So Sly! Frank Has To Tell Me When To S(t)top

Sly Burr 2.6.9.a designed by Frank Potts
Allard's IPP exchange puzzle

Still packed!

I have had a few days off and have had time to discover that getting older is a painful experience! She who frightens the living bejeezus out of me told me in no uncertain terms that the bathroom and shower room silicone seals were needing to be replaced whilst I was off work. This is one of my least favourite jobs in the world and it seems to come around with monotonous regularity. The problem is the old stuff is bloody difficult to get off with a variety of sharp implements that threaten to remove my fingertips if I lose concentration but mostly the issue is that grubbing around on my hands and knees involves a variety of funny noises that I have finally realised were coming from me! I groan when I get down, I groan when my knees hurt, I groan when my shoulders hurt getting into a variety of awkward positions to get bits of silicone off and OMG! I groan when I get back up again! We will NOT be talking about the inadvertent gaseous emission that occurs on standing up! I even bought some rather nice fat knee pads to try and prevent some of the groaning - it only helped a little bit.

Original Sly Burr (2013)

This unfortunate episode of DIY did not completely prevent me puzzling. I continued to try and unpack the OPUP - I did find a single tool but did not find what I could do with it. It remains firmly packed and no amount of flicking of the wrist can release the magnetic hold - I am well and truly packed! After I had run out of ideas and strength, I moved on to another puzzle I had been gifted at the MPP. Allard handed me a copy of his IPP exchange puzzle. I had actually picked ups someone else's copy at the MPP but put it down again on receiving mine. Burrs should be wood if at all possible but this boxed burr looked very interesting and on seeing that it had been designed by the amazing Frank Potts who has designed quite a few rather special burrs in my collection, I was instantly interested. I had never actually written about it for some reason (probably embarrassment) - I had a copy of Frank's original Sly Burr produced by Brian Young. I vaguely remember buying this from Brian very early on in my puzzling career because it looked like a "simple" 6 piece burr and then taking and it took me several weeks to discover the special secret that would allow it to be dismantled. Do remember that I am not very good at puzzles and in those days I was completely rubbish.

I know what level 2.6.9 means but what is the a for?

The new puzzle came with a little card giving the level and a little addendum. Why doesn't Frank know when to stop? Looking at my collection, Mrs S would say the same thing about me.

I set to work during the week and remembered the fancy step on the original and quickly realised that Frank had done something very similar with this puzzle. I was able to remove the first red burr stick quite quickly - cue the smug self satisfied feeling for approximately 10 minutes. ONLY 10 minutes. I was unable to remove anything else from the puzzle for several days. In fact I couldn't actually work out what else moved apart from the original sticks. I was assuming the box would come part...but how?

Sitting with a coffee one morning during the week and watching the cats scratch my leather sofa, I was fiddling without really watching when suddenly I had a quick sequence of moves of the box which then split in half. I looked down into my lap to see 2 pieces separated and no idea how that had happened. I couldn't even tell whether a rotational move had allowed it to happen. Knowing Frank, I decided that it was unlikely to be that. He is far too careful with his designs to allow that to happen inadvertently. It took me a good 30 minutes of reffing and blinding before I found the steps to put it back together again. After that I proudly showed the cats the correct steps to take it apart and then the further steps to completely dismantle the puzzle. Don't look if you don't want any clues but at this point you KNOW that you have finished the puzzle.

2 halves to the box and two burr sticks - finished?

Whilst that was a fun challenge that yet again took me an embarrassingly long time (although not as long as the original had) to dismantle. I still didn't know why I had been told that Frank didn't know when to stop. Shaking the halves of the box revealed something rattling about...but where. Homing in on the source of the noise, I investigated, I saw, I finally conquered! Don't look if you don't want to know:

Time to S(t)TOP?

Definitely!

There is still a rattling noise from inside the 2 halves of the box but Frank has said that I can stop now. I would love to know what the rattling is from but I don't want to snap anything. 

The next step is to reassemble everything and it is really fun. The placement of the pieces is nicely logical and once everything is placed in roughly the correct place it all just snaps into place under the influence of the several magnets that are inside (I assume that is what some of the rattling is from). It's a very rewarding reassembly. Having done it a few times I can put it away on my exchange puzzle/gift shelf. Mrs S really doesn't like chunks of plastic lying around for long.

This is a terrific extension of Frank's original idea and just the right level. I still have no idea why the solution level ends in an a. If anyone can tell me then post a comment below.

Now...seeing as Mrs S doesn't like chunks of plastic lying around, I need to get back to the OPUP puzzle again and see if I can find anything new...before there is another Whack! Ouch! 

A Good End To A Bad Week! Sort Of...

MPP puzzle haul

It has been a rather bad week. Some very very big very looong operations which were not expected to be so big or so long which turned a couple of normal days into some very stressful big days. There is an old adage in anaesthesia that "many a good anaesthetic is spoiled by a surgeon having a fuck up" and this was very much the case. Nothing incompetent I hasten to add but just unexpected, unprepared for occurrences on the surgical side made my life very tough. It did mean that I had managed no puzzling at all during the week and was hoping that I might manage something to write about at or after the MPP. I was really quite pleased when the weekend hit and it was one of those days to get in the car and drive a couple of hours to Birmingham for an MPP with an unrecognisable roman numeral on it. I always buy a gigantic pile of car sweeties (I always lie to Mrs S about exactly how many bags I consume) to keep me going during the journey there and back - the constant dipping into the bag(s) prevents a knackered sleep deprived puzzler from dozing off in the car. It also has the added advantage of leaving me completely wired with a sugar high for a day of puzzling and banter. You will find out later when Allard writes his review of the day that I was particularly wired at one point and the tongue was loose! 😱🤣

One piece "unpacking" puzzle - OPUP

OPUP starting position

After getting home on Saturday night I picked up a couple of toys to play with and my misery continued. I had watched several people play with Dan's exchange puzzle the One Piece Unpacking Puzzle. A play on the original One Piece Packing Puzzle from the late Eric Fuller. Dan was kind enough to give me a copy and said that it really wasn't that difficult. Bastard!

I was hoping that I would have more luck with it than Eric's original which took me the best part of a year to solve!

Only took me a year! With some help

I duly removed the wire loop and took out the cube - There are 24 possible ways to insert the cube into the box and Sod's law actually made me get it right on the 20th try! This didn't bode well!

Now unpack the bloody thing!

AT the MPP, quite a few people played with it and I caught cries of delight at their success. I was very careful not to watch what they had done and this was the first one that I picked up when I got home. How hard could it be? Oh you stupid boy!

I have now spent about 4 hours playing with it and found a tool which has no apparent use and that is it. I have used a light source and a magnifier and found nothing useful at all. I'd like to put it down to fatigue from the week but nope, it's purely that I am rubbish at puzzles! There is only one cube to remove from a box! The temptation is to try and stuff a shim down the edge but it would need to be very thin and that would be cheating. Dan may be helping me out sometime! 😭

Next up when I got too frustrated with the OPUP, I had to play with something else to prevent me throwing it across the room. I picked up the Hamstersaurus puzzle which, with that name can only have come from big Steve!

Just from the name, you know who's puzzle it is

It was a burr and I really thought it was a variant on the tetrahedral burr that I had had fun with from my last MPP. A standard 6 piece burr but with extensions on it which interfered with movement and really messes with my feeble brain:

It's rather beautiful and has very sharp points!

It took me about 10 minutes of pushing and pulling everything in every direction to find the first move. The new shape still messes with your head. I then got a bit of a shock! It's not a standard 6 piece burr. As soon as the first slide has happened, it becomes clear that Burrtools is not going to help me later. There are diagonal faces inside! Oh Lord! Is this like the NOS burrs from Gregory Benedetti? Was I going to have 6 bright colourful pieces in a pile forever more? The rest of the disassembly took only a few minutes and I carefully took photos of the pieces as they came out. I then scrambled it to take my photos and then give me the reassembly challenge:

Hell! That is going to be a challenge to reassemble!

Luckily, Steve has designed this in such a way that the reassembly is possible using logic and a knowledge of burrs (a little bit of my too and fro memory probably also helped) - this one is possible for a simpleton like me in an hour or so. Phew! Some success at last!

Now I need to start shaking the OPUP vigorously to try and dislodge the cube! 😱🤣

Rich Has Me Beat......TWICE!

SV burr by Richard Williams

This will be a very short post because I am rubbish at puzzles! I don't really go anywhere for puzzling and hence no fabulous IPP stories and I work rather more than is good for me. Puzzles are supposed to be a way to relax but I haven't found that to be the case recently! Sigh!

At the last MPP that I managed to get to (way back at the beginning of September) I watched everyone try and succeed in solving the SV Burr by the genius that is Richard Williams. I think SV stands for sequential voxel? People seemed to really enjoy it and even Allard who is even worse at puzzles than me (especially burrs) managed to solve it. I couldn't allow myself to pass on the chance and slipped Rich some PayPal and brought this one and one other (see below) home in the hope that I would have a nice solve and something positive to write about on the blog (as well as have a bit of fun). Oh boy! I was very wrong! I am not sure I have had any fun yet. and can only write about failure!

This puzzle has been 3D printed by Rich and includes at least one metal piece (so far that I have found inside) and the aim is to dismantle it and presumably understand why it has been so named. I couldn't resist starting work on this pretty much as soon as I thought Mrs S might have forgotten that I might have acquired a few new toys. It's a good tactile size and heavier than you would expect for a plastic puzzle. It was available in several colour arrangements and I picked this black and blue version in the vague hope that the colour scheme might help with reassembly. As with all burrs, I started with pushing and pulling all the sticks in all the directions and got nowhere. This is going to be a theme for me this week. After a good hour or so of failure it was put down and I had to start cooking. Time to start again later and I had a little breakthrough. Something moved and I had a tool. There was no obvious place it should go until I had a little think© and use the tool in a counterintuitive way. All of a sudden I had some burr movement - yes, something slid and I got my hopes up.....Stupid boy!

Having slid part of the burr open, I was suddenly presented with a hole. It looked like a perfect place to put the tool that I had used to get that far. Maybe putting it inside and sliding it shut would allow me to manoeuvre it and use it inside as a tool as well. I placed the tool and slid it shut. Yay! Progress! Except, I now couldn't open the burr anymore. OMG! What had I done? After a few hours of failure I checked in with Rich and he confirmed that I was an eejit! There should be no reason that I shouldn't be able to get it back out again using gravity but despite that reassurance, I spent 7 days shaking the thing whilst getting chest pain and swearing at this bloody crazy hobby of mine. Mrs S had further evidence that I had lost my mind. Eventually, a whole week later, I managed to get it open again and the tool out. Phew! I then found that I couldn't return it to the beginning. I have a funny feeling I have stripped part of the plastic during my too and fro. Hopefully, I can show it to Rich at the next MPP and he can confirm whether or not I have buggered it up.

Since then, I have spent some time for the last 7 weeks not even finding the next step! Sigh! I am rubbish at puzzles. During that time I have tried other puzzles:

Dovetail Bar 2 also by Richard Williams

I have written about the first Dovetail Bar and loved it. The solve was very logical and fun with a really nice hidden mechanism. When Rich showed off the next one in the series, I couldn't resist sending more PayPal and having another wonderful puzzle to play with and write about. Maybe this lulled me into a false sense of security? 

This version now has 2 dovetails. One of them is very similar to the previous puzzle being the length of the bar and a second one on the opposite edge at 90º. There is a single screw in one side which unscrews easily. The lengthwise dovetail can slide about a centimetre depending on the orientation of the puzzle. Different positions allows it to slide in different directions. Having the screw in or out makes no apparent difference and no matter what I have tried screwing it back in doesn't appear to catch anything as it does in the first version.

There is a huge temptation to tap it, bang it, spin it and submerge it in gin (the instructions don't warn not to do that). I have been carrying this with me for the best part of 2 months and fiddling at every opportunity.The trouble is, I look ridiculous playing with a small piece of plastic that appears to never change and also after a few hours of play, I have realised that doing the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times is not very helpful. I actually can't think of anything else to try if I am not allowed to tap or spin! I have failed on both of Rich's puzzles where almost everyone else has succeeded. I will take them back to the next MPP to check that I haven't actually damaged them.

Maybe it is time for me to stop this puzzle hobby? Sigh!

I did, however, manage to finally solve the Sliding Doors puzzle from last week. It did take me almost a week to get it but at least I solved something. I had even more fun putting it into Burrtools - it was quite a challenge to model.