Continuing what I started last week. Jakub sent me the latest offerings which
I suspect will be released later this week. I showed them off at the MPP
yesterday and a several people were completely bamboozled by them.
Oh, Yesssss! More Minima puzzles! By now, you will all have realised that I absolutely adore the
Minima series and all its' variants. Initially they were designed by Frederic Boucher to have a box with a 2x2x3 cavity and varying numbers of oddly shaped, but small, pieces to be fitted inside the box. Usually the aim was to make sure all the holes were occluded and at times the solution required interesting rotations of the pieces. Some of the puzzles had clever slots in the box to facilitate the rotations which did sometimes make the puzzle very confusing. One or two of them had extra "bits" attached to the pieces. Other designers jumped on the bandwagon with all sorts of interesting shapes and challenges. I have loved every single one of them so far. There is something very special about Volker's brain - he sees shapes and movements that almost no-one else can see and produces challenges that are incredibly difficult and interesting to explore. He created the amazing Minima-Flop and I have been waiting with bated breath for another special Minima from him. Here we have, not only another fun Minima designed by Volker, but also a Minima which he felt was good enough to be named as a tribute to the originator of this series, Frederic. Jakub and team have manufactured it from a very beautifully grained Oak and Wenge. Volker wrote this about the
puzzle:
"A few years ago, Frederic Boucher wrote to me and invited me to
contribute to his MINIMA series. To make my decision easier, he suggested
that I didn’t have to fill the box’s internal volume strictly as 3x2x2,
but could also consider using half-cubes and thus interpret the box as
6x4x4. I still remember well how I expressed my confusion to him about
this; from my point of view, this offer – though certainly
well-intentioned – contradicted the originally intended minimalist design
concept of a 3x2x2 box, given the generous interpretation of the strict
guidelines.
Now we all know what outstanding ideas Frederic was able to realise in
his MINIMA series. Nevertheless, I wanted to resist this temptation and
only agreed to the project under the strict conditions. I’m still pleased
with the result today: MINIMA-FLOP, especially as I was able to completely
fill the 3x2x2 box with four identical Tricubes and incorporate the FLOP
moves – which were so important to me – into the solution. In fact, I was
very satisfied with the result, and I think Frederic was too.
However, when I was recently playing with one of my 14-piece complete
sets of building blocks of the same size, I checked whether six of these
building blocks – each consisting of one cube and two half-cubes – could
be used to fill a 6x4x4 box in an appealing way. I was pleased to find
that, out of the 924 possible arrangements, only 13 filled a 6x4x4 volume
in 50 different ways. For whatever reason, I then looked for suitable 3x2
openings – which I’m familiar with from my FLOPs – in order to offer a
challenging and unique solution. I was so impressed by the result that, despite my initial reluctance, I
asked Frederic if he would sponsor it. To my great delight, he agreed
immediately, and so Pelikan is now able to release this puzzle under the
name MINIMA FOR FREDERIC. I’m very pleased about this, and I think
Frederic is too."
As you can see above, the puzzle arrives in a special transport configuration
which took me quite a long time to actually unravel from the box. It is so
nice to have this extra challenge. It reveals the rather unusual pieces to be
packed inside:
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Six interesting pieces to be packed.
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Having managed to unpack the pieces, I realised that the assembly was going to
be a huge challenge. Especially when you remember the rest of Volker's
incredible rotational packing puzzles. I actually struggled to make the 4x4x6
cuboid for a while and when I did construct one, I placed it alongside the box
and looked for ways the shape could possibly be taken apart through the holes.
The cuboid could be arranged in 8 ways to try and interestingly, only 3 of them
had even a single removable piece which was very helpful but to my horror, none
of those positions would allow a second piece removal (even with interesting
rotations). The constraints of the box just wouldn't let another piece out. At
this point I was worried that there might be dozens of assemblies of the pieces
to then try and find a way to get them inside the box. Because of my
time-constraints, I went to Burrtools to look for cuboid assemblies. There are
just 2 and I had found the wrong one first.
I used BT and constructed the correct assembly and looked again to see how it
could be disassembled using the various holes in the walls.
The first piece obviously has to just lift out the top hole but after that
there is a sequence of clever rotations using the holes until there are just 2
pieces remaining. Those two pieces did look impossible to place inside but
obviously that was going to be the main challenge that Volker had intended.
Time to set to proper work...
At this point, I had my assembly order positions and then "just" had to work
out how to get the first two pieces into position. I tried for days to get
them inside and in position for the third piece to be placed but I just
couldn't get them into place. I went back to the cuboid several times to see
whether I had missed an alternative assembly or orientation but it was
correct. There is plenty of room in the box but those two pieces need a very
clever and very specific set of moves around each other to get them into
place. After 3 days of trying, I finally packed them into place and after that
the rest rotated into the correct placements fairly easily.
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My Goodness! It's absolutely brilliant!
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If you like Minima puzzles then you must buy this. If you like Latussek
puzzles then you must by this. Hell, if you Like puzzles then you must buy
this! It is up there with the best Minima puzzle designs by Frederic - it is a
very suitable tribute. Thank you Volker.
Fatomino
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Fatomino by Dr Volker Latussek
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This gorgeous creation has been made by Pelikan using American Walnut and a
rather fabulous Zebrano. As soon as I saw it I was immediately taken back to one
a fabulous packing puzzle by Hajime Katsumoto in 2016,
Penta in a box.
In the original puzzle, the cavity of the box was a 3x3x3 cube and there were 5 planar pentominoes to
be fitted inside allowing the lid to close over them. It looks pretty
easy but there is a catch - the lid cannot close over any piece in the top row
at the front and any piece in the lid cannot close over an adjacent piece that
would end up behind it. This simple looking packing puzzle required quite a
lot of thought. So what could Volker possibly do to improve on such a simple
but fun design? Volker wrote his thoughts about it:
"It’s already been 10 years since Hajime Katsumoto caused a stir with
his PENTA IN A BOX – a brilliant idea to pack five of the twelve flat
Pentacubes into a 3x3x3 box with a clamshell lid. As I don’t collect
puzzles myself, it wasn’t until years later, during a joint visit, that
I was able to play with Götz Schwandtner’s copy at Bernhard Schweitzer’s
house. The interplay between the Pentacubes and the clamshell lid feels
really good. And the chosen mix of the five Pentacubes is truly
something special.
I’ve been experimenting for some time now with the FATs – the 15
Pentacubes, each of which is described by a 3x2x2 envelope. In doing so,
I naturally also recalled PENTA IN A BOX; interestingly, I hastily
dismissed it again because I concluded that there couldn’t be five FATs
that could fit into a 3x3x3 box with a clamshell lid. Something very
fundamental went wrong with this thought experiment. How foolish of me,
considering that there are 262,344 cuboid arrangements. An obvious
mistake.
For with FATOMINO and its one of potentially 303 combinations of five
FATs, it is even possible to achieve a filling with a unique solution.
What’s more, I maintain that there is no other combination with a unique
solution. In this sense, FATOMINO, modelled on PENTA IN A BOX, is
unique. In fact, I would very much like it to stay that way."
I did ask Volker why he called the pieces "FATs" and apparently it
originated from George Miller who described the pieces as being able to fit
in a FAT cigar box. It is just a way to refer to the NON-planar pentominoes.
The pieces are very interesting and very satisfying to play with:
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A beautiful hinged box and 5 non-planar pentominoes
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Recalling the problems that I had with the original puzzle, I knew what sort
of arrangements I had to attempt to create:
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| Not going to work |
The aim was to make 2 separate packings that can be folded onto each other with
a hinged edge. This sounds very simple but it took me quite a while to realise
that the intersection of the leading edges as the hinge closed was really
causing a problem. I had to hunt for a very particular arrangement. It would be
tempting to brute force this with Burrtools but it shouldn't be necessary. After
a few failures, you should be able to think of the type of organisation that you
need and then hunting for it is tough but fun.
Yet again, Volker produces a variation on an award winning puzzle and manages
to make it even better than everything that has gone before. This is a MUST
have puzzle as well! It is simply superb. If you enjoyed Penta in a box then
you will adore this one.
Flummox
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Flummox by Benjamin Heidt
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This is the second burr in this summer release by Pelikan. Both of them have
been sent out in an unsolved position and the aim is to created the solved shape
before then completely disassembling and then reassembling it fully. Flummox is well named as it is VERY difficult and will really challenge even the best burrista's. It is a caged 6 piece burr with
"extra constraining pieces" and a stick length of 8 voxels made from a very striking combination of Zebrano,
Purpleheart and Maple. When it arrives, one of the burr sticks is protruding up
out of the box and will not simply push back into place.
It took me a good ½ hour of fiddling about (there are quite a lot of
possible moves of the other 5 pieces) before you can make enough space to sink
the protruding stick back to flush with the cage.
After this, obviously, the challenge is to disassemble the burr completely
into 6 sticks and a frame. This is not for a beginner to burrs. It really is a
very complex disassembly and there are a LOT of well disguised moves including
lateral as well as forward and backward moves. The disassembly level
is 30.1.2.3.2.2. Whilst that doesn't look too bad and I would usually say
that is an optimal number of moves for a satisfying burr but in this case,
with a frame, and being very difficult to see inside, this is VERY difficult.
It's very rewarding when the pieces start to come out but even after the
removal of one or two of them, the remainder remain very difficult to remove. This will
be impossible for most puzzlers to reassemble without resorting to Burrtools
but creating that file will be an extra challenge for you.
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That was a massive challenge!
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Fudou
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| Fudou by Frederic Boucher
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Yes, another incredibly tough challenge by Frederic Boucher. I had to ask Jakub what the aim was. The Bubinga pieces arrived all nicely packed in the tray and I wondered whether we had to create some sort of structure that would stand up. I should have realised that this had a much simpler premise - the aim is to pack all the pieces into the tray in such a way that none of them are able to slide around. The triangular notches cut into most of them will allow them to interlock at 45º angles to each other and will ensure that they can be placed against the wall of the tray to prevent sliding. i.e. pack them into the tray but not orthogonally - simple? Hell, no!
I am terrible at anti-slide puzzles. I have managed to find a few very interesting ways the pieces can interact. The aim seems to be to find which pieces will fit together so that their corners reach the sides of the tray and then won't move if others are matched up to do the same. There must be a logical way of thinking about these but I have no skills in this sort of puzzle. It is a fun thing to play with but for me, I have made almost no progress in the 2 weeks that I have been playing.
For you clever puzzle enthusiasts this should be a massive challenge. Anything from Frederic is going to be very rewarding.
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