Grabbed By Grabarchuk

New releases from Peter Grabarchuk's Crafty Sunflower Puzzles

Yes, I am working yet again this weekend! For that reason, this is a rather quick blog post to show off something fun that will make a nice gift for the puzzler in your life or for someone who you would like to entice into becoming a puzzler.

This is the second release this year of puzzles by the Grabarchuk family. I was too busy to participate when those ones came out but the puzzles are still available and you can read about them on Ken's blog here. This time I was still too busy but felt bad for not helping the last time. Peter contacted me last week to ask if I was interested in showing off his newest creations to the world. He gave me a nice discount which was eaten up by the postage fees but it was worth it. The puzzles arrived earlier in the week and I was delighted to have a play for a couple of days this week. As you can see, Amenadiel was also very keen to play! Both our cats (the girl is called Mazikeen) seem to love 3D printed plastic as well as metal puzzles. They lick them which becomes very unpleasant and have been known to run off with pieces.

This release includes a burr/assembly puzzle (12 piece), a cubic assembly puzzle with multiple challenges and an entanglement puzzle. They range in difficulty from very easy to extremely challenging! Today I will be showing off the two that I managed to solve before having to go to work again.

Flower Coaster

Flower coaster

This is a nice little toy for any beginner puzzler which can double up as a drinks coaster should that suit your taste. It is available in a whole bunch of different colour combinations. The oval rings are interlocked and sit on a tray for transport and use as a coaster. A quick shale will separate them into 2 interlocked rings with 4 grooves in each of them. It is worthwhile, rotating them about and swivelling them a bit before trying to reassemble.

4 grooves in each

Having done that, the reassembly is a nice quick challenge. It is not hard for any real puzzle enthusiast but for a child, this might be fun and make them think. I am not certain that I would actually use it as a coaster as I don't know how it would deal with hot items or liquid spills but for a small amount of money it is quite nice.

It is presented in a circular acrylic box with a stand which I very nearly lost to the cat!

He picked it up and ran off with it!

Checkered Chairs

Checkered Chairs

Now this one was a whole lot of fun as well as a significant challenge! It arrives as a 2x2x2 (or 6x6x6) cube in an acrylic box with a booklet of challenges. I adore a puzzle with multiple challenges to keep me occupied. After the cat licked it a bit, the cube fell apart to reveal the reason for the name. The pieces (8 of them) are all variants of chair shapes with 2 colours forming different portions. When you purchase these puzzles there are a bunch of options for the colour combinations as well as the ability to choose a custom combination of colours. 

8 Chairs

Obviously one of the challenges is to recreate the cube for storage but the booklet provides 17 challenges of varying difficulty. The first 9 puzzles are to use all 8 pieces to create various shapes that are shown in the book like the one to the left. 

Initially I found this really quite tough but after a half hour of fiddling and experimenting I began to get my thought processes into alignment and started to solve the challenges. Once you have managed the puzzles that use all the pieces then it is time to move on to the next section where you make smaller shapes but using only a few of the pieces (no, they don't tell you which ones to use. The starter for this section needs only 4 pieces to make a 2x2x1 (or 6x6x3) tile:

4 piece challenge

Then you move to 3 challenges of 6 pieces and these are significantly more difficult. The last one must have taken me an hour!

The final challenges (which I have not had a chance to try yet) show only the positions of the dark cubes and expect you to create those shapes with the lighter pieces arranged wherever possible to allow it to all fit together. My few minutes of trial and error with this one has revealed that despite the ability to put one colour wherever you want, it is significantly harder to solve these than the other challenges. I have been quite surprised about this.

12 Logs

12 Logs

I have not yet had time to try this one but it looks like a significantly challenging assembly puzzle that uses logic to put together. Again, it is available in a lot of different colours. It will come apart quite easily to reveal 12 notched logs with the notches in different configurations on each of them. The aim is to put it back together into the cube that fits in the storage box by working out which ones interlock in different directions and in what order they need to be inserted. The booklet contains the solution if you need help. It fell open when I opened the box for the photo and it would appear that the logs sometimes need to be inserted in pairs or even clumps rather than one at a time. I suspect that there is some real logic to working this out and I will need some time to sit and try it. Ken managed to assemble his copy by using an illegal rotation so this potentially gives you an extra challenge to try

This puzzle is not for the beginner although the presence of the solution means that it could be given to a newbie with confidence that they could assemble it with some help.

These are very nicely made 3D printed puzzles with the designs by Serhiy Grabarchuk beautifully recreated and presented. They are very favourably priced and well worth adding to your collection.

PuzzleMaster Kickstarter Part 2

Trick Bolt #4

Continuing the theme from last week, the PuzzleMaster Kickstarter campaign continues until end of December. Last week I described the 3 new puzzles that are the main feature but there are also 3 add-on puzzles that can be added to any order on the Kickstarter for a fraction of the cost on the PuzzleMaster site.

Starting with the Trick Bolt number 4 which is available as an add-on for just $8CAD compared with the $14.99 on their site. The aim is to remove the middle nut from the bolt. This is a lovely little challenge that is fun for any experienced puzzler as well as great for a beginner and children - it is rated as Tricky or level 6 on their 5 to 10 scale of difficulty. There are a couple of lovely little Aha! moments in it. This could probably be considered a rather basic sequential discovery puzzle. For $8 you really cannot go wrong. I will be taking this to work with me to encourage my colleagues to take up puzzling.

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Celestial Cipher

From the easy Trick Bolt 4 we move up a notch in difficulty. In fact we move right up to the top! The Celestial Cipher is an anodised metal 8 piece board burr. It is rather attractive in silver and gold. rather fiddly to play with due to the diminutive size - 4.5 x 2.9 x 4.7cm. PuzzleMaster rate this as a level 9 (Gruelling) on their odd scale and I personally would make it a level 10. The normal price for this one is $21.75CAD but as an add-on to the Kickstarter it is reduced to $16 - that is a steal!

The movement of the pieces is nice and smooth and you can see all the gaps and paths which should make it easier to dismantle but despite this, it is really quite a huge challenge with a good few blind alleys to go down. This one took me quite a few weeks to take apart - not for the fainthearted and only the very best burr-puzzler will manage to reassemble it without Burrtools. I needed BT and discovered that there are 12 possible assemblies raging from an "easy" level 19 (4.2.3.3.2.3.2) up to the hardest level 27 (10.5.3.3.2.3) which is the one that it arrived in. This potentially gives you a bunch of challenges if you can find someone to assemble it each time for you in a new challenge. Unfortunately Mrs S won't do that for me!

As a quick word of warning, don't let you cat lick this puzzle! Yes, I know that is an odd thing to write but my two kittens have a weird fascination with cold metal objects. They lick them all. taps/faucets, metal trivets and metal puzzles! Nothing I do will stop them licking everything which can give aa nasty surprise when you pick up something that is unexpectedly wet and sticky. 😱 The Celestial Cipher became a bit sticky to move and then the surface corroded. I have no idea what is in a cat's saliva that does that but don't let them do that to yours!

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Houdini's Torture Cell - PuzzleMaster version

If you don't have the Houdini's Torture Cell yet then this is a very good reason to join the Kickstarter and buy it for a very reasonable price of $36CAD (reduced from the usual $44.99). If you don't want the Kickstarter puzzles then you should buy this anyway - many of us would consider this an essential puzzle for anyone's collection. I did not get sent a copy of this because they know that I have an original version from Brian Young.

Brian collaborated with PuzzleMaster to recreate this amazing puzzle in metal and the result is stunning. I have payed with it at an MPP and it is good and solid with an amazing heft to it. The puzzling is identical to the wooden version and with a curved acrylic cage it shouldn't suffer from the same micro cracks that plagued the original. The puzzle was good enough to win the Jury first prize in the 2012 IPP design competition. That alone should tell you it is worth getting hold of. 

The mechanism is all on show and beautiful to work out (unlike the complete bugger of an identical blind challenge in the last lock of The Opening Bat. This reminds me that I should fetch out my copy to take to work again and bamboozle a whole new bunch of trainees, surgeons, ODPs and nurses. This is a simply wonderful puzzle!

You have just 16 days from the publication of this article to join the Kickstarter campaign. There are a bunch of great puzzles available and here I have shown that the add-ons are also worth considering.

PuzzleMaster Has An Opportunity For You

Crazy Lock designed by Christoph Lohe

I was contacted a few months ago by Leon Stein, one of the co-owners of PuzzleMaster, to ask whether I would be interested in looking at their upcoming Kickstarter campaign puzzles and would I show them off to the world? Well, I have some experience of the PuzzleMaster Kickstarter puzzles and have heartily recommended them each time. Of course, I agreed. I would be foolish to pass up the new creations and I thought that you, my readers, would want to see my opinion. The Kickstarter is now up and running with a close date of 31st December so if any of these interest you then get over there and place an order. They have reached the minimum to actually go ahead and so this will definitely be happening, with the aim of shipping puzzles to backers in June/July 2026.

This time there are 3 main puzzles in the campaign plus there are 3 add-on puzzles (ones already on the PuzzleMaster store) which can be added to your pledge to get a bit of a discount.

The first one I tried was the Crazy Lock. It's a burr in the shape of a lock - I can't resist burrs, I have a passing fondness for locks and a burr lock is irresistible to me - in fact I have quite a lot of them now. I wasn't disappointed and neither will you be - it is great.

The box states that it is level 8 on the PM 5 to 10 scale and I actually think it should be rated a bit higher at 9. I significantly struggled to dismantle it. The design was made by the late Christoph Lohe and was originally published as Burlock E. 

I have actually solved Burrlock E many many years ago when I bought it from Eric Fuller (he also adored Christoph's designs and always produced great challenges). Way back then I described it as a serious challenge for mere mortal puzzlers like me and it is still that. With a level of 26.2.3.2.2, this has a really significant difficulty to it. It took me about a week to dismantle it and then I was unable to assemble again without Burrtools. Creating the file was a bit of a challenge but at least I was finally able to put it back together again. For those of you who are burr assembly experts, there is an alternative assembly (level 26.3.3.2.2 which has the key hosizontally in the lock at the end. Double the challenge for one puzzle.

Burrlock E from Cubic Dissection (2017)

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Fortress of Shadows by Christoph Lohe

The next puzzle for me to play with was the Fortress of Shadows burr (also by Christoph) it is quite diminutive (1.75 x 1.25 x 1.25") but beautifully made with gold coloured burr pieces trapped inside a black anodised castle with 4 turrets. These turrets very much limited the movements of the pieces. I spent another 2 weeks working on this one. You can see everything that is going on inside but it is still a hugely difficult challenge with level 30.1.2 as the pieces move back and forth progressively making space to allow the first piece out. It looked familiar to me but I couldn't place it properly. I did go back and check my photo database and realised that Pelikan had produced a different version of the puzzle 5 years ago (called Castle) which I had reviewed here - that one had not been terribly difficult but this version is a significant advance in difficulty. 

I would be very impressed by anyone who could assemble it from scratch but I definitely needed a Burrtools file and this was a fun one to make and follow in reverse to fully assembled.

The original Castle by Christoph - similar but different to the Fortress of Shadows

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Twisted Logic by Yavuz Demirrhan

This rather beautiful 4 piece anodised burr looked very familiar to me and, as with all the other puzzles in my collection, I had a vague memory of owning it and solving it once but the process was a mystery to me. Looking back I realised that the original version was a puzzle I had actually solved twice. Chiasma was a design by the amazing Yavuz Demirrhan that PuzzleMaster had made before in a very limited run that I had reviewed back in 2020 and had compared the metal version with the original wooden one from Pelikan. In fact the handmade metal version is still available on the PuzzleMaster site but is not cheap. The newer one will be mass produced for a fraction of that cost.

I recalled that this one had been incredibly difficult. There are 4 identical board burrs that gradually extend apart and then sequentially line up the exit points to allow removal of pieces. I found it very confusing to work on and this is not made easier by the need to prevent the pieces rotating. I don't think there are any rotational shortcuts but it needs you to keep the pieces aligned to move them around safely. It's quite fun to explore but I would suggest that you use a back and forth approach to make sure that you know what you have done as it's easy to get lost. At one point I had the pieces quite extended apart from each other and in a dead end and struggled to return to the beginning. The rather low solution level of 16.4.6 would sort of imply that it shouldn't be too hard but don't be fooled - it is a huge challenge to move around, control the pieces and keep track. The solution is really not obvious. 

Chiasma - Pelikan version

Chiasma - original PM version

I will return next week with a review of the add-on puzzles from the Kickstarter campaign - this is definitely well worth inverting in. They are great challenges, beautifully made and an amazing price.

What A Mammoth N-ary Effort!

Brass side

Steel side with monkey

The Blind Panic puzzle was Ali's IPP exchange. I received a copy at the MPP

It ooks and feels wonderful and is effectively a Panex (with one difference discussed later).

First of all, a little note to inform you that the OPUP remains packed and the Dovetail bar 2 remains a single piece! maybe I need another hobby?

I am having to work this weekend yet again and so only have a quick update on last week's challenge. I do maintain that I definitely am an eejit! I decided to finally work on the two puzzles that I own that are effectively Panex puzzles. I had thought for a while that the Panex was a "simple" N-ary puzzle and it "just" needed me to work out the pattern and then slog through.

Damn! That wasn't very bright! I should have realised that any so called N-ary puzzle that is more complex than the basic Chinese rings is not necessarily going to be straightforward. The clue should have come from the incredible puzzles sent to me by Aaron Wang over the years. I don't buy everything he has to sell because a. I can't really afford to buy them all and 2. some of them look impossible for human beings to solve! However, I have bought quite a few of his fancy N-ary designs and have solved very very few of them! Even the ones that are "just" N-ary have some very complex sequences that I often seem to get lost in and most of them remain unsolved and in my pile of puzzles reminding me of how rubbish I am at puzzling and, more importantly and dangerously, they are annoying Mrs S and tempting the cats into string swallowing. 😱

Street Lamp

Golden Gate Bridge

Both of these were bought last summer and both have ended up with me completely stuck.Thank heavens for the quick reset that Aaron installed. This should remind the unwary puzzler that many N-ary puzzles have rather a lot more to them than one might expect.

The Bell
Unsolved for several years!

How does that relate to the Panex? Well, I am not certain but I think the Panex is sort of N-ary but with patterns within patterns and the challenge is to find an approach in stages. It is not a simple thing to do and took me a week to complete a level 5 version. The Bell from Siebenstein Spiele is a very similar puzzle but has the advantage that the 3rd column is visible. I decided to solve the two puzzles in stages side by side. I started on the level 3 solve. It is trivial to move 3 disks from one arm to the empty arm like a Tower of Hanoi puzzle and then move the ano0ther one to where they came from:

⅔ of the way

Done it!

This was done fairly trivially on the Bell and then also on the Blind Panic. Success! I think must have taken me about 60 moves. Time to move to level 4 and OMG! it was not trivial. It can no longer be solved by using simple Tower of Hanoi sequences.

The first sequence is Tower of Hanoi and transfers one arm to the gap

It looks as if being able to do the sequence above is possible then all that is required is to do it again with the dark set of disks. But and it's an enormous BUT the way the Bell and Panex is constructed requires to use the top pathway as temporary storage as the disks are slid from one leg to the other. The problem when attempting a level 4 is that having moved the first sequence across to the middle leg the temporary storage that would be used is above that middle leg and it subsequently blocks movement of disks across the top to the other leg. It took me absolutely ages to realise that the Tower of Hanoi approach is impossible with this puzzle. The interesting thing with Ali's Blind Panic is that the path at the top of the puzzle is circular and also that the temporary storage is above the pile of pieces in an arm and not in the top path! 

This end result of this is that the two puzzles are not actually the same. They are almost equivalent but the crucial difference makes the Blind Panic much more approachable and more like a multi-layer  Hanoi puzzle. After a couple of days of play I solved the level 4 on the Bell and convinced myself I had a reasonable approach. A level 4 Panex should take 174 moves - I must have been several times that many:

Level 4 solved - this almost killed me!

Time to strat on the level 5 Bell and simultaneously solve the Blind Panic. It was more of the same but to me did not feel very logical. It took me a lot of back and forth, getting it wrong and starting again. I did the Blind Panic at the same time. My hands were rather sore but the end of another few days of work:

Level 5 solved!

Brass above the monkey

Apparently the level 5 Panex takes 461 moves as a minimum to solve but for me it must have been thousands and thousands as I made mistakes and had to backtrack or got lost and had to start sections again. I was mentally and physically exhausted after doing that and despite being elated, I have absolutely no plan to undo it and go back to the beginning using the same approach - I think it would kill me! The Bell puzzle can be unscrewed and this is exactly what I will be doing! Then there is the thought of completing the entire Bell puzzle (level 6) - OMG! NO! It should take a minimum of 1170 moves but I suspect it would be 10's of thousands for me and most of the rest of my remaining hair and my life! I'm afraid that the final solution to the Bell will never happen.

There has been quite a lot of mathematical analysis on the minimum number of moves that are required to solve the Panex puzzle and I don't really understand any of it. I do know that it is a LOT more moves than you would expect and the logic is really not obvious! Have a look at the papers linked from Nick Baxter's site - I did and it didn't help me much at all! 🤣

What about resetting the Blind Panic puzzle? There is a screw on top which I suspect can be undone and the puzzle pieces removed and replaced back in the start position. BUT, I am fairly convinced that that a simple Tower of Hanoi approach is possible for this puzzle because of the circular top pathway and the extra storage position in the top of each column. I am going to work on that for the next day or so and will report back to you next week!

Wish me luck!

OMG! What Have I Done?

Brass side

Steel side with monkey

I'm an eejit! I've said it many times here and a certain woman within arms length of me tells me it at regular intervals! Why this time? I have just noticed that after my week off, I had put myself down to work 5 weekends in a row! 😱 As a consequence I have been desperately trying to solve something for today and am struggling.

I failed yet again to unpack the OPUP (have I been given the one that doesn't unpack??? and then also been trying to slide the Dovetail bar 2 apart and over a whole week of effort at work I have managed absolutely nothing. 

I then decided to try the Blind Panic puzzle from Ali (it was his exchange puzzle at the IPP). What is it I hear you ask? These voices in my head are getting quite troublesome! You can depend on the Two Brass Monkeys to create something very special - it's a Panex in 3D cylindrical form with a hidden reserve column. It "only" has 10 pieces to swap over so should be "easy"? Oh hell no! I had been at it for days and realised that I needed to do it in tandem with a version that I could see everything. The Bell was a Siebenstein puzzle that I bought from Hendrik many years ago when I found that the original Panex puzzles always sold for an exorbitant sum. I had thought it was an N-ary puzzle on playing with it, I realised that there was far more to it than that. I never solved it!

The Bell - also a Panex puzzle

For some stupid reason, I had forgotten that and set to work on Ali's version which was only level 5. The aim was to move the 5 brass pieces to the column above the monkey (hence achieving a figurative brass monkey and the steel pieces to the other column. I have been working on them level by level for a week.

It has unfortunately gotten too late for me to write much more but I think I have a process worked out. Sigh! I need more time.

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! 😱🤣