It Might Bite You or Poke You or Frustrate You!
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| Octaballs by George Bell (kindly made by Allard) |
I commented on Allard's page that I am not allowed a 3D printer (apparently, I
am told on good authority that arrival of one of these "terrible addictive
devices" is grounds for divorce). I was thinking about asking George if I
could buy a set from him when Allard let me know that he had made a second set
and would let me have them. I thought that it was terribly good of him to
preserve my marriage like that. They arrived in mid January and I had a look
and admired the lovely materials that had been chosen for the printing. They
have really improved over the years. Allard had bundled them all into a
ziplock bag all together but had given me a list of the numbered pieces which
belonged in each puzzle.
Later that week, one evening after work, I set to attempting the first
assembly. I picked one at random. I couldn't work out which was going to be
the easiest and chose the first with all 4 identical pieces. It is pretty easy
to assemble the first 3 into the shape and can see how the last one will go
in. Putting the bloody thing in, however, is another thing entirely! These
things have teeth or pointy bits. As you probably know, these are coordinate
motion assemblies and I am really not great at that sort of thing. You would
think that with what I do for a living, I might find these relatively easy.
Except that by and large, I don't do things that require multiple hands
holding things in precisely the correct precarious position. I spent an hour
attempting to assemble this first one and failed with a lot of swearing which
upset Mrs S almost as much as the purchase of a 3D printer. I moved on to
another one which had 4 different parts. There is no difficulty working out
what goes where but actually doing it was really really tough. I failed on all
4 of them that night and for a little while had a sore thumb where I had
managed to lever a pointy bit under a thumbnail.
Tyler had chimed in on Allard's post and had concluded that no human can
assemble them without assistance from another helpful human and I was
beginning to think he might be right. Allard maintains that Gill did not
assist him but who trusts what Allard says about anything? I looked around the
house to see if I could find a "helpful human" and there does not appear to be
one of those living with me - I was doomed to fail, suffer sore thumbnails and
swear a lot before receiving the laser stare and even a
Whack! Ouch! On evening number 2, I
juggled all the pieces using a hand to hold them and a thigh to prevent a
piece falling out whilst I introduced the final piece and Aha! I had a result.
Over the next two evenings, I managed to assemble 3 pieces in, extend the
coordinate motion out as far as possible whilst maintaining stability (with a
couple of them, I had to work out which pieces were the best for this
extension). Then I used various parts of my anatomy as a third hand/stabiliser
as I extended beyond stability and finally introduced the fourth piece. I
quickly realised that using my nose as a stabiliser was no use as I couldn't
then focus close enough to see to introduce the next piece. Thighs seem to
work best and one time the top of a sleeping cat's head did the trick. It took
me over a week and I had some assembled Octaballs:
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| Phew! That was a bugger! |
A bloody cat jumped on my lap during one meeting frightening me half to death!
The Octaball in my hands that was partially opened flew out of my hands and
sprung apart on the floor. In my and his surprise, he shot of my lap and
knocked another onto the floor disassembling it as well. The horror on my face
was visible to everyone in my meeting. It may have been even harder to
assemble them a second time! Aargh! They have been put away in one of the
bookcases to prevent this happening again.
Another gift horse came from Neal. When I bought the set of Dessert TICs he
added in a couple of gifts to the package that he had 3D printed. Again, I am
not allowed one of these and so I can only ever get these from other people. I
reviewed the wonderful
Screw burr in May and loved it. Also in the package was a copy of Screw Fit by
Oskar:
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| Screw Fit by Oskar |
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| That wasn't very bright of me |
I was able to work out several times what was required but actually doing it is less easy than it sounds. It would appear that this one also needs more than 2 hands i.e. a helpful second human which I don't have. In the end, after much "effing and blinding" this went together again with instructions to self:
"Don't do that again!"
Unfortunately, I don't often listen to myself and the worry bead thing happened again. I now have it in pieces next to me again and fully expect it to stay this way for a while. I am definitely not terribly bright - but the lovely shiny toys keep talking to me!
Thank you to both of my wonderful puzzling friends who have delighted and frustrated me for so long.
