It's Sublime, Then It's Ridiculous...

And Then Sublime Again!

Minima XIII beat me for soooo long

Last week I wrote in frustration about the final one in the numbered Minima series (number XIII or as Allard would make it - XXXXLIII). I have owned this one (from Frederic himself) for 4 years and a delightful portable plastic version from Tye (if you ask him nicely, he might make some more). I had failed and failed on this and eventually owned up to it as a catharsis on my little corner of t'internet.

Of course, as soon as I confess to the puzzling world about how useless I am at packing puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, boxes etc, I have one of those wonderful Aha! moments. This time was no different. The day after my confession, I was working from home chairing a meeting and then in the afternoon we had our departmental Morbidity and Mortality meeting was held on MS Teams (No I didnt have to confess to any mortality!)  I tuned in from the comfort of my conservatory with a pile o'puzzles next to me. My colleagues are now used to me playing with toys during these meetings and I get quite a few comments from people when I solve a particularly fearsome twisty during the meeting. For some reason, they think I'm some kind of genius and they are unaware of quite how bad my failure rate is. 

The pieces of Minima XXXXXXXXXCIII were in a pile waiting to be put away and I couldn't resist another period of self flagellation and set to work again. This time, after a few minutes of trying the same tricks over and over again, I looked at the slanted cut on the tetromino and wondered to my self:

"Self, what could you do with this odd cut?"

Suddenly a new idea hit my rather like the back of Mrs S' hand and I found a new and interesting possible movement that I hadn't thought to try before. It was too beautiful a move to be anything like chance - it had to be designed in. Suddenly, this made me look at the slanted cuts in the two triominoes, and again I was slapped on the back of the head - these pieces could be positioned in such a way that the fancy first move would slide by. Oh wow! What an incredible idea!

All that was left was to use the more conventional Minima type rotational moves to set everything up. It's a rather gorgeous sequence of moves to end up with all the pieces packed into the box and almost left me gasping with delight. 

Four years of puzzling!

The Minima 13 was the first of the series I received and was, I assume, the last of the series that Frederic designed. To my mind it is the very pinnacle of the Minima puzzle design - if you don't have a copy yet then try and find one to complete your collection (I assume that you have the rest of the set from Pelikan???) In the title of my post this is the "sublime".

The look of exultation on my face when I finally solved it during our departmental meeting did not go unnoticed! I saw a few colleagues grinning and got a couple of messages. It was time to carry on with some more of them.

Minima Nest by Lucie Pauwels

The Minima series from Frederic is really quite extensive now. Not only has Frederic expanded beyond the original 13, others have jumped on the bandwagon and seen the huge possibilities of "simply" packing a 2x2x3 box with smaller pieces that may or may not require rotations. Lucie Pauwels, is a very prolific designer who has appeared on these pages many many times. Lucie decided to try her hand at Minima design and here is one that I have had sitting waiting but not tried due to lack of time. It's the the Minima Nest which I purchased from Tye at the end of last year. It is also currently sold out but again, if you ask nicely, maybe more can be printed. Lucie took the standard 2x2x3 box and stood it on its end and then shifted each of the 3 layers a half voxel sideways. She then took some simple pieces and shifted several of them a half voxel across as well. 

Looking at the pieces, the puzzle doesn't look too awful - after all, 2 of them are simple 1 voxel cubes. The shifted pieces look perfectly designed to fit the staircase shape inside the box and it's easy to create a shape that should fit. Great, you would think, now just stuff them in. Except there's a problem Houston! Once a few pieces are nice and snug in the bottom two rows there are simple gaps to be filled and the only way to get the piece that should fit in is through a ½ voxel hole. That won't work! Try lifting up to make space but that's also not possible due to the overhang from the layer above. Time to think© and the first result of thinking is to place the single cubies into the bottom row and then build up from there. It goes swimmingly until you look at the top layer to be filled and come to the realisation that the staggered pieces can't be placed. Oh, it's delightful! More think©ing required which takes my mind off the meeting for a bit. Suddenly I have my 2nd Aha! moment for the afternoon and I've created a shape that should be removable and therefore it should be insertable. Time to try it - cue a punch in the air during a meeting - the picture does have a small spoiler in it so don't look unless you're certain you don't mind seeing a clue:

Solved it in a single afternoon! Maybe I'm getting better at puzzles?

That puzzle was ridiculous - so clever but not too hard. 

Finally we return to another sublime one - it's probably a bit ridiculous too!

Minima Twig by Frederic Boucher

Frederic hasn't finished with the Minima designs! This one was released around the time of the last IPP and produced again by Tye of NothingYetDesigns. It's also sold but there's no harm in you all sending him thousands and thousands of emails clamouring for a remake. It has also been sitting in my pile to be solved in the conservatory (yes, Mrs S is not really happy at how many piles I have dotted around the house). I still had another hour of meeting to go and therefore picked up a third challenge of the afternoon. The Minima Twig again consists of the standard 2x2x3 box but in this case there is just a single entry hole in one corner and each of the six faces has either a single drilled hole or a track the diameter of the hole. There are 6 domino pieces to be placed made from a choice of woods (I cannot remember what the one above is) and with a steel pin in the centre of a single voxel on each of the 6 pieces effectively making triominoes. There are 3 L shapes and 3 straight lines. Obviously each of the metal pins is intended to protrude from a hole drilled in the box. Rotations are allowed.

Placing the pieces in the box and posting the pin through the holes can restrict the movement of the pieces and cause blockages. This will require careful planning. I found that the requirement to pierce the holes made it much easier to work out possible assemblies and then in my head working out whether a disassembly would be possible was quite fun. There is a wonderful critical sequence to rotate pieces into the box that is required and within about 45 minutes I had my third puzzle of the afternoon solved. I  personally found that my afternoon Mortality and Morbidity meeting was a very productive time. Maybe I should ask the bosses to allow us to have more frequent meetings to get me out of the operating theatre so I can play with my toys.

Three in one afternoon!

Speaking of operating theatres, I am in one just now doing a trauma list - Trauma doesn't stop and weekends. I have written this in advance and set it to auto publish. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? I hope that you all have had a wonderful puzzling weekend.