Having had a bad week last week, I was really motivated to get back into it for
this post. I took the three TICs that Allard gave me to work and tortured a
couple of lovely girls who surprised me with their tenacity.
Georgia - my ODP
Even the radiographer!
Caduceus pieces
I had worked on Caduceus first after writing my post last week. It looks
the easiest of them having only 2 pieces to fit inside. The fun thing about it
is that both pieces have circular rods in them which implies that they will both
need to undergo rotations to get them placed.
Having established the direction of travel we experimented to see how the
individual pieces could be moved into place and then see whether the second
one could be manipulated around the first. Oh boy! They really get in the way
of each other. There are a LOT of moves and they dance around each other a
huge amount. There are so many rotational and sliding moves that for me it is
impossible to keep track of them. I managed to assemble it last Sunday evening
and then couldn't take it apart again for a very long time.
Damn! That was tough
Eventually I separated the pieces and watched in fascination as Georgia and one
of the other theatre staff worked on it and was very gratified to see that they
had the exact same experience. Both really enjoyed it and were keen to try the
others. I love infecting others with the excitement of puzzling! Especially
girls - we need more girl puzzlers.
The next 2 of the TICs from Alan Lunsford were Cobra and Hydra:
Cobra has only one rotational piece
Hydra has 2 rotating pieces
Cobra has the advantage that the two frame pieces are just like simple
interlocking cube puzzles and relatively easy to work out where they go together
but then whilst it is simple to see where the rotating piece has to go, it is
actually a huge challenge to insert it into position. With everything you try
the piece almost arrives but not quite. Many possible moves leads to the thing
falling apart. None of the girls managed to get past this point and it was with
some trepidation that I attempted it myself. It is damned tough. There is a very
very nice sequence to get the thing assembled. Luckily with this one, once you
have done it then the disassembly is not going to be hard to manage. It is
really clever and perfect to get someone hooked - the ability to get so close
and yet so far away is wonderful for the experienced as well as the newbie
puzzler.
Hydra has 2 rotational pieces and it doesn't take long to work out where they
have to go. Like the Caduceus, there is a whole lot of dancing with some
rather extreme moves before it eventually slides together. Disassembly is also
a challenge. It took me a good hour before I could say that I really
understood the puzzle. I will be taking it to work to torture people for a few
weeks.
Cobra assembled
Hydra assembled
If you have a 3D printer (Sob! Never me!) then I suggest you go to Alan's Printables page and download the files for these and make yourself some TICs - they are simply fabulous!
Next up, I tortured myself with George Bell and Nan Ma's Dodecahedron assembly kit. I spent quite a lot of time in the IPP design competition room in Italy attempting several of the challenges set out with these and completely failed. I came to the conclusion that my hands are too small or the pieces were too perfectly made with not enough gaps to help me. But, I am a sucker for a puzzle kit and the five challenges sung to me. I started with the easiest of them (rated medium) and after nearly an hour yesterday, I finally managed an assembly. Hooray!
Dear Lord! That was tough and it was the easiest!
I spent another couple of hours trying various of the other challenges and got absolutely nowhere apart from to teach the cats some swear words and to piss off Mrs S with all the muttering under my breath. The pieces can be assembled gradually by gently pulling apart and adding extras. This continues until there's no space for any more and then as long as the assembly is correct there's a space for the final piece but no way to insert it. Time to take a few out and place them in a different order. Finally you have to pull it apart to the almost falling to bits position and try and manoeuvre the last piece or pieces and let it collapse together into shape. Unfortunately, I have been completely unable to manage it - I pull it apart to the almost falling to bits and then as I wiggle, it just "falls to bit" - Aargh! I'll keep at it for a while longer but I'm losing hope. I saw a friend at the MPP manage them all but I have no idea how.
Finally I have to show off the Ice Cream SandWitch puzzle which I also solved this week.
Ice Cream SandWitch by Alexander Dangl I never noticed the mis-spelling until now!
This puzzle was also an entry into the Design competition this year where it won a Jury Honourable Mention Award. I actually didn't play with it myself at the IPP because I had immediately decided that I wanted to buy a copy having seen p[eople enjoying it and with lots of shouts of delight as they solved it. The following day at the main puzzle party, I quickly found it for sale and got hold of a copy. Let me say straight up - it's a lovely thing and great fun to solve with plenty of Aha! moments.
It is available in 3 ice cream flavours (pistachio, vanilla and the strawberry that I have). The aim is to work your way through finding and using tools to get yourself the coin to allow you to buy more ice cream. At the moment it is available from PuzzleMaster and sold out at Tye and Amanda's Nothing Yet Designs (they may well get more n stock in time).
Initially, the only obvious tool is a bolt that slides part way out when you tilt the puzzle downwards. The first thing to do is work out how to release the bolt and then see where it can be used to make other things happen. The first couple of moves are quite easy to find and will lull you into a false sense of security. I managed those first couple of steps very fast and then got stuck for a while. I had a bolt, a magnet and that was it. There are lots of magnetic areas inside the puzzle but I was unable to manipulate them. I had to put it down for a while due to demands by the present wife that I do some stuff for her. Later on, I returned to the puzzle and noticed something really quite subtle. Aha! I now had...another magnet and nothing to do with it.
I'll not tell you what I did next as I don't want to spoil it for any of you but I have to say that you need to use physics to solve this one and after another few moves you have your coin to allow the purchase of more ice cream. It's wonderful and certainly a candidate for my top ten(ish) of 2026. I will be bringing this to work to torture people as well. My work bag is always shoulder bruisingly heavy because I bring so many great puzzles with me. Torturing people is fun!
I am absolutely amazed - my post views have passed the 7 million since I started writing in March of 2011. Thank you for
reading my crap!
After the last 2 weeks of desperately trying to solve the upcoming Pelikan
puzzles as quickly as I possibly can, I have been rather fatigued and not
actually done any puzzling at all this week. So I don't have anything to
really review today. I did attend the MPP number IIXIIXIIXIIXIIXII
yesterday (yes that does seem to be a Roman numeral! Allard needs to
remember the number L for simplicity.) and one of my favourite things when
I go there is to pick up a bunch of plastic freebies that Allard and other
friends have produced for visitors to take home.
I have a rather big birthday coming up soon and I had hoped that maybe a
Prusa or Bamboo toy-maker with all the multi-colour trimmings might be a
possible gift from she who frightens the Gods - I even suggested it to
her (Whack! Ouch!) However, the present
Mrs S is very frightening. She has said on numerous occasions when I
mention a possible purchase, that the arrival of a 3D printer in her
house (NOT mine) is definitely grounds for divorce and I really cannot afford a divorce! This means that it's absolutely NOT happening,
no matter how nicely I ask. No, she is not worried about noise or
electricity usage. Her primary reason for the absolute moratorium on
this wonderful technology is that she is aware that the profusion of
wood and metal "stuff" that keeps arriving and cluttering the house will
rapidly be supplemented by a huge bunch of "ugly plastic crap". Modern
3D printers produce stuff that is much less ugly now but she does not
want yet more puzzles arriving courtesy of the printer. Sob! Luckily, I
have wonderful friends like Allard, Rich and Dan who can make 3D printed
puzzles which I can smuggle in without risking life, limb and sanity.
Oops! Sanity went a very long time ago.
One puzzle set that arrived yesterday courtesy of Allard was George
Bell's incredible entry into the Assisi
IPP design competition. Whilst it didn't win an award, it was a fabulous challenge which I
spent quite a lot of time on. Interestingly, I had almost no success.
It is a series of coordinate motion challenges and I left Italy rather
frustrated thinking that it was impossible for someone with relatively
small hands. I do tend to pride myself on having fairly decent hand
control and dexterity (on Wednesday I had to put a cannula in a vein
on the front of a patient's shin under ultrasound guidance!) but I
really struggled with it. At the MPP the puzzle was attempted by a few
people and even the most difficult combination was assembled
successfully. I now have the option to try them myself in the privacy
of Puzzlemad HQ without anyone laughing at me with every failure.
Another advantage of a 3D printer is that all the wonderful new TICs
that get designed can be quickly added to a collection without having
to wait for a craftsman to make them in wood. I adore TICs and
interlocking puzzles. Allard had 3 new TICs from Alan Lunsford sitting
to be taken home. They were smuggled into the house with my MPP box
and secreted quietly where she can't see.
Caduceus
Cobra
Hydra
I can't wait to work on these.
So, in the absence of my own 3D printer I will be "forced" to attend MPPs so that I can endure being made fun of but still manage to pick up plastic toys without being told off. See you all at the next one.
At the beginning of the year Allard
reviewed
a nice little bunch of puzzles that he had made based on some new designs by
George. He called them "diabolical" and I was intrigued. I have lusted after a
full set of the Pennyhedron puzzles from the ever so slightly warped Australian
dentist Stephen Chin (Ok he is more than slightly warped!) but have never
managed to find them at a reasonable price and Chinny keeps threatening to
fleece me when I have talked about buying them. George worked with Chinny on
many of them and more recently has expanded the geometry to include a hybrid
shape between an octahedron and a ball - hence the Octaball. I think there are
quite a few new interlocking designs that he has found.
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:
Phew! That was a bugger!
These have been sitting on my desk all assembled and looking lovely since then.
Unfortunately, I have to chair several MS Teams meetings every month and having
a nice big screen at home means it is better to work in my study than in my
office in the hospital. The trouble with that is that, I have these lovely big
worry-beads just a foot away from me whilst I chat to colleagues. I cannot help
myself - I often pick them up and find it quite relaxing to gently start the
coordinate motion off and slide them back and forth. Except...
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:
Screw Fit by Oskar
It has also been beautifully made and is lovely and bright. It consists of a
ring made of 4 pieces held inside a nut. There is nothing for it other than to
try and screw the nut off the ring and it becomes immediately clear that odd
things are happening. The different pieces move in all different directions
until they suddenly fall out - OMG!
That wasn't very bright of me
After my initial pleased exclamation, I put the pieces in the bag and left it
for a few weeks to try and forget the way they had been
assembled/disassembled.
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.
Just the first of a bunch of puzzles from George Bell
Can you tell??? This blog is now MUCH faster than it was! My old iMac was a mid 2006 vintage and was desperately slow - it took 90 minutes or longer to boot up. Finally when a new model was announced a few weeks ago Mrs S threatened me with worse violence than a Whack! Ouch! if I didn't upgrade - isn't she a wonderful woman? A new iMac was viewed, specced up, ordered, manufactured and arrived this week. It is lovely (nice 27" display) and screaming fast as you can tell when you read this. All my crap gets out there with extra speed...lucky you! It will take a while to get the software working as I like but I am getting there.
Before I carry on drivelling about my wonderful gifts from George Bell, I would like to sincerely suggest that you support my 2 very good (and very talented) friends, Big Steve and Ali (aka the Two Brass Monkeys). You will have seen me show off and thoroughly gush about many of their wonderful creations on the blog, including the Hokey cokey lock (reviewed here) which made it to my number 4 slot of 2018 and still available from their Etsy store or from PuzzleMaster. Now, not only can you buy from their store but they have set up a KickStarter for a particularly fabulous (and BIG) creation, the Kong Puzzle.
Kong Fully Assembled
Kong in Case
I played with a prototype of this wondrous brute at the last face-to-face MPP and it was amazing! It is beautifully tactile and a proper challenge - needless to say, I did not solve it there and neither did our Burr magician, Rich. This masterpiece is solid brass and weighs in at a monstrous 4lb 2.6oz (1.89Kg) - the dimensions of the assembled puzzle will be 70 x 90 x 90mm and it will be sent out in an aluminium briefcase for protection of those oh, so fragile pieces/postal workers.
Slough - don't go there!
For those of you wanting to save on the price of postage they have found a way to reduce the packaging (no aluminium case) to 110g and this will save you quite a bit of cash. If cash is not a worry for you then you can have it (along with their first prototype) personally delivered to your door by one of the 2 brass monkeys. It's quite expensive but probably worth it...unless you live in Slough, UK! They might consider going to Antarctica or even a war zone to deliver your toys but NOT Slough - if you've ever been there then you will understand why!
So, go to KickStarter right now and join us all in a wonderful (heavy) experience - it's passed it's finance threshold so is definitely happening but if you want to be amongst the first and want a version cheaper than that to be sold later on their site then join the happy crazy crew - there are still 12 days to go.
Now, on with my regularly scheduled broadcast/blog...during the height of the first wave of the pandemic in the UK (I know that the US and other similar third world countries never managed to get beyond the first wave), I was contacted by my friend George Bell asking how I was doing and informing me that he wanted to send me some gifts to keep me occupied in my downtime. I am always staggered at how generous and kind the puzzle community are and this is just one example of it. I assured George that, apart from working too hard, I was doing fine...and then I caught the bloody virus! Luckily, after about a month I am fine again. A nice big box arrived and the ever vigilant/paranoid Mrs S quarantined it in the porch for a couple of days before allowing me to open a treasure trove.
The puzzle at the top of the blog is my favourite so far. The Pyradox was George's exchange puzzle at the IPP in San Diego in 2018. I did not attend that year and Mrs S won't let me participate in a 100+ puzzle exchange so did not obtain a copy when they were given out. It consists of 3 grids of varying shapes and 5 bunches of glued together spheres. The aim is to put all 5 pieces onto the grid in a stable manner and create a pyramid at the same time. I had been aware that this was a real challenge because I had read George's article on it published in the CFF journal and even edited his article on polyspheres a few years ago. As soon as I got this one I had to play and spent a happy afternoon in our nice warm conservatory with Mrs S and the cats - she was delighted that I had a puzzle that wasn't noisy. I quickly found the solution to the basic pyramid but really struggled on the other 2. I retried the one that I had solved first and then was slightly horrified to realise that I couldn't recreate that one again. Don't look - spoilers below:
Simple pyramid
Broader base
Very broad base
The puzzle took me 3 days in all to solve all three challenges and I have to say it was a wonderful diversion - it looks great too - George gave it out in a nice clear plastic box which displays all the pieces nicely. This is well worth adding to your collection - all of George's puzzles are available at a very reasonable price from his Etsy store (this one is just £16!).
Fusion
Next up, I played with the Fusion puzzle - George has really adopted the world of 3D printing and it allows him to explore his fascination for poly-spheres. This fits beautifully in a clear acrylic box and is remarkably stable. I tipped it out of the box expecting it to fall apart but it stayed together beautifully. First challenge - work out how to separate it into its' component pieces. and then...yes, you guessed it, put it back together again! It's quite clear which pieces are which but not obvious what you need to do to take it apart. I spent a good 10 minutes pushing and pulling at various bits before it suddenly burst apart and landed on a sleeping cat who did not even notice (these are very light puzzles).
2 identical pieces plus one extra
OK - reassemble...quickly! Not gonna happen fast for me. After a few minutes it becomes clear that these pieces clearly can interlock in only one way but holding them right so that they can be clicked together is entirely a different challenge - one piece or other kept pinging out of my hand. Eventually I got it and produced a rather pleasing stable structure again. This one definitely has worry bead potential - I fiddled for a whole evening.
Hole in none
The Hole in none puzzle is made from a wonderful bright luminous yellow printed plastic (I think it glows in the dark), it looks like one of the classic 6 piece star interlocking puzzles...until you attempt to take it apart and that definitely won't work. I then spent a few minutes pushing and pulling on various bits trying to get something to move. It took me a while to find the right position for my fingers and it suddenly pinged into 3 pieces on the cat again - there is definitely a theme to my puzzling!
Again, 2 identical pieces plus one extra
Yet again, I had 3 pieces that were completely different to the classic star puzzle and needed to work out how to fit them back together. This one is a completely different type of puzzle to the Fusion - I classify it as a coordinate motion puzzle. I am very impressed that George managed to make it slide so smoothly when made from 3D printed plastic built up in layers. It's not a tough puzzle but again, a nice worry bead diversion.
Clock Solitaire
This is probably the puzzle that gives the most bang for your buck. Clock Solitaire was George's exchange at the Paris IPP. It is a very nicely made puzzle made by Dave Janelle at Creative Crafthouse - it is available from both Dave's and George's store (George slightly cheaper at £16). We are all familiar with the standard 33 hole Solitaire puzzle we played with (and usually failed to solve) as kids, and this is one (out of many) possible variants on the theme. The puzzle itself is very nicely made laser cut wood forming a box for the turned wooden pegs and a booklet of multiple challenges.
So far I have only attempted the basic first challenge to remove all the pegs leaving one remaining in the centre hole. I've been at it for several hours and singularly failed. I have been hampered by needing to remove a peg from a cat's mouth on multiple occasions! I don't know whether this is particularly difficult or I am just being dim. As a teenager, I was actually able to solve the standard solitaire puzzle but this one seems to be beating me so far. If and when I beat the main challenge then there are quite a few more in the booklet.
I think that all puzzlers should own a copy of the basic 33 hole puzzle (many are available with gorgeous wood or marble pieces and make great coffee table displays) and for such a small amount of money, it is well worthwhile getting a copy of this one to go with it - if you are anything like me then you will be kept busy for days if not weeks and months.
I have subsequently realised that George is one of the foremost authorities on the peg solitaire puzzles in the world, having published some very interesting articles on the possible variants. He has a fascinating webpage to start you off on your odyssey. It includes a very full reference section pointing to real scientific articles that have been published on the subject in genuine mathematical journals. When I get some time I will collect and read some of these articles - just to complete your image of my complete nerdiness, I collect and read recreational maths books and follow a lot of recreational maths YouTube channels.
Thank you so much, George! The puzzle gifts have been absolutely wonderful and have kept me busy for many hours so far. I really don't understand how your brain works and kind of wish mine worked like it (actually, it would be nice if my brain worked at all!) I have yet to make significant progress on your packing puzzles (Chocolate box, Double chocolate box and Melting F). These interesting multifaceted shapes fit together in very interesting ways but I cannot fathom an approach to solving the challenges with them. So far I have spent the most time with Melting F and have decided that I need a helper, an octopus or extra digits to solve it - every time I make some progress with a few pieces, it explodes on me. I'll keep trying! Maybe I'll take it to work to torture a med student with - I'll tell them that 3D visuospatial ability is vital.
