Tough For Me - A Real Strugg L

Strugg L by Junichi Yananose

This one was an interesting one for me and I have to say that I went through much the same experience as the extremely talented designer/craftsman/solver, Ken Irvine. This means that it is a GOOD puzzle and just the right difficulty level despite having a relatively high level.

Juno has watched the huge increase in complex packing puzzles with varying shaped pieces which have been made more interesting by the use of limited openings as well as a stipulation that the openings need to finish up being covered by the pieces (Alexander Magyarics and Osanori Yamamoto are masters of this sort of design and I have absolutely loved them. Juno always wants to add something new to a puzzle genre and has been doing that in the burr space with the amazing Grooved Board Burrs which have been released over the last few years. So, how could he change the design of packing puzzles? He didn't want to make standard blocks to fit into a box and didn't want to add yet another limited opening packing puzzle. Juno's fresh take on the subject is the use of grooves and pins in the pieces and the box sides. This has the added benefit of allowing the packed puzzle to be completely full. To make it interesting, he also created it using only L-shaped triominoes. This was quite a feat! It sold out in just 5 minutes after going on sale! Amazing for a packing puzzle.

Just 2 moves!

It is rather attractive made from Fijian Mahogany, American Rock Maple and Bamboo and is 88 x 88 x 58mm in size. I was expecting it to be sent out as pieces (I don't think that was ever stated but I suspect that I expected that to be the case because it was supposed to be a packing puzzle). After it arrived, I had a quick fiddle and realised that this was going to be fairly complex to disassemble. In a way I am rather pleased it was sent out assembled.

After my photos and my quick fiddle to see how it moved, I set to properly and really worked on a disassembly. There is only one real pathway through with only a few small blind endings. After about 15 moves there was a move sequence that surprised me a lot - it opened up a lot of other pieces and also seemed to render the puzzle unstable. But despite that key piece rotating all over the place it did not release anything early for me. The dexterity level went up a bit as I had to hold onto several pieces at once to keep them aligned. At that point I found myself going around and around in a loop and could not find the next moves to release the first piece. I inadvertently ended up back at the beginning. Aargh! I am not very good at these! Finally, after about an hour, I had a breakthrough and released the first piece. 

Even after the first piece had been taken out, the others could not just be easily removed. It required another decent sequence for the second and then even the third. This was using linear moves. It would have been possible to cheat with a rotation here but I was disciplined and stuck to the linear moves - those pins and grooves hold the pieces well until all of them have been removed.

6 L's - the holes in the bottom are purely for finger access

I was pleased to have disassembled it and was really not sure that I could put them back inside without Burrtools or my memory of the route but I decided to give it a go. I jumbled them up into a pile and left it for a day before trying to pack them all back in. I was very relieved to read that Ken had managed the assembly but he is a MUCH better solver than I am and that only meant that I had a chance but it was not certain.

After that day and the jumbling, I realised that I did remember the starting position of 2 of the pieces and what the first move was during the disassembly. Maybe if I had waited for a few weeks then it would have been more like starting from scratch but I had a blog post to write! Luckily those were the ONLY moves and positions that I remembered. Assembling the shape after this, outside the box was fun and actually not too difficult. Once I had my 4x4x2 cuboid assembled it was time to try and recreate the disassembly outside so that I could reverse it and put it back inside. I got stuck at this point for a few hours. 

In the end even the assembly was not too difficult. Had I received it in pieces, I suspect that it would have been beyond me but with just the couple of piece clue that I had, this was a very fun challenge. It has sold out now but I am sure that it will come up at auction before long. Well worth adding to your collection!

Keep an eye out very soon for Juno's latest Sequential Discovery Puzzle, the Dial Case. 

Do you love heavy metal or even some complex plastic? Yes me too. It is with great pleasure that I can let you know that Ali and Steve have just released some new toys on their Two Brass Monkeys store:

The Burrly Legal Cylindrical 18 piece burr

A stunning 18 piece burr which took years to develop

Ali's Bolt

The Rhombic Maze Burr

This is a MUST HAVE puzzle - designed by Derek Bosch, the Brass boys have added to the original with an extra maze plate a new design for the pins and a new booklet with 100 challenges to try your hand at. I had a play with this at the recent Midlands puzzle party and it is stunning. My original review of this puzzle was here

A terrible memory or a fundamental failure to understand?

Juno's Grooved 6 Board Burr number 7

I’ve had a week of annual leave up in Bonny Scotland relaxing and eating far too much good food! (I can heartily recommend Dine at the Traverse  as a fabulous place to eat - afterwards I was only good for a sleep). Of course there was also the customary visit to the outlaws and even a Mother's Day afternoon tea at The Ivy (again, I was only good for a sleep afterwards!) Luckily, I brought a few puzzles to play with and even managed (with a struggle) to solve one… partially at least!

 

Yay! 6 more!

This week I am showing off the seventh in the series of Grooved Board Burrs by Junichi Yananose. Seven? OMG! But how could I resist? I have the other 6 and absolutely adored them. I have reviewed most of them (#1, #2, #3, #4, #6) over the years as they came out. Number 7 in the series was released a couple of weeks ago and is still available now. Juno himself (he’s a genius) said that the difficulty is extremely high and suggested using the photos on the site to aid with small hints during the search for the solution path.

The first thing I noticed when I unwrapped my lovely parcel was how vibrantly beautiful the puzzle is. As before the puzzle is made using Juno's home made Plywood (this provides strength and prevents warping as humidity conditions change). The wood used are PNG Rosewood and Red Gum which contrast with each other beautifully. This one is slightly larger than the first 6 and is less bevelled to try and prevent inadvertent rotational moves. The immediately obvious difference, however, is that this puzzle has considerably more complex pieces with pins on the external surfaces of the puzzle. These are also there to prevent rotational moves.

Juno wrote in his description:

"The puzzle has a unique solution in a relatively small number of 91 assemblies, and the computer program Burr Tools showed its level to be, 50-18-3-3, the highest number in the Grooved 6 Board Burr series. In the real world, the interlocking of the consisting pieces becomes unstable after around 40 moves from the assembled shape, and it allows a rotational movement shortcut that is theoretically possible. It is yet the largest number ever in the series to release the first piece from the assembled shape."

The pathway is relatively constrained initially but very quickly it becomes apparent that there is quite a lot of movement possible with many choices for what to move and at various points the puzzle gets stretched apart a very long way and still remains stable. Those external dowels/pins really do work to prevent rotations. I managed a good few moves with my usual to and fro approach backtracking to the beginning each time. Then I got stuck for a couple of days. I couldn’t spend too much time on it - we were on holiday and had stuff to do. 

After a bit of a hiatus at one position and wondering whether I had completely mistaken the correct path, I found a spectacular new move which opened up a whole new set of paths but, as is usual I backtracked to the beginning and, yes, as you’d expect I couldn't find the move to get to that place again. I’m an eejit! I spent several hours searching around the same spot desperately trying to find the single crucial move.

The difference was small… I needed to move from this position:

See how stretched out it is?

To this position:

That front board has shifted from one notch to another

This looks trivial to achieve yet it took me 2 days of swearing under my breath! The crucial factor in finding the path was the realisation that the placement of the pegs on the outside forces the puzzle to use ⅓ voxel moves! This is the reason for the title of the blog post - I thought I had just been a victim of a terrible memory but in reality, I had completely misunderstood the complexity of the puzzle. This means that instead of a 6x6x6 grid (with each board being 1x4x6 voxels), a much larger grid was needed. The whole thing would need to be tripled in size!

After that hideous/revealing discovery, it opened up again to a huge new vista of complexity and some seriously scary sequences. The puzzle did begin to become rotationally unstable but unallowed moves were always prevented from being completed by the pins. My to and fro technique worked for quite some time but eventually I got lost. I found myself going around and around in a loop unable to go forward or back until I found my way back to the beginning by accident. Phew!

At this point I stopped for a day to try and regain my nerves! These puzzles are great fun but I’m always frightened with some that I will get stuck in a position and not be able to go forward or back ever again. I have a couple of incredibly complex burrs that are stuck in an odd hedgehog-like shape and I cannot do anything about it - they’ve been stuck like that for years! I did get my courage back, however, as I figured that a 6 piece burr really should not get irrevocably stuck. Once I returned back to the second half of the solution, I systematically tried different sequences until I had my Aha! moment. My first piece came out.

I have to say that Juno's hint pictures were not in any way useful! Each one was taken with a different orientation of the puzzle making it impossible to relate one position to a later one. I tried turning my puzzle at various stages to match the photo but quickly lost any idea of what position I was in whilst rotating it about. 

In removing the first piece, I had to reach to a table to put it down and my grip on the puzzle shifted and the remaining pieces revealed themselves to be very unstable. A bunch of pieces rotated and dropped down. I had no idea how they should have been placed and it was easy to remove a pair in one go from this new position. After that, I took it apart completely for my photo.

Seriously complex pieces!

I would love to tell you that I have managed to reassemble it but there is not a hope in hell of that without Burrtools! I think even the amazing Rich (frequent MPP visitor, who is an incredible burr assembler) might struggle to assemble this from scratch.

I will need to wait until I get home to my computer (this post was done on an iPad) to program it in. It’s going to be a real challenge to enter it as I don’t actually have pictures showing where all the external grooves and pins should be on the assembled puzzle. But, trying to make my BT files is part of the puzzle fun for me. It might take several hours! Oh joy!

This fabulous challenge is still available from Juno now - go buy one before they sell out. It is seriously seriously good.

Thank you, my friend!

Amazing How Much Difference Is Caused by a Half Voxel

Bubinburr by Juno

If you have not seen it yet - the puzzles that I reviewed last week from Pelikan have gone up for sale now - there are some incredible puzzles there - go get them quick.

It's been a bit of a struggle to get something to write about this weekend - I have had to work 3 weekends in a row and after the Herculean effort of solving all of the Pelikan puzzles, my poor little brain was mush! I have so far completely failed on the last steps of Angry Walter and also failed to solve my jingly puzzles I bought months ago from Aaron. In desperation, I picked up a gorgeous six piece board burr that has been on my to solve tray in the living room for over a year.

I bought a bunch of Juno's 6 piece board burrs way back in October 2021 - I couldn't resist the 5th and 6th in the series of Grooved board burrs which I solved and reviewed (#5 here and #6 here) within a few weeks of their arrival. I then hoped to solve the Bubinburr in the days or even week afterwards. I can now hear Juno and Yukari laughing at me from the other side of the world! They must have known that that was not going to happen! Their description of it should have warned me:

"This puzzle requires some very tricky 22 moves to remove the first piece from the assembled shape. Although a few pieces tend to rotate during the solving process, there seems to be no shortcut solution using rotational movements. It can be solved using rotational movements, but it still requires about the same steps as a rectilinear movement solution, though it is tricky to count while it involves rotational movements. The number of possible assemblies of the puzzle is a very large 30,592, and finding the unique solution among them is extremely difficult.

Once assembled, the puzzle looks just like an ordinary 6 board burr, but as you can see in the images below it has been designed using a grid system of half unit lengths. It doubled the number of moves for the first piece compared to an ordinary 6 board burr that has a maximum 11 moves unique solution. 

One of the most difficult aspects of designing this type of puzzle is to ensure that the puzzle has a unique solution. To achieve this, Juno has carefully modified the shape of a couple of pieces, which are cleverly hidden in the images below."

I thought that it wouldn't be too difficult when I bought it...especially since it did not have any extra grooves to catch me out. But I quickly realised that there was something really tough to this one. The exploration was fantastic with quite a few moves possible but no really deep blind ends. I was always able to return back to the beginning and try another path. There was a weird loop in the pathway as well which I frequently seemed to head through and back to the beginning without intending that. After many hours of attempts, I had to put it down. I just could not find the missing move(s).

The puzzle stayed on my tray for over a year and I would attempt to solve it every couple of weeks without success. It "only" has 22 moves to remove the first piece but I just couldn't seem to manage it. As Juno stated, the use of half voxels made all the difference. I did not bother to look for a rotational solution and tried to keep the pieces controlled as I played. Using that half voxel cut out or added in on every piece (some are not even full thickness) effectively meant that the puzzle was built on a 12x12x12 grid instead of the usual 6x6x6. 

I am not sure what happened today - maybe it was my desperation to have something solved to write about before I spend a day working on trauma patients, maybe it was the very nice gin that I had last night, I don't know. But, this morning, I picked it up and went through my usual initial exploration and attempted my usual moves but for some reason I tried a different move - I think it may have been because I held it differently and gravity found the move for me. But suddenly there was a whole lot more room to manoeuvre than before and Aha! I had my first piece out. The rest of the disassembly was pretty straightforward and I could take the all-important photo:

Finally after over a year of trying!

I don't think I can reassemble it from memory but that is absolutely fine as making the Burrtools file is a significant part of the fun!

So what is going to be next? I have a backlog of puzzles bought from Eric and my birthday present from the present wife, Mrs S has just arrived:

Dayan Gem 10, 16 axis hexadecagon
Eitan's Edge turning Octahedron, 4-Corners cube Plus

Happy New Year - My Top Ten(ish) of 2021

The desk has only gotten worse despite threats of terrible consequences

Happy New Year everyone! Doesn't time fly by? Have I had fun in 2021? Yes, I think so. I (in fact the whole world) had hoped that last year was going to be better than 2020. In terms of world events, it probably was a teeny weeny bit better. We started to get better at treating Covid-19 and the vaccines were rolled out and were definitely shown to be extremely effective. Unfortunately, the vaccines also showed off the darker side of humanity (I guess the whole pandemic, mask and isolation thing did that too). Hopefully 2022 will see the beginning of the end of this blasted thing and all of us healthcare workers might get a bit of a respite and maybe live in fear a little less.

Now for puzzles...it was a VERY good year for acquisition! I spent a fortune and managed to get myself a bunch of fabulous new toys to play with. For solving it was less good - I seemed to have very little time to play and my solving mojo deserted me for quite a while. I struggled to concentrate on anything much let alone complex puzzles.

---

   Last year's new feature has now become a yearly regular event (I hope), the PuzzleMad saviour/foreign correspondent has sent me his top puzzle(s) of the year (vintage version) - over to you Mike...

Foreign Office – Vintage Puzzle of the (yester) Year

Tower of Babble, by Leonard J. Gordon, circa mid-1970s to mid-1980s

Tower of Babble gets my vote for Vintage Puzzle of the Year for the simple reason that I underestimated it. This is a 3D packing puzzle in which seven variously configured pieces need to fit snugly into a hexagonal column. The column is three units deep. Sounds pretty simply, right? I thought so too. My original challenge with this puzzle, however, was getting several of the individual pieces back “together” after they had somehow come unglued (and then mixed up of course). To make matters worse, Tower of Babble was in a bag together with Gordon’s other similar puzzle, Infernal Triangle, when the disaster occurred. There was thus a complete mess of intermingled pieces, many broken, from both puzzles. It was a physical manifestation of the Babel story, which I guess is somehow poetically appropriate. The only thing I could think to do in this circumstance was to email Rob Stegmann and ask nicely for an assist. Rob has a phenomenal collection of puzzles from this period and I knew he had Babble because it was on his ‘assembly’ page. If you scroll to Babble on his page now, you will see the pieces and assembly sequence, with a note directed to yours truly (Ed - wow! You are proper famous to be mentioned by Rob! One day I hope to be mentioned too). Rob graciously sent me detailed photos of all the Babble pieces, and I was then able to glue them back together in the proper configuration. Getting them back in the hex column, however, took me forever. It got to the point where I was compelled to double-check my handiwork. But eventually I got them packed, and my respect for Babble went up appreciably. This thing must have a single unique solution, that’s my only excuse. At any rate, it’s a cool little puzzle. The graphic design work is pretty neat, and the fact that the packaging is part of the puzzle is a nice touch. It’s also colorful and festive. So, in honor of cheap plastic puzzles of a bygone era, and of metagrobological collegiality, please accept Tower of Babble as 2021 Vintage Puzzle of the (yester) Year. (Ed - awesome...thank you)

Foreign Office – Antique Puzzle of the (yester) Year

No-Jump-O, circa 1899

For the three readers out there (Ed - there are a LOT more than three!) who care about really old puzzles, I’d also like to highlight a great antique puzzle I had the pleasure of acquiring this past year: No-Jump-O. This is a sequential movement, or combinatorial, puzzle of the type that I am currently into. The  challenge is to place all the markers into the triangular tray and move them around until they match the pattern shown on the box cover. It is not very difficult to solve, but it is fun to play around with. Because the ‘switching’ area at the bottom right of the tray holds three pieces, you can make progress quickly (the cover photo looks like it is meant to be two, but the actually puzzle easily permits three). This puzzle had some of the markers missing when I got it, so I cut some replacements from a dowel and painted them as close to original color as I could manage. The “white” ones had long since lost their pigment. 

Instructions

Not many puzzles come with a sworn affidavit

Final point of interest: note the affidavit on the inside box cover, swearing to the fact that the puzzle is universally solvable. That’s kind of interesting. You can find this puzzle in one of the Slocum books, with better and more accurate information than I’m giving here. Like most puzzles of this type, you can make yourself a working copy with a pocket full of coins, piece of paper, and pencil.

Ed - thank you so much for all your contributions and help last year. You have gotten me out of a hole several times and your very different view and approach to the subject matter is refreshing for me and I am certain for the readers as well. Here's hoping that 2022 is a great year for you.

---

Here are my own fudged sort of top 10ish puzzles of the year:

12) Jerry Obscures The Solution

Obscure Burr

You can pretty much count on anything by Jerry McFarland appearing in my top ten(ish) puzzles of the year. His stuff is just sooo original and clever and the workmanship is unique and stunning. In 2021 Jerry created the Obscure burr which I struggled to solve. Others had solved it (Bill Cutler and Five Sinatras' Brent) but they had done it by cheating - shock horror! they used lock-picking techniques to beat the locking mechanism. I knew that I could do that but wanted to solve it properly. I needed a clue - the solution was a mathematical one which is not one of my strong points but once I had that small hint, I solved it and had a fun time taking it fully apart and reassembling it. I wonder what Jerry is working on now? His mind never stops!

11) Twisty Challenges Worth Waiting For

TwistyTex's incredible 3x5x7!

Casey Weaver is a hell of a nice guy and a master and modifying/extending Rubik cubes. He had promised me one of his 3x5x7 Ultimate Shapeshifter cubes for a rather long time but he got very busy and then we got a little virus thing going on. I had almost forgotten about it when I received a message that it was ready - YIPPEE! When it arrived, I was blown away with the quality and ease of turning. I gathered my courage and scrambled it and promptly realised that I had forgotten the standard approach to this type of twisty and had to work my own method out based on building blocks using the AI cube approach. It took me quite some time to work it out and was a very frustrating exercise in failing to work out the correct algorithms for a considerable time. Eventually, I found the right approach and happily have solved it at least a dozen times since. It takes pride of place amongst my handmade Twisty puzzle to the right of me at the desk. Thank you Casey, for a terrific gift! Maybe one day I will be brave enough to ask for one of your shape mods of this puzzle? Shudder!

Butterflower cube

Over many years of the blog, I have often extolled the virtue of new twisty designs that are created by combining the movements/cuts of more than one geometry of puzzle. The Butterflower cube was a wonderful combination of edge turning (Curvy copter type) with corner turning (Dino cube type) - it required some extra thought and I definitely had some fun solving it. It is not too difficult for anyone who has mastered the basics.

10) The Funnest TIC Ever!

Definitely best to buy in pieces

Aha! Brilliant!

Richard Gain advertised a few of his Switch Cube for sale in September and after it was heartily recommended by several brilliant puzzlers and especially as an assembly challenge, I couldn't resist and bought a copy asking for it to be sent out in pieces. This challenge very nearly broke me but after continued encouragement from puzzle friends, I kept at it and the Aha! moment was amazing! If you can convince Richard to make any more then you should buy it without hesitation and if any of the fine craftsmen out there want to make it in wood then just tell me how much money you want and it's yours!

9) Bolted by Phil Wigfield

Beautiful Brass

After Allard showed off this puzzle from a new UK based designer and craftsman, I couldn't resist having a try for myself and...Oh boy! I was not disappointed! Phil's work is immaculate and a fun voyage of discovery. The Aha! moments are wonderful and clever - I cannot wait to get my hands on the latest one (I don't seem to have the time recently to buy and my puzzle budget has gotten a little tighter the last few months.

8) Three Sides To Osanori

Octopus 33

Sudachi

Den Cube

Osanori Yamamoto has figured on this blog a LOT over the years and has appeared in my top tens quite frequently. This year his designs were frequent and wonderful. He is probably best known for his packing puzzles based on a 3x3x3 cube with limited opening to insert the pieces (often with diagonal obstructions) and Sudachi was one of the most fun of these this year. However, he also designs lots of other types of puzzle and 2 of them were so wonderful that I have to include them in my top 10(ish). The Octopus 33 is a "simple" sliding piece disassembly puzzle. Often this type of design can be either infuriating or simple to solve but the Octopus 33 was amazing in that it had a sequence of discoveries, one of which was stunningly unexpected, Finally the Den cube is an interlocking puzzle with 3 fairly simple identical pieces locked together in a frame. The aim to remove them was very like untying a knot without properly being able to see the shape. It was lovely and even a fun reassembly challenge which was unexpected. You can always rely on Osanori (and Pelikan) to produce something wonderful every year!

7) Christoph Does It Every Year

Key Trap

Mini Lock 2

Chamburr

Cyburr

I have said on this blog many many times over the years that Christoph Lohe designs fun puzzles! There is something about what he creates - they always have something interesting and challenging about them without being impossibly tough and a test of patience through trial and error. His designs, beautifully made this year by Pelikan (complete with a collaboration with the master of the TIC, Andrew Crowell) gave me such a lot of pleasure this year that I could not resist including them in this hall of fame for 2021.

6) Packing With Alexander

Colliding Galaxies made by Pelikan

Magneteam made by Eric Fuller

Pillar made by Brain Menold

Pepper Castor made by Pelikan

OMG! Where do I begin? Alexander Magyarics had an incredible year! He collaborated with both Pelikan, Brian Menold and Eric Fuller to produce some of the most incredible packing puzzles. He has taken a leaf out of Osanori Yamamoto's book and taken simple finishing shapes (mostly cubes) and asked us to place them inside a box with very limited entry holes. They look easy and yet are anything but a simple solve. The best of them require a wonderful logical set of thoughts to solve them and definitely NOT random poking and prodding to get them arranged. The three cube based puzzles that I picked above are not necessarily the only fabulous designs - I could easily add a few more. The workmanship from those 3 fabulous crafthouses are absolutely stunning. Then, much to my amazement, Alexander branched out into non-rectilinear puzzles and Jakub and Jaroslav had the courage to attempt to mass produce them - what an amazing feat! Pepper castor wasn't the only one but was my favourite. I cannot wait to see what they do in 2022.

5) Locking Me Out For Ages

Mind the Gap

Loki

Within a few weeks of each other I received some beautifully modified brass padlocks. Mind the gap from Andrew Coles should be released to the general puzzling public soon and I can heartily recommend it - the use of a new shape of lock and some substantial alteration makes for a nic Aha! sequence. It is not terribly tough but the logic and implementation is wonderful. Loki by Boaz Feldman stumped me for several weeks. In the end, Goetz sent me a sort of hint that was not really a hint and it made me look at my puzzle a lot closer before noticing something wonderfully hidden. After that, my sequence of discovery was fun and led to finally opening the damn lock! Now I cannot reassemble the bloody thing so I think more thought is still required. Both are wonderful!

4) Monkeying About With Ali and Steve

Can you tell the difference?

When Steve and Ali get there evil minds together, fabulous fun things happen. I cannot believe that they managed to design and mass produce 2 ,ore in their wonderful Brass Monkey series. Both of these look identical but have completely different mechanisms. BM4 (left) left me gasping out loud that I couldn't believe "that they had done that" - the mechanism is one that takes many of us MPPers back to fun times. Then, out of the blue, BM5 arrived and left me gasping out loud that I couldn't believe that "I had do do that". Stunning mechanisms for both - not hard but great fun and absolutely beautifully made as always. It was very tough to move this to position 4.

I also had to throw in one of the TwoBrassMonkeys' plastic productions. The polar burr designed by Derek Bosch was my 10th in the series of helical burr puzzles and it was my favourite so far. This was designed to have the highest number of moves yet in one of these and despite this, I found it a challenging but still fun puzzle to solve. If you get a chance to buy just one of these then this is the one that I would recommend.

3) Sequential Discovery Cubed Box by Junichi Yananose

Definitely not just an interlocking cube!

This incredible fourth puzzle in Juno's sequential discovery burr series (first here, second here and third here) is a tour de force of unexpected movements and tools. The sequence has plenty of Aha! moments as well as at least one "what the hell have I done?" moment before you realise that all is Ok. It has a couple of difficult to fathom moves (one of which was so difficult that I missed it and had to be told by the genius that is Derek that I needed to look again - once I found the special sequence, I was truly blown away by Juno's brilliance. I cannot imagine where he will go next.

What a series!

Whilst I am blabbing about Juno, I have to mention the latest two additions to the Grooved 6 piece board burr set. Numbers 5 and 6 were released towards the end of 2021 and they took the complexity and fun up to a whole new level! They were simply awesome and they make for a fabulous collection (hence the group photo).

2) Stickman PuzzleBox number 35 - the One Hand PuzzleBox

She's ready to blow! Should I pull the grenade pin?

Who can resist a Stickman? I would buy one if offered but as a gift, this was an amazing show of generosity. Asher Simon designed it as a combination box and packing puzzle which took me a whole year to solve. There is an incredible Aha! moment in the solution which I would like to believe was the reason I took so long but we all know that I am terrible at packing puzzles. An astonishing design by Asher that has been beautifully made by Robert. It will take pride of place in my collection.

1) Abraham's Well by Brian Young

A work of art!

Brian Young always designs the most incredible sequential discovery puzzles and Abraham's Well was his only production this year. It is an amazing feat of creation (that took 3 years to complete) with pieces made from wood and metal, all hand made by Brian. I am not quite finished yet but what I have done so far has blown me away! I expect to finish this on New Year's day and am therefore going to bend my rules and include it in this year's top ten (they are my rules so I will do what I want with them!) The sheer quality of workmanship that has gone into them is nothing short of astonishing. Brian decided to beat the puzzle flippers (who he utterly hates) by making sure that supply was definitely not going to be a problem. I love this! Here's hoping that New Year's day brings me success.

Do you agree with my top 10? If you have any different thoughts then please comment below or even use my Contact page to tell me how wrong I am. I look forward to your thoughts.

Happy New Year to you all!

I really hope that you all keep safe and stay well despite the chaos that is unfolding around us. I look forward to entertaining and maybe helping many of you in 2022.

Solved it and Can’t Repeat it

Grooved 6 piece board burr #6

I’m visiting the outlaws in Bonnie Scotland this weekend and have tried my hardest to find a way to produce a little nonsense for you to read. It will be short and sweet because using Google's Blogger platform on a 7 year old iPad Air 2 is a bit hit and miss (mostly miss). 

This is (so far) the last in Juno's grooved board burr series and is, by far the toughest. It is gorgeous having been made from their original home made plywood. Satin Sycamore in the outer layer and the yellowish timber used for the inner layer is PNG Rosewood. It is just as tactile as all the others and demands to be played with.

The grooves in this one are in the outside of long lengths which is different to the last few. There are initially only a few possible moves and confidence grew quite quickly. I really seemed to be making progress as the puzzle stretched out enormously. Despite this, when it looks like something will come out being really precariously held in place, the blasted thing remained very well held together by the small dowels in the grooves - nothing else was holding it:

This looks so unstable but it’s very well held

Juno said about it:

"This little beast requires a maximum of 35 moves among the Grooved 6 Board Burr series to remove the first piece from the assembled shape. During the solving process, you may feel that the pieces are no longer interlocking together, but none of the pieces will come apart in a simple way. A few pieces tend to partially rotate and become very unstable especially around 14 moves from the assembled shape but there seems to be no shortcut solution for the first piece using rotational movements. It is somehow like playing with cast puzzles."

He certainly wasn’t kidding when he called it a "little beast"! It’s a monster! I spent nearly 2 weeks going round and round in circles. I got completely familiar with every single possible move in the first 20-25 moves. Nothing would induce it to go any further. I looked for hidden pathways but couldn’t for the life of me find anything new - it had been quite fun doing the initial exploration and gradually finding the pathway. Somehow the crucial step was obscured for me and I started playing with the Bubinburr that I had also received (got nowhere with that one either!)

At some point I must have inadvertently taken a hidden pathway and not realised it. I do suspect that I should not multi-task whilst puzzling. My pea brain barely manages to breathe and puzzle let alone watch TV, talk to Mrs S and puzzle all whilst breathing! Having found myself somewhere new, I tried to return and couldn’t. Oh well, let’s see where it takes me.

I have absolutely no idea how this happened!

Whilst it was really quite exciting to achieve this, it was a little disappointing to not understand it. But I was going to have fun with Burrtools. The model I finally produced (using quite a large grid) wouldn’t work so I asked for advice from the BT-meister, Derek, and he explained what to do (Juno also sent a copy of his file). The beast was reassembled and I tried again…

Nope! Nope! Hell nope! It’s not going to happen. Having solved it once by accident, I cannot do it again. I will keep trying but I cannot seem to find that hidden step. If you like Burrs, especially board burrs and are happy with grooved versions then this one is absolutely fabulous. It is still in stock here. You might find a few other beauties whilst you’re there…it would be a shame to just buy a single puzzle, wouldn’t it.

In the meantime I have another few beauties to work on. There will be a new bunch of releases from Pelikan very soon. Driving back from Edinburgh to Sheffield today in what looks like terrible weather. Hopefully no mishaps. Gulp! 

Mrs S has Really Good Taste

and Kelly Makes A Fool Out of Me!

Mrs S bought me a wonderful birthday present

A few weeks ago I showed off the lovely gift that was given to me by the present wife - she's doing OK for a first wife after over 27 years! I can't afford a divorce and the patio is nicely done so I cannot put her under there - I guess that whilst she continues to put up with my $hit then she'll be a keeper. I was delighted to get the next 2 in Juno's grooved 6 piece board burr series - #5 (right) and #6 (left) as well as a new one, Bubinburr, in the centre.

Stunning series

I have to say that as a set, they are simply gorgeous. Plus, as a series of puzzles they are also a brilliant and fun challenge. I am not a particular fan of board burrs in general (they tend to be very prone to rotational shortcuts) and tend to only be interested if there is something else really special about them. The grooved board burr series definitely have that something special...not only are they made from Juno's own beautiful home made plywood but the addition of the dowels and grooves turn these into a real challenge. At times during the solutions these really look like they will become very unstable and cheating rotations may become possible but the clever designs prevent this from occurring and we get a fabulous tough but not impossible challenge. My reviews of the others are here: #1, #2, #3 and #4 - every single one has been a special challenge in it's own right and I was only too pleased to see that Juno has continued the series. Don't just take my word for it - Mike at Puzzlepusher has been working on these recently and seems to also have loved them. The recent 2 are still in stock at Pluredro.com for the moment. 

The puzzle is made out of their original plywood. American Rock Maple is used for the outer layer and the darker timber used for the inner layer is Amora. The grain on the Maple is understated but still lovely and the contrast between the two wood colours is lovely. These are nice chunky puzzles, very satisfying to hold and play with (even if this means storing them is harder) - they are 8.2cm in each dimension (apart from time).

According to Juno and Yukari, "the fifth version of the series has a configuration very similar to the first version. Also, the number of moves needed to disassemble the first piece is the same as #1, 22 but #5 has a tricky feature. That was the reason why Juno thought he should produce this version."

I have to agree - I cannot remember the details of solving #1 but this new version led me in the wrong direction for quite a while.

"The grooves are set to have a symmetrical orientation when assembled to give unification, but not to spoil the unique solution. A few grooves are added or extended more than necessary. Thus, not all the grooves are used during the solving process." This definitely was part of my struggle during the solution process - the temptation during all the moving about of the pieces is that when they slide within a groove to always slide to the end of a groove because the thinking is that why would he make the groove longer than it needs to be? To answer that...he would make it longer because it either a) makes a fool out of me or b) looks nicer/symmetrical.

In my usual fashion, I started work on this in the evenings in front of the TV with Mrs S (she got to see me playing with her birthday present and appreciated that for once I wasn't making a lot of noise whilst she wanted to watch television). Unfortunately these puzzles really need decent concentration and I struggle to uni-task let alone multi-task! I got nowhere the first evening. I can't really remember but I must have done the same sequence of moves 20 or 30 times without realising it. The 10pm news was full of doom, gloom and death and I used that as an opportunity to actually concentrate on the puzzle. I finally found a new configuration that I had not expected - it was a little side branch off the path that I had taken several times. I stopped there and back-tracked to the beginning ready for trying again the next day.

The following evening I couldn't find the new move again and went around and around in circles for a while before finding it again almost by accident. From here, I needed to find the next move(s) and was delighted and very surprised to see something totally unexpected happen and the first piece came out in my hand. Brilliant and very unusual release method. I spent a few minutes admiring that and decided to put it back and head back to the beginning...except I couldn't find the pathway. Aaargh, not again! Mrs S was less amused when I started to swear like a navvy - it took me another 20 minutes or so to reset the puzzle. Phew! Time to continue having learned that reset sequence. I removed the piece again and expected that the next pieces would be easily removable...they weren't! Even with a piece missing, this board burr remains pretty stable and there is quite a decent pathway to remove the next 2 pieces. This design is absolutely superb! Finally, after 3 evenings I have managed to take it apart:

Well, that took me an unexpectedly long time!

As you can see, the pieces are beautifully constructed. Initially, I was able to reassemble and disassemble this puzzle several times from memory. Today, however, in disassembling it for the blog photos, I discovered that I could barely remember the sequence and having dismantled it with a struggle and taken my photo, there is absolutely no way that it will be going back together again without help. Burrtools will be coming to my aid - luckily the making of the BT files is all part of the fun for me - no burr is complete until I have modeled it. 

I am looking forward to solving #6 but this is proving (blush) a little, ahem...awkward! The bloody thing won't come apart for a simpleton like me! I'll keep you all posted. Go buy these, you won't be disappointed.

---

Kel's Spend me not box

One Handed Box remains unsolved

My friend Kelly Snache makes beautiful boxes. At least one of these boxes has scared the bejeezus out of me when I solved it at an MPP a few years ago. I don't own many of his puzzles because, as you all know, I don't collect boxes. I do own a few because they either have something extra to them, or they are Stickman boxes (I still have the latest one designed by Asher Simon sitting right next to me in pieces on my desk after I pulled the pin from the grenade...) or they are simply beautiful.

Kel showed off his latest production run on Facebook and it looked gorgeous to me - I couldn't resist the Zebrano,Wenge and Purpleheart combination and also there is a butterfly inside. It was the butterfly shooting out of the box at the MPP that scared me. The lovely little box has been sitting next to me in the evenings for a few weeks and I have been completely unable to find anything at all to move and open it. Then earlier this week, I noticed something and and wondered how it could be used. I knew that it had to be significant but I got no further until I had a little think© and noticed something in the interior. With a smile I then quickly opened the box (it only took me 3 weeks) and took my photo today.

Pretty isn't it?

Having taken my photo, I suddenly realised that Kel has had the last laugh...I closed it up for the photo with the butterfly outside and now cannot open it again to put the butterfly back! Doh!!! Now I really need to think© and now you can see why I shouldn't collect boxes! Thank you mate - it's a delight.