filling V
Fillin V by Volker Latussek
Sent with just the triomino left out
Dr Latussek returns to challenge us with another of his wonderful packing
puzzles that look much easier than they actually are. This one made of ?????
comprises 6 L tetrominoes plus an L Triomino giving us the required 27 voxels
to make up a solid cube. I could instantly see that there were several ways to
make the cube and each of these could be attempted in several orientations
with respect to the box. This box has a nice large slotted entry hole which
looks like it shouldn’t be much of a hindrance to inserting the pieces. Dr
Latussek said this:
"While working on the FLOP series, I had some fun working with completely
filled boxes. I ‘d already done some preliminary work using L-shaped
tetracubes, so it made sense to me to work on Lazlo Molnar and Alexander
Magyarics’ six Ls puzzles and to combine them with the V-shaped tricube to
make one of the 65 possible cubes and then put them in a box with only one
opening. Of course, I started with my usual CASINO box, only to learn that
this recipe doesn’t produce a sufficiently challenging puzzle, and neither
does a FLOP box. Actually, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Given
the filling of a cube-shaped box, the actual design task was to find the
correct, single, continuous opening.
Despite the numerous specifications, FILLING V is a challenging puzzle
whose solution still surprises me. But there will never be a FILLING I."
I placed my last piece in the box with a huge grin on my face! This is, on the
face of it, a much simpler puzzle than the Flop series but I think is better
for it. The best description is “elegant” - it’s almost as elegant as the
classic Casino which won so many accolades.
It’s an essential purchase!
Flummox
Flummox by Benjamin Heidt
This beautiful and rather diminutive creation was designed by a new name on the
scene, Benjamin Heidt. If this is a typical example of puzzles from him then I
hope that Jakub and Jaroslav make more. It is a fabulous variant on the classic
6 piece burr with length of 6 voxels (pieces made from a vibrant Purpleheart).
The addition of little additional pieces (made from Maple) added onto the sides
of the burr sticks which interfere with the the usual movement of the pieces and
make the solution much more interesting.
The solution level is: 13.4.2.3 which is just right for all but the most
masochistic of burr solvers and is delightful to explore. From the start
position there are 4 or 5 possible moves and then further exploration after
some of them. This took me about an hour to solve using my usual to and fro
method which also meant that I could reassemble it from memory. The really
good solvers will disassemble it relatively quickly and then have a really
nice challenge assembling from scratch.
Beautifully made pieces
Appletree
Appletree by Benjamin Heidt
Here we have another very interesting design by Benjamin Heidt. It is a
beautifully burr made in the shape of an Apple tree complete with apples amongst
the foliage. It has been stunningly created using American Walnut, Acacia with
Padauk apples.
This takes a bit of fiddling and exploration in every direction to find the
first piece to move and after this, if you’re anything like me, it’s followed
by an “Oh my God!!!” moment as all of a sudden a whole LOT of pieces move in
various directions. Slight panic ensued and I quickly decided to return to the
beginning and discovered that it wouldn’t go - aaargh! It took a frantic few
minutes to sort of scrunch it back together and breathe a sigh of relief. I
had to gird myself before trying again. This is fun! For me it’s a puzzle
version of a rollercoaster.
Having done that several times and worked out how it locked and unlocked, I
proceeded to explore and quickly found that several pieces were removable. I
kept them in a place where I could tell the position and orientation. After
removing 4 or 5 the trunk fell off and it sort of scrunched up again. I was
lost! Despite this, the puzzle remained pretty stable even if everything was
jiggly. I actually struggled to remove the remaining pieces, they did not just
fall apart. Over the next 20 minutes I gradually disassembled it piece by
piece and, oh boy, there are a lot of pieces.
Appletree pieces
After all of that, I had not even done the main challenge! This is not a
stunningly designed sequential disassembly puzzle as I alluded to above…it is
actually an assembly puzzle - the tree, as received, is in a "transport
configuration" - the actual aim of the puzzle is to assemble the tree again but
with 4 red apples on each side of the tree. There is no way that I was going to
reassemble the transport solution without assistance let alone the main
challenge and so I am off to Burrtools for a happy time sketching pieces out.
Great fun!
Rattle Twist Duo
Rattle Twist Duo by Osanori Yamamoto
My friend's version
This beautiful interlocking puzzle designed by Osanori Yamamoto is made from
Maple (pieces) with 2 different frames: one Jatoba and the other Zebrano. This
one was so good that it was made for me by my greatly missed friend and mentor
Tsy Hung Chein (aka
Felix). Felix had one of the best eyes for a fabulous puzzle and if he took the time
to make a copy and send it to me then you can be assured that there is something
special about it. I had absolutely adored the copy sent to me - and I am
delighted that many others will now get to experience a puzzle that looks simple
but has significant challenge to it.
Osanori-san’s documentation that he sent to Jakub said that the 2 interlocking
pieces should be sent out locked on one frame with the aim being to remove
them and place them on the other and then return it to the start position.
Like many of his creations, rotations are both possible and required. For a
puzzle with only 2 pieces to be fitted on a relatively simple frame, this
should not be so difficult. Despite having done it before, it took me a good
hour to disassemble one and assemble the other.
Then going back the other way after a delay to allow forgetting was just as much
of a challenge.
Parallel Burr Cube #2
Parallel Burr Cube #2 by Osanori Yamamoto
Another challenge by Osanori-san, this consists of a Frame made from Bubinga and
a set of 6 board burr pieces made from Limba. It is strikingly beautiful.
Initially I thought that this was just a framed 6 board burr but it’s not quite
this. The boards are held apart from each other by the frame making sure they
interact loosely with each other being trapped by just the end-plates of each
board. At the beginning there are several possible moves but the paths are
mostly dead-ended after just 1 or 2 moves. This means no huge long fruitless
pathways to explore. It requires a search for something that goes somewhere and
for me, took quite a while to find the required move that opened up the puzzle
for further exploration. The first piece can be removed quite quickly after just
6 moves which then allows you to peek inside and gain some more understanding of
the interaction of the pieces. Having removed the first piece, it does not seem
to get any simpler and the puzzle transforms into almost a disentanglement
puzzle - it is like unravelling a knot inside a box whilst you can only see a
small section of the knot at a time. It is at times frustrating, sometimes
fiddly as the boards can catch on the edges as there is a little wiggle room,
but is always an enjoyable exploration. The move count is not particularly high
but it is still fun to explore and work out at each stage how to make room for
the next piece to slide.
You can see how the pieces are locked in place
Having dismantled the puzzle over about an hour or more, I had kept the pieces
in order of their removal and remembered which position they had come from. All
with the aim of facilitating reassembly without resorting to Burrtools. I was
feeling quite proud of myself as I inserted the first three and then for some
reason the fourth one just couldn’t be inserted. What was I doing wrong? A
careful look at the shapes of the pieces revealed that the second piece had been
inserted upside down followed by the third correctly and this couldn’t leave
room to insert the next. OK, having realised this, take it apart again…except I
couldn’t dismantle it! Aargh! Minor panic ensues and I have to work out
all over again how to undo the interior disentanglement puzzle I had created for
myself. After a frantic 10 minutes, I had all the pieces and admonished myself
for being an eeejit and not keeping track of piece orientation as well as order.
After this it went back together nice and smoothly. This puzzle is wonderful -
it looks great, is sort of a burr and disentanglement puzzle at the same time
and, if you are good enough, it can be a really tough assembly puzzle as well.
MRI
MRI by Benjamin Heidt
This new rather quirky and very attractive puzzle design by Benjamin Heidt is a
new type of puzzle for Pelikan and I am not certain how to categorise it.
Apparently Benjamin is a technician who works on MRI machines in hospitals. He
must be very used to working with magnets and there are several of them inside
this puzzle. It looks just like an MRI scanner complete with a patient (he has
hair and a nose!) on the scanning platform inside the magnet. The aim is to
remove the patient from the scanner by unlocking the hidden interior mechanism.
One thing Benjamin should know is that you must NEVER bring another
ferrous metal object inside the Faraday cage walls of an MRI room because it
will turn into a missile if released in the room (believe me, I have seen it
with an old Molybdenum steel oxygen cylinder - it moves very fast and does a
LOT of damage!) but here he has disobeyed all the rules. The puzzle has a
magnetic ball bearing on the floor held by a magnet embedded inside it and
obviously this magnetic bearing is used to somehow unlock the patient from the
scanner and remove him.
I do not know how many steps is required because I have so far not managed to
do much more than make interesting clicking noises as I move the bearing over
the surface. I am making things happen inside but so far I have made no
progress with the release - my patient may well starve to death in the MRI! I
may be reduced to having to take it to work and asking a kind radiographer to
take an Xray of it for me.
This is certainly something interesting which we have never seen before from
the Pelikan workshop. Well worth adding to your collection for the quirkiness
and the considerable puzzling challenge.
Matchbox Playground
Matchbox Playground - an extension of Oskar's idea by Péter Gál
This rather large puzzle set must be one of the most beautiful puzzle sets
that I have ever seen! It is simply stunning and an amazing scope of work by
the designer and by the craftsmen. It is the result of an epic amount of work
by the incredible puzzle designer, Péter Gál.
The box opens like a matchbox There are puzzle sheets and an
explainer inside
Cubic dissection version
I have quite a few burr sets and this one ranks up there alongside the very
best of them and will take pride of place in my collection. It is not a burr
set but a set of increasingly difficult assembly puzzles based on the
wonderful and clever Oskar’s Matchboxes puzzle that has been produced by
several craftsmen over the years as well as 3D printed. Oskar's original
puzzle had 5 pieces and I found that one pretty challenging. Later the idea
was extended by Alexander Kapkan with
6 pieces and again by Onno Hein with 6 pieces in a different configuration.
Over more than a year Péter had performed an exhaustive computational
analysis. A smaller version of this had been released in the
IPP design competition
in 2016. Péter's analysis was restricted to a 3x2x1 matchbox with the matches
attached at the gridlines giving 14 possible match/matchbox pairs. This puzzle
set is contained in a gorgeous box shaped and sliding open like a matchbox
itself to reveal the full set of 14 possible pieces and an envelope with an
explanation and puzzle challenges ranging from using just 4 pieces up to the
maximum of 13.
Just look at the presentation here - it is amazing!
There are effectively hundreds of challenges here as each one has multiple
solutions to find. The individual boxes are stunningly made out of Maple,
Wenge and Jatoba and the case made from Maple, Wenge and Oak.
This picture will be essential if I am going to put them back!
When I took a few out to admire them, I realised straight away that I would
need a photo of how they were arranged in the box! If you do just tip them out
then an additional challenge for you will be to pack them back in again - I
was not brave enough to do that! The challenges are really fun to do and
require considerable thought. The cards show just the required pieces and not
the eventual shape that you need to use. This means that simple entry into
Burrtools is not possible. I have managed the first couple of challenges and
really look forward to spending real time with this set. This is absolutely
fabulous! I have put 3 of my solutions to the first challenge behind a spoiler
button - if you plan to buy the set then don't look at it:
Should you buy this set? Hell yes! It's stunningly gorgeous, a whole lot of
puzzling challenges. I absolutely love puzzles that come with a booklet of
challenges e.g. the
Peanut puzzle, the
cubic Mazeburr,
Rhombic Mazeburr
and
Split Mazeburr and this new one from Pelikan is just amazing!
I have had the
Total Eclipse
puzzle sitting on my desk next to me in my, ahem, "backlog of puzzles to solve"
for an embarrassingly long period of time. It has been there for over a year!
First it was unsolved because I was too busy, then it remained unsolved because
I couldn't work it out, then it got, BLUSH,
buried in other puzzles to be solved and finally unsolved because I kept going
round and round in circles. Yes, I am not very bright and I often use the
Einstein's madness approach of doing the same thing over and over again until
something changes.
I had bought it because it was an Oskar van Deventer design (pretty much
anything he designs is incredible - I really need to get hold of a couple of
copies of the Zigguflat puzzle that has been enjoyed by so many brilliant
puzzlers and combine into one large fabulous N-ary puzzle. I also have been
quite intrigued by the amazing series of
PuzzleMaster's own metal creations. The
Honeycomb puzzle
recently created as a KickStarter is now available direct from them.
The Toal Eclipse consists of 2 interlocking rings (one chrome and one brass)
inside a black metal cage. It is about 6.5cm in diameter and difficulty score
of 9 on their odd 5 - 10 scale. I think the level is about right. The inner
rings can rotate around inside the cage freely - it is very similar in idea to
the Hanayama Cast Equa (also by Oskar) which
I reviewed
after a huge struggle many years ago. It also share a small similarity
with the Hanayama
Cast Duet
(yes, another Oskar design) reviewed
here. Obviously there needs to be a spot on the cage where the rings can be
released. I found that straight away. The two rings each have a gap in them
which allows them to interlock and presumably is where they disassemble from
the cage. The reason they don't just come apart is because the gap has a
polarity and straight away it is obvious that the polarity is reversed at the
beginning the process:
The grooves in the cage are on the opposite side to the ring. The
ring obviously needs to be reversed to come off.
It is obvious that the aim is to move the pieces around so that the grooves in
the cage line up with the ring. How do you do that? There are single grooves on
the cage (different orientation to the release grooves) and the rings can be
slid from segment to segment through a maze until the ring has the correct
orientation.
In my multiple previous attempts to solve this puzzle I had found a shortcut -
my copy has a slight flaw where the ring can be passed over the groove in the
cage with the orientation the wrong way around. I realised early on that this
was not right and did my best to avoid it. This turned the puzzle into a
nightmare for me! There are multiple ways to work your way around the cage and
tantalisingly there are a few places where the grooves occur on both sides
allowing either orientation to pass. I found this no help whatsoever! I went
round and round in circles in multiple directions and always ended up back at
the beginning with the ring unable to slide off. OMG! I began to question my
sanity which I have to say Mrs S has done many times. I kept having to put it
down.
Finally lined up!
After the recent tidy up of my hellscape of desk, I suddenly found
the Total Eclipse under a rather large pile and decided at the end of last
week to try again and be finally able to put it away. I took it to work
with me, I played in the evenings and everywhere for a bit. After annoying
everyone for a week with my jingling. I had an Aha! moment and the brass
ring came off. Yessss! The chrome ring was obviously the same and would
need the same path - except I had no recollection of how the first one had
come off. I went round and round in circles again. Each time I was back at
the beginning there was a great offing and blinding. This was a very
difficult puzzle! One more try and I suddenly noticed something about the
possible positions and found a sort of figure of eight sequence that was
able to reverse the polarity of the ring and then I had to make it back to
the double groove position. This was easier said than done but I got there
and could breathe a sigh of relief.
At last!
Having done this, it was time to return to the start position. This should just be a matter of reversing what I had done but of course, I couldn't remember what I had done! At least this time I had a vague idea of what was required and it only took me a whole day to do it.
For just $25CAD this puzzle is a really good buy! It is quite attractive, very tactile as a fiddling object and most importantly, offers a LOT of puzzling without getting hopelessly lost (you always get back to the beginning even when you don't want to). At over a year to solve it, I have definitely got my money's worth.
Watch out next week for the first release of 2024 by Pelikan...
The 234 Puzzle Cube in its' presentation box with sealed certificate
I actually solved something this week! Hallelujah! Back in November last year, I
received an email from a lovely friend who offered me the opportunity of being
able to try out one of his new designs as a Christmas present. That wonderful
friend is also one of the best puzzle craftsmen in the world. Yes it is the
Greek wonder,
Mike Toulouzas. I have been lusting after quite a few of his puzzles for many years (I do own
a few from him but not enough). I am still hoping that he will make some more of
his
Illusion puzzle
which I reserved from him way back in 2014 and he has still not managed to make
any! This fabulous offer was sent to a handful of his puzzle friends and I am so
grateful that I am considered significant enough to be included in that very
select group.
Mike gave no details away apart from a promise that a puzzle was
coming and when it arrived in January, I was blown away by the sheer beauty
of it. If you look at his website, you will quickly realise that he never
does anything quickly or without precision. Everything is gorgeous and
perfect. The box contained a lovely display box and an envelope with a
puzzle maker's stamp on it.
Inside the envelope was a certificate with a wax seal. The attention to
detail is amazing - the certificate is good heavy card and the edges have
been cut with pinking scissors. I almost didn't want to break the seal but
had to see what was inside:
All puzzles should have one of these!
It states the woods and I think that this is the first puzzle I own that has
Lemon tree wood in it. The box is gorgeous and noteworthy because even the
hinge is made of wood with a polished brass dowel. Opening the box lid
requires a little pull and because of the design of the legs interacting with
the lid, it opens (and closes) with a satisfying click. Inside, the box is
packed with beautifully chamfered puzzle pieces:
Just look at that!
The instructions are to make a cube with the pieces and looking inside I did a
quick count/calculation. 2x2x7 is 28 which is 1 cubie too many. I tipped them
out and saw why. The pieces are stunning and more complex than expected. Mike
has signed one of them:
Just 6 pieces - how hard can it be?
Before it arrived, Mike emailed to ask that all the recipients:
Time your self when you decide to play.
Record three times the time (cause might be false conclusion from the
first ones.
Send me the results....and a few words as a feedback would be
appreciated.
Having taken my photos and marvelled at Mike's skills, I set to. I should
have been doing chores but Mrs S realised that I had something special and
I reassured her that at only 6 pieces and "only" having to make a simple
cube, it wouldn't take me that long - probably just 2 or 3 minutes.
WRONG!
I set a timer on my phone and off I went. There are 2 fairly large and
complex pieces and this seemed an obvious place to start. I tried to be
logical and systematic which is a bit of a stretch for my very simple
brain. I have very few neurons and most of them have been thoroughly
gassed at work! Everything I tried was not working - this was very odd.
In the end I solved it with the following times:
1st attempt was 7min 57sec.
2nd attempt was 1min 15sec. (maybe because I had remembered the first?)
3rd attempt was 5min 59sec.
For something so apparently simple, there was definitely something
startlingly difficult. Mike has designed this deliberately to lead the
puzzler astray. Your first thoughts about how to solve this are very
much led in the wrong direction. The third time, I knew that the
conventional approach was wrong but I just couldn't seem to work out the
correct one until I had exhausted several obvious failures. When I
pointed this out to Mike, he agreed that this was a deliberate feature
and almost everyone has the same problem. He had noticed it with
"normal" people (adults and kids) and wanted to see whether us
"abnormal" people do the same thing.
I am sort of delighted to know that I am at least slightly normal but
judging from comments received from work colleagues, they do not think
of me as very normal at all. 😱😳🤣
AT the moment, Mike is not planning on making these for sale but may
do in the future. If you do see an opportunity to buy any Puzzlevision
creations then you should jump at the chance.Thank you Mike for such a
wonderful opportunity and a fabulous puzzle for display!
Previous Toulouzas creations (either alone or in
collaboration with another creator):
