I do apologise for missing a week! I am incredibly proud of the fact that I have posted something here every week for many years with only my mother's death and now my own frailty preventing me keeping a perfect record! Let me explain a little...
There had been a rather large outbreak of Covid-19 on one of the wards in the hospital that I get to visit pretty frequently. Quite a lot of staff and patients who have visited that ward have unfortunately been struck down. I was unaware that they had a problem there and visited to assess patients for surgery as I always do. The aortic aneurysm repair went well and I had no inkling that there was a problem at all until 4 days after visiting the ward. Whilst working one Saturday doing an orthopaedic trauma list, I developed a headache (literally that was it - just a headache!) I didn't think much of it - I was not aware that I had been in contact with anyone infected and I had no fever, no cough, none of the "cardinal" symptoms! The headache got progressively worse and at the end of the day, I was glad to get out of the PPE (7 hours in an FFP3 mask is VERY unpleasant with a stonking headache!) On the Sunday the virus hit me...hard! I had a high fever, muscle aches, feeling very unwell and just a slight cough. Oh damn - here we go! I spent most of the day in bed and arranged for a Covid test the following day. The drive to the testing area at work was unpleasant with a high fever. I was absolutely not going to risk having a false negative test! The false negative rate is 40% partially due to the fact that taking the swabs properly needs a really good swipe and is very unpleasant (I suspect that most people who do that to themselves don't do it properly. Swabs taken, I had to wait 5 minutes before my eyes would stop watering enough to be able to drive away! At 7pm the virologist called to tell me the result - Mrs S was convinced already because, of course, I had managed to infect her already and she was feeling really rotten! She's too weak just now for a Whack! Ouch! but I am sure it won't be long! In my wake, over the next 24 hours, a whole bunch of people were sent home to self-isolate and I appeared to have become the Typhoid Mary of Sheffield - they're calling me "Covid-Kev"!!! In my defence, I had none of the suspicious symptoms until 2 days into the illness. As far as I know, no-one has caught it from me.
This virus is horrific! For many there are no symptoms but for others it kills and you do not know which way it will go until it reveals its' path to you. I had already been a little worried, due to pre-existing health issues, that I might fare badly and was really very worried that I might have killed Mrs S! For me, I have never been so ill in my life! The fever lasted another 2 days and the myalgia with it. Cough has been a relatively mild symptom but the fatigue has been appalling! Every small thing has required me to lie down afterwards. I spent 9 hours or so writing the on-call rotas on Thursday (if I was forced to be at home, I figured that I might as well do some office work) and the following day I felt like I had been run over by a truck. A colleague summed up my stupidity:
"Thanks for summoning the energy to do a rota whilst infected with a life-threatening viral illness"
That sort of puts my stupidity at the forefront! I should have realised how sick I was when I just left a fabulous package of new toys from Mine unopened in my porch! A puzzle parcel remaining unopened for 6 days is an indicator of just how severe this illness can be!
Please continue with the social distancing, wear a mask when you have to be close to people outside your immediate family bubble and, for goodness sake, stay away from Trump rallies!!! Nothing clever will be said there and you may well catch something lethal!
Now, before I got ill I had been playing with one of the wonderful spherical puzzles from Leslie Le's VeryPuzzle. I started with the Behemoth that is the Rhombic Tuttminx - I own an ordinary Tuttminx and have never had the courage to scramble it. Like the original, the Rhombic Tuttminx consists of pentagonal and hexagonal faces but they differ in that the hexagonal ones are not able to rotate through 60º angles, they are limited to 180º turns. I figured that this should make the puzzle a little simpler to solve.
It is an absolute beast at 14.5cm diameter (5.7in) and weighing in at 0.37Kg/082lb. I paid a few dollars for the stickering to be done for me and I have to admit that was worth every penny - it looks like an absolute nightmare to sticker. When I showed it off at work, it got plenty of admiration for being a very attractive puzzle. Derek, told me that it wasn't that tough to solve but he's a genius and I was really not sure that I would be able to solve it. It finally took me about 2 weeks of carrying it around with me before I got the courage to scramble it:
Just as gorgeous scrambled
It took me about 2 hours to achieve an adequate scramble and move the pieces as far away from their origin as possible. Then where to start? On Facebook someone had suggested that a Megaminx (standard dodecahedron) approach would probably suffice and I tentatively agreed with them. Hence, I started with a pentagonal centre which would leave me as another pentagon as my final face to solve. The movement is stunningly smooth (considering there are 302 visible moving parts) and the initial solve process is nothing more than intuition. The texture on some of the stickers adds a little to the complexity but not too much and the recreation of the solved conformation progresses in a very pleasant and fun manner. I almost found it soothing!
Having reached the equator, I was a little worried that the level of difficulty would escalate but nope...it just carried on as a fully intuitive solve. I really enjoyed it despite the sheer size of the process. Finally, I was left with the last pentagon and surrounding hexagons. Far less movement was now possible and I realised that it was very similar to a Megaminx except for the 180º limitation. This actually made the puzzle rather similar to a 3x3x2 cuboid. Once I had realised this then solving the corners around the pentagonal centre proved to be remarkably straight-forward until I was left with this:
Noooooo!
Just 2 pieces were interchanged! What on earth? I spent an unfruitful hour or so trying out various 3-cycles to unravel it before realising that this scenario is physically impossible! On a puzzle that is "odd order", a 2 piece swap or parity cannot occur without there being an error elsewhere or without someone having peeled stickers off.
I knew that no-one had spent enough time with it to peel any stickers off behind my back so I had to spend a frustrating time hunting for my mistake. Many of the colours are pretty similar and in the end I had to go out into the garden to get really good sunlight and discovered the error of my ways:
So similar - it took me 2 days to find it!
One face has lovely shiny sparkly stickers which unfortunately look almost indistinguishable from each other except in very bright light. Having discovered this, a bunch of set up moves and 3 cycles were quickly arranged and it was solved!
This puzzle is stunning! It is gorgeous to look at, beautifully made and a fun solve which is 95% intuition. If you have any kids who are just getting into twisty puzzles and they may want something that looks fearsome but still within their capability then this is just the ticket! This was the last puzzle I played with before I got sick and I am looking forward to playing with it again when my attention span improves. I also have a few new toys from Mine to play with as well.
Stay safe everyone - do not take any risks! It just isn't worth it! If you work in a hospital then you have no real choice but if you don't have to go and mingle with people then don't do it!
I’m sorry to say that this will be the first Sunday in several years that I’ve missed. Unfortunately, I’ve either got a very bad summer cold or I’ve caught Covid-19 at work. Basically, I’m more or less bed bound and feeling like death warmed up. Will be tested tomorrow and hopefully negative but definitely not up to blogging today. I do apologise! Hopefully normal service will be resumed next weekend.
Yet again in my hour of need, I receive an email from the Mike Desilets, the official PuzzleMad foreign correspondent, offering help with a truly wonderful article. I have been working on a particularly fun and beautiful puzzle for a couple of weeks now but have gotten to a point where I’m rather stuck. I’m currently waiting for inspiration to strike me but with the dirty looks that Mrs S is giving me, it may be her who strikes me instead! I need to stop swearing at puzzles whilst she is watching TV. Without delay I’ll hand you over to Mike for a fascinating romp through a wide range of challenges.
Aloha Kākou Puzzlers,
Today’s Foreign Office installment will be a puzzle pot-pourri. I have a few tightly-focused articles in the works, but none of them seem anxious to finish themselves. Sometimes this stuff becomes actual work and motivation drops off a cliff accordingly (Ed - I know that feeling!). So, in the interest of procrastination, I decided to adopt a more classical blog approach and simply take pictures of stuff I have worked on recently and opine. Less depth, more variety.
We begin where we left off with Hip-flask. In the midst of writing the Hip-flask post, I ordered a copy of Felix’s Titan (in the UK get it here). It was bound to happen. The puzzle is just as advertised: two brass hemi-spheres, inexplicably joined. It is very beautiful, as only a metal sphere can be. This would be a worthwhile purchase even if it were not a puzzle. Having now seen the quality of the interior machining, I really wonder how this can be made so inexpensively, and in the UK no less.
Titan, by Felix Ure.
A nice even patina is developing; no polish necessary.
It didn’t take long to realize that my first impressions of the puzzle, based on various online sources, was correct. This puzzle falls squarely into the mystery-object category. There is an internal mechanism holding the pieces together and something is clearly rolling around inside. The hemispheres rotate past one another freely, until they do not. They also separate slightly, but nothing internal is visible. I tried the standard solutions, followed by non-standard guesses, followed ultimately and inevitably by random shaking, twisting, spinning, and pulling (Ed - now that is my kind of solution method!). After a solid week and a half of this, an hour or two each night in front of the television, I achieved separation. The early solvers were right, it’s a great feeling when it comes apart. By the time it happens, you have basically lost all hope. It’s really quite a pleasant shock. Of course, you shouldn’t pat yourself on the back too much. This is an exercise in patience, not cleverness. For myself personally, if not for the TV multi-tasking, I’m not sure I would have stuck it out. I’m not getting any younger, after all, and I can test my patience in other, more productive ways. That said, I am THRILLED to have opened Titan. The internals are the very definition of beauty. The mechanism is simple, principled, and obviously very effective.
Below is an image of the internals, if you are interested. It does not show everything, and certainly not the critical components. I doubt VERY much that this will help you solve Titan, but out of an exceedance of caution Kevin will put it behind a spoiler button:
Ed - to be honest I’m not sure this really helps!
B-Lock II - Brass body and steel shackle
Packaged in a beautiful embroidered bag
Nice touch Boaz!
Moving right along, I also had a chance to play with Boaz Feldman’s B-Lock II this week (Ed - I reviewed it in March). This had been on my shopping list for a while, but I always found some reason or other to push it aside in favor of other purchases. I enjoyed B-Lock I (Ed - reviewed here), but hadn’t heard or read much about the new release. Now that I have it, I regret putting it off, and you should not hesitate the way I did (Ed - both are often available direct from Boaz on his web store). This is a really fun puzzle lock and I would even go so far as to say that it is underrated, or at any rate under-appreciated. With the likes of Rainier and Shane producing great stuff, and the legacy of Dan Feldman himself hanging over the sub-field, you can see why this might occur. But B-Lock II doesn’t have any pretensions at that level, and I think Boaz would be the first to admit that. What B-Lock II does have is a high-quality build and a very original and clever mechanism (to me at least, admittedly not a lock expert). I can tell you, without fear, that it has two components, and these must synchronize before the lock will open. One is a common lock ‘gimmick’ and the other is something new (to me).
B-Lock II is not particularly complex, just very crafty and efficient, especially given the limited material provided by an off-the-shelf padlock. After you initially open it, you will not know exactly why unless you study the internals. If you immediately close and reset, it could be a while before you get it open again. For me this puzzle provided a solid half hour of entertainment, which is precisely what I want from a lock in this range. In fact, I think we could do with more locks of this type: affordable, available, fun, and very well crafted. We often get the last two, but not always the first two. Overall, I think it’s a real winner from Boaz and I heartily recommend it. It is worth remembering that Danlock was not invented overnight (Ed - available here and here). With what we have seen from Boaz thus far, I can’t help but think that he is building toward something.
An unlocked lock.
Ok, enough of that. I can only take so much cutting-edge puzzlery (Ed - is that a word?). Time to retreat into the annals of history. Out of respect for my gentle editor, and in light of the possibility that he can write prescriptions (I can indeed!), and would do so for me if I please him sufficiently (not across the I won’t), the remainder of the post shall be not only historical, but also decidedly Anglo-centric.
Bike parts
So let’s look next at a fun little puzzle called “BILD-A-BIKE,” which I gather from the Slocum Collection website originated in the mid-1950s. I imagine it was produced right through the 1960s as well, but I really don’t know and there is not much information available online. BILD-A-BIKE was produced and sold by Chad Valley, a company Kevin is no doubt familiar with (Ed - never heard of it! Have you heard of every small company in the US?). Chad Valley were, at least in the previous mid-century period, a premier English toy company (Ed - I wasn’t born then!). They have a fascinating history which you can find at the Woolworths museum webpage here.
Chad Valley was a toy company, first and foremost, but most every toy company had mechanical puzzles in their product lines at that time. In addition to BILD-A-BIKE, Chad Valley also produced a couple of boxed sets of entanglements, all of the standard sort. They produced a broad range of jigsaw puzzles as well. Otherwise the line was 99% toys and games. Despite a long and honourable history, Chad Valley basically ceased to exist in any meaningful way following their 1978 purchase by Palitoy. The product line was chopped up and sold off and independent production ceased. Subsequent owner Woolworths attempted to revive and capitalise on the Chad Valley name in the late 1980s as part of its ill-fated modernisation programme. During this effort, Chad Valley was reoriented as the face of a line of toys directed to the very young. The brand remains that way today under new owner Argos, virtually unrecognisable from its historical roots.
True enough, although the playing will flake and chip with normal use, a stainless version is needed
For the mechanical puzzle aficionado, BILD-A-BIKE is probably the most interesting Chad Valley product. It is a put-together puzzle in which you quite literally build a bike (or perhaps I should say bild? Check this). The pieces are nickel-plated iron, or maybe steel, I’m not sure. The pieces are “rustless,” as the packaging proclaims, but only to the extent that the nickel plating remains intact. You will probably have to look hard to find a pristine set. If you do find one, and want to keep it that way, then do not BILD-YOUR-BIKE!
As for solving, it is not any great challenge. The wheel/handlebar and wheel/seat connections are a little tricky. It is definitely a challenge to keep the front part assembled as you work on the back, and vice-versa. Dexterity is definitely required. Light force is also required, since the assembled bike is largely held together by tension.
Although obviously targeted at a younger demographic, BILD-A-BIKE is an enjoyable little puzzle for all ages. There is no Ah-ha! element to speak of, but it is very satisfying when the pieces come together and take the shape of a bike. I recommend this puzzle as a cool-down after solving Titan. In the final analysis, BILD-A-BIKE is a charming footnote in English mechanical puzzle history. I humbly suggest that my editor and patron MUST purchase one and also that he MUST give it a prominent place on his shelves. I await photographic proof. (Ed - I’ll see if I can find one)
BILT
Ok, time for one more, staying on the English theme. How about a shunting puzzle? I did a post a while back on these. Kind of a rare class, but they always fascinate me. When I came across a copy of Chunnel Trouble? a while back, I snapped it up without a second thought. Chunnel Trouble? (that question mark is going to get tiresome) was made by distinguished, though tragically inactive, English puzzle producer and seller Pentangle. Chunnel Trouble? is a fantastic revival of a classic shunting problem, probably THE classic shunting problem. It also sports a contemporary and quite ingenious design, packaging, and marketing approach. It is, in effect, a nineteenth century puzzle in new clothing.
Chunnel Trouble? Not really.
Although there is plenty of shunting (or switching) involved with actual Channel Tunnel operations, it likely bears little resemblance to the Chunnel Trouble? layout. Regardless, Chunnel Trouble? is a delightful design. According to the box, the trains can pass each other in 33 moves. The siding looks like it will hold only two cars, if that. This puzzle can alternatively be solved using slips of paper, or whatever objects you prefer (except marbles); you don’t necessarily need to own the actual puzzle. Most shunting puzzles are that way. The physical version looks very well made, possibly in maple, and most definitely in England.
Why do I seem a little cagey in my description? Well, that’s because I have not actually played with, or even touched, this puzzle. It’s a rare occurrence. I cannot play with this puzzle for the simple reason that it is in its original packaging, sealed, untouched, and unspoilt. The Channel Tunnel was constructed between 1988 and 1994. I don’t know the actual date for this puzzle, but it should fall within that range, or close to. Kevin or the MPP chaps will doubtless enlighten me. I do know that it is currently 2020. So given the time gap, whatever it may precisely be, I clearly can never break the seal on this puzzle. I could not bring myself to do it when I first bought it, and after anguished consideration, I’ve decided that I never will. Pristine examples are a sacred trust. Also, given the fact that the puzzle can be ‘played’ any number of other ways, there is really no call to grub it up like a complete barbarian. Instead, I’ll just squirrel this copy away until it is the only unopened Chunnel Trouble? left in the world, the fundamental conceit of the vintage collector.
Instructions to help get you out of Chunnel Trouble.
This English puzzle jig is fun, and I definitely want to leave my editor brimming with tears of nostalgia (Ed - that would only happen if I could remember any of these toys). Here then, is one more. It slots in somewhere between the last two on the temporal plane. It is called Perfect Circle, part of the Waddingtons House of Games Mindbender series from the very late 1960s and early 1970s. There are at least six other puzzles in the series. Perfect Circle was apparently developed by House of Games, a Canadian company, and then licensed and manufactured by storied English game developer and producer John Waddington LTD. “House of Games” was traditionally part of the Waddington moniker, and it seems to have come and gone periodically over the course of the previous century. How it ended up in Canada I’m not sure. In any case, after a long history of service to the game-playing English public, Waddingtons was sold to Hasbro in 1994. I assume it is now no more than a residual-value brand name like Chad Valley. Check out this fun article for a trip down memory lane. If you want to learn about Waddingtons contribution to the war effort, definitely check this out. That must have been quite an A-Ha! moment for the boys.
Perfect Circle.
A low cost, high value puzzle from Waddingtons.
Back to the puzzle. Perfect Circle requires you to make a perfect circle (is there another kind?) out of 16 variously-cut pieces of colored cardboard. There are four shapes and three colors, as the instructions indicate. This is not the whole story though. There are actually eight distinct pieces, because two of each of the four shapes is a mirror reflection of the other two. They certainly look the same, but they are not interchangeable. This is tremendously important, and starkly apparent, once you try to comply with the matching rule on your as-yet imperfect circle. The rule that makes this puzzle more than a simple geometric assembly is that no two colors may touch side-on-side.
The rule of engagement.
Initially, upon dumping the pieces out, it seems like Perfect Circle might be a hair puller. Soon, though, you realise the importance of symmetry and things begin to accelerate. You will also quickly differentiate the outer pieces with curvature from the inner pieces without. It all starts to come together as you mix and match pieces.
Although finding the solution on first assembly is possible, know that at least two distinct circles can be formed which will never meet the matching rule. I had to work through both of these before I discovered the correct assembly, and actually began to think my puzzle was broken at one point. I had become obsessed with certain circle designs that seemed so beautiful they simply had to be correct. The puzzle fooled me, to its great credit. Yet again I had willfully disremembered the Tungsten Rule of solving: once you establish the theoretical impossibility of a given solution, you MUST move on (Ed - where did that come from?). Anyhow, it was a really fun solve and I highly recommend this modest little puzzle.
Is the circle perfectable?
Kevin, capstone of my arch (Ed - I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before!), I think you can find Perfect Circle for well under a tenner at any given boot fair (Ed - not in this age of social distancing it’s not!!!). Take poor Mrs S out of the house for once in your miserable life- make an afternoon of it. Your ulterior motive need never be known. It will be just between you, me, and 100,000 random blog readers. Whack! Ouch! Ed - Mrs S will not ever go to a boot fair!! She only shops in the finest of retail establishments! I’ll need to look on eBay.
That’s all for today folks. Hopefully this post was a good change from the usual foreign office material. It was definitely refreshing for me. Ok boss, over to you for the wrap-up...
Wow! What an odyssey! I enjoyed that a lot, thank you, my friend, for a fantastic romp through puzzles old and new, cheap and rather expensive, but all looking quite fun! I am really so grateful to you for taking the time to write for me and the readers and for providing me with some entertainment. I always look forward to what you produce - it’s always something I’d never have found myself and it makes me think.
A short one today - I have been on-call this week and am working again on Sunday (whilst this post goes live) and have had to prepare something in advance without much time for puzzling. Today I am focussing on a pretty metal puzzle from PuzzleMaster. A version of this should be in every puzzler's collection.
I reviewed
the latest bespoke metal puzzle,
Chiasma, from Yavuz Demirhan and PuzzleMaster a couple of weeks ago and was
delighted with the quality of the construction and how it really added to the
solution of the puzzle. In the same package, I also received a few more from
the
PuzzleMaster metal series and have had a little time to play with two of those. The
Slideways
puzzle is a classic - it's a 3 piece burr-shape that's not actually a burr,
it's a lovely coordinate motion puzzle. I have never played with this puzzle
in this shape before despite it having been around for quite a while. My
versions are rather lovely shape transformations from Pelikan, the
Slideways cube
and two variants of the Slideways ball:
Cube
Ball
Double Slideways Ball
I know that Eric Fuller made really nice
versions
of the Slideways burr some time ago but I did not pick up either copy then so I
was delighted to try a metal version (I am not a complete wood snob!) This one
comes rather beautifully packaged to show it off and hold it in position:
Box
Beautifully held in place
As you can see, this is a nice cerise coloured anodised aluminium and is rated as a level 6 on PuzzleMaster's difficulty scale of 5 to 10 which I would agree with - it is pretty straightforward in terms of puzzling and mostly is an object of delight for fiddling with. The movement makes it a wonderful fidget toy.
It won't fall apart, the pieces need to be pulled just right and you quickly end up admiring 3 beautifully identical burr pieces:
3 identical sticks - notice the angled cuts
For the reassembly, it is a simple matter of working out the correct orientation of the 3 pieces with respect to each other and then holding them all just right to allow them to slide together in a really satisfying way. The positioning needs to be fairly accurate before they will slide but not requiring pinpoint accuracy. This does make this version quite a lot more forgiving than the various wooden versions which need very very fine positioning. I have been using this as a sort of worry bead/stress reliever at home for a week or so and so far have avoided a Whack! Ouch! from Mrs S for the clinking.
Is it worth buying? I definitely think so - it is a classic, a fun thing to play with and very nicely made. At $20CA, you cannot go wrong.
and I Wonder Whether Brian Had Made It Impossible!
Y Pack
This gorgeous puzzle is called Y Pack and it was made quite a while ago by my good friend Brian Menold and sent to me back in the BC era (that's "Before Coronavirus"). It has been sitting on my desk and my living room puzzling tray for a very long time taunting me. In fact it taunted me in 2 phases.
Designed by Haym Hirsh, whom I have only interacted with on Facebook, I have never actually tried one of his puzzles before and had been keen to remedy that situation. When Brian made such a gorgeous version, that sealed the fate of my bank balance yet again. My copy is stunningly made from a really deeply coloured and heavily grained Padauk with pieces made from Spalted Alder (this also adorns the corners of the box). It is a "simple" packing puzzle - place the 5 Y-shaped tetromino pieces inside the box. Only 5 identical pieces? How hard can it be? I expected to solve it in 15 minutes or so! Erm....WRONG!
Of course, I am generally rubbish at packing puzzles which won't have helped me but for some reason, this took me quite a lot of hours! I just couldn't seem to see the wood for the trees/puzzle pieces! Brian wrote this about it:
"While Haym Hirsh has become known to my customers as the designer of the inelegant series of puzzles, he has now busied himself coming up with a few different types of designs. This one, a rather difficult packing puzzle. I spent 3 weeks trying to solve this and finally had to give up in the interest of production time. Several rotations, (one which is particularly tricky) must be accomplished. But the restricted opening only allows pieces to go in one way! Hmmmmmm."
Having bought it and put it on my "to be solved" mountain (yes, there is quite a large backlog of puzzles I either haven't had time to work on yet or have been totally unable to solve - hence it's a mountain rather than a pile). I started work on it in February and conveniently forgot Brian's 3 weeks and giving up thing. I realised that this is actually only a four piece packing puzzle because the final piece just needs to be able to drop in place through the gap - the key is to make it so there is space left from that first four pieces of packing activity. Right! Easy! Arrange those 4 pieces with a nice Y-shaped gap at one corner.
I adore all the TICs by Andrew Crowell and the other incredible designers so was sure that this "TIC-in-a-box" was going to be a fun challenge once I had realised what it was. There are considerably less possibilities than I had originally thought and I searched for what is possible in the constraints of the small box - in fact I eventually (I think I was 2 weeks into puzzling at that stage) worked out there was only one placement of the 4 pieces inside that would work. Thank heavens that Brian had cut small circular holes in 2 of the faces to assist with manipulation of the pieces inside. There are several rotations possible if you manipulate everything into just the right position...it has to be millimeter perfect to get it to work.
Like Brian, I had a wonderful Aha! moment after about 3 weeks:
3 weeks this took me! OMG - I am exhausted!
I took some photos and put it down for a day. I have recently started storing many of my puzzles in the unsolved state so that I can have fun playing with them again in the future by reattempting them from the unassembled state. So I decided to take this one apart again for storage and also maybe to torture a few friends at work. The first piece gets tipped out quickly and then I "just" undo the rotational moves I had done on the way in. I had only done it the day before so shouldn't be a problem...WRONG! Again! I just never learn do I?
Brian had mentioned that there is a really tricky rotation and yep, he's absolutely correct. It is so tricky that I couldn't find it again. There are other rotations possible with relative ease which did confuse me a lot - it actually made me completely forget that it had been tricky to find in the forward direction. After 2 days, I had a bit of a panic - I was completely stuck! I could only get one piece out of the bloody box! Aaargh!
I was not going to be beaten easily...I was going to solve this thing! Sob! It took me another 3 weeks to dismantle it. There are indeed several rotations involved but one in particular is simply "perfect" - it is so well hidden in plain sight and needs to be manipulated with absolutely pinpoint accuracy for it to be possible. I very nearly tried force on several occasions but the thought of damaging one of Brian's incredible creations stopped me.
I think I may have to buy a few more of Haym's creations. I am aware that I have missed out on subsequent packing puzzles and I hope that Brian makes them again in the future. If you get the chance then don't hesitate - empty you wallet in Brian's direction - you cannot have too much good wood!
Thank you Brian and Haym for a wonderful frustrating 6 weeks! It did take my mind of the Coronavirus for a few hours at a time.
Yet again, this blog post nearly didn't happen because of the flakiness of my old computer - but luckily I have worked out that the Dropbox app is the cause of most of my woes - it is such a memory hog that it reduces everything to like wading through treacle. Once I had quit the app, everything returned to its normal level of slowness which is just barely tolerable rather than the totally intolerable level I had before. Phew! If anyone has any idea how to use Dropbox without the horrifically slow Mac app then please get in touch.
Back to my puzzling...
Up until a few years ago, I would regularly buy puzzles from my friends Alan and Leon Stein at PuzzleMaster but more recently I have been sidetracked by much more expensive and, one could say, I have fed my wood fetish (although many of the Pelikan puzzles can still be bought from them). They contacted me recently to ask if I would like to review a few of their more recent productions that they have commissioned in-house. I hesitated for a small microsecond and as you can imagine, jumped at the chance of having more beautiful stuff to try. I don't have a huge number of metal puzzles and am always keen to see what they can add.
Beautiful in wood
Their most recent release has been reviewed by a couple of the YouTube puzzlers and also by my friend Gabriel (one of the longest-running puzzle bloggers of all). I had to jump on the band-wagon as well but especially because this puzzle did ring a particular bell in my very feeble brain...I remembered that I had bought a copy of this from Jakub quite a few years ago and had completely failed to solve it. This gorgeous puzzle is a complex design by Yavuz Demirhan (who has designed and produced quite a few of my favourite puzzles and has reached my top 10 a few times). I recall vividly receiving the Chiasma in beautiful Walnut and trying lots and lots of very interesting movements but never managed to solve it and never reviewed it on the site. Having received another copy from PuzzleMaster, I really had to make an effort to solve this and write about it.
Chiasma is a board burr which consists of 4 identical boards interlocked into a rather attractive X shape. PuzzleMaster have commissioned it to be manufactured for them in Canada out of Aluminium and anodised in various colours. unlike their previous anodised puzzles, this one has been finished with a powdered texture which gives it a matt finish and makes it very nice to handle and, whilst less shiny, it is rather attractive. My copy is black and silver but it is also available in Black and Brown, Brown and Gold, Silver and Gold or a combination of all 4 colours. Either version will be lovely but the colouring will not help you solve it. It is pretty chunky too - it is 7.5 x 7.5 x 4.7cm and feels solid in your hands. The best part of this puzzle is that the individual boards are 9.5mm across and have very minimal beveling on them. The end result of this is that it seems to remain quite stable for a while until the pieces are well separated from each other - it does prevent inadvertent locking up by misalignment. Chiasma is nearly $100CAD but the quality is very high indeed.
This week I have had a little annual leave to give me a bit of relief from the catastrophe that is the NHS (and all other health services) just now and apart from having some gardening and some exercising to do, I could concentrate on spending some time with the present wife and also maybe solve a puzzle or two. I set to on Chiasma. Initially there are very few possible moves but after the first couple it suddenly opens out and there are a huge number of possibilities. My initial attempts, like those I tried back in 2013, involved mostly trying to keep all the pieces in symmetrical patterns in the hope that this was the secret of unlocking it gracefully.
At one point during my several days of attempts, I did discover a rotational shortcut which would allow a more rapid disassembly - if you have managed the proper disassembly then try and find this one as an extra challenge.
There is a rotation possible which allows a quicker solution
Unfortunately, Yavuz wasn't going to be nice to us by giving a puzzle with a lovely symmetrical logical solution! after a day or so of risking my life (Mrs S hates metallic clinking noises and this is quite noisy), I realised that I was going to have to abandon that approach and actually hunt for a release method by watching how the pieces move and aiming deliberately to get a piece released. The key feature (apart from the fact that they are all identical) is that the pieces have a single gap to allow them to lock and unlock together. The secret is to manipulate them in such a way as to allow the gap to line up on 2 pieces simultaneously. Sounds easy? Not for me it wasn't! The open shape allows you to see everything that is going on and, theoretically, make deliberate move decisions to advance to your goal. The disassembly level is 16.4.6 but it took me an awful lot more moves than that to find the sequence. The metal version was much easier to hold and manipulate stably than the wooden one.
On day 3 I had a breakthrough and suddenly I could see the final steps to line up the pieces and my first piece came out - Yay! I had 4 identical shaped pieces:
It is stunning despite being metal!
There was no way that I was going to get that reassembled from memory and I spent a nice happy half hour making a Burrtools file for it and then used that to disassemble my wooden version (I hope that you are impressed that I can find a single puzzle from 7 years ago?)
I had to make a second solution within Burrtools because the pieces can be assembled into 2 mirror images of each other and the wooden one was the other way around.
4 identical wooden pieces
I couldn't resist taking this photo comparing the 2 versions
If you did not manage to get a copy of the Pelikan version all those years ago then this is well worth picking up a copy of. It is a seriously tough challenge - I have to agree with PuzzleMaster's level 10 (Mind Boggling). Not really ideal for beginners but good for anyone with a bit of burr experience.
This blog post very nearly didn't happen - I lost a lot of hair trying to get this post up and I don't have an awful lot left to lose! My poor 2006 iMac is struggling...it sometimes takes a minute to type a single sentence. I am not sure what is happening but it seems to get sidetracked and goes off doing other things whilst I am trying to type a coherent sentence. This can mean that words and sometimes even letters get jumbled up during typing. Then the trials and tribulations of photo editing are particularly bad for my poor frazzled nerves! In the end, I managed to cobble something together and am going to need to think about alternative methods for the future. Now on to the topic today...
Still unsolved!
Late last year I got a heads up from Shane that there might be something coming up that I would definitely want to save up for. He is very good friends with Rainer Popp and seems to get advanced notice about upcoming releases in Rainer's Popplock range. Now, I have a few rules and firstly it says pay attention to Shane - he cultivates the appearance of being a poor puzzler and a "bear of very little brain" but I know him very well indeed now and there is very little that is mechanical or practical that he doesn't know or understand very quickly. As far as puzzles are concerned, if Shane says that it's good then I get my credit card out and ask questions later. My second rule is that I buy whatever Rainer produces - they are always amazingly well made and always a tremendous challenge. In fact the T10 remains on the shelf in front of me entirely unsolved! Shane said that the T12 would come out early this year and I put in a request with my usual puzzle purveyer/pusher and received assurance that one was mine if I wanted it.
It was duly released and then this bloody virus hit! I was due to pick mine up in person at the MPP in March and abruptly all travel and fun was cancelled. Thinking that it might not be long, we all waited and eventually we realised that the post was the only way. Luckily for me, the post was still working - I am aware that a few that were destined for the USA seem to have been trapped in limbo for quite a long time. I am sure that they will get there eventually but this is a VERY expensive puzzle to have apparently disappear.
When it arrived, Mrs S duly put it in quarantine in the porch with all the other post and I was forced to wait...impatiently! There is no arguing with a Scottish nurse...she has the genetics for violence and the training to make it really painful. I waited for 48 hours! My package eventually was opened and a rather heavy box was emptied in the kitchen. I put it down a little too hard on the kitchen granite and the bang nearly earned me a night sleeping in the garage! I quickly examined the work surface and breathed a sigh of relief - intact with no crack or dent! This lock is a rather solid lump of brass and steel - it's not quite as large and heavy as the T11 (2.5Kg) but not far off it - the T12 weighs in at a solid 2.05Kg (that's 4.52lb for you Yanks) and is really dense with dimensions of 80x45x99mm (3.15x1.77x3.9in). Whatever you do don't drop this - it will hurt either you, your table or your floor...badly!
Back view with Rainer's logo
Things were getting rather busy at work with many extra hours trying to buy ventilators and also write up new rotas as people were shunted off to work in ICU. I finally got some time to play in the evenings and first read the rules provided with the lock:
"No hitting, shaking, force or gravity needed
Do not use the key until you have found the key hole
No random movements like turning the key indefinitely or rattling
Do not use the key to push buttons - you scratch the lock! If your fingers are too think then you may use a match or similar as an aid"
As you can see from the photos, there is no obvious keyhole (a hint of where one should be) and a number of potential buttons - not all of them are actual buttons! Where to start? Push, pull or twist everything you can get your fingers on! Nope, no use! Go fetch a wooden chopstick for the buttons smaller than my fingertips...no help! Bugger!
I spent several evenings annoying Mrs S whilst swearing under my breath about Rainer's and Shane's parenthood. After nearly a week, something occurred to me and Aha! I found something very useful - only 4-5 hours of trying on the first step. Remember that I am not very good at locks and really not terribly bright. Having found the first step, there was a whole lot more investigation to be done and I quickly got lucky. The second step lead to a third and a fourth step...I was on a roll!
I thought back through some of the earlier Popplocks and something occurred to me that I might have been missing. I tried a few ways to achieve something new and failed again and again. Another thought occurred to me and that didn't work either. Maybe my copy was broken? It seemed unlikely that such a sturdy object would break in the post. As is my wont, I went back to doing the same thing many many times and suddenly something new happened! How the hell? Looking at what was in front of me, I realised that whilst I had been doing the same thing multiple times, the lock itself had changed configuration by accident and suddenly the correct configuration had been achieved to allow "new stuff". Literally and figuratively there are multiple layers to this puzzle! Now I could achieve my first few steps but also a few more. Progress at last - it is almost logical if you are a warped mad tricklock designer.
After 2 weeks I had reached a point where my initial surface look at the puzzle seemed to have led me. BUT still not there. The final steps were pretty obvious but didn't work for me until I found the correct directions for 4 movements. It took me 3 weeks of work and many more hours than Nigel but my Aha moment led to an open lock. The photo below has a very very minor spoiler so don't look if you want no help at all.
Solved it at last! Absolutely stunning puzzle.
Maybe time to try the T10 again?
The high cost was well worth it - Rainer has made something challenging again, beautiful again and fun again! I am already looking forward to the T13 - will it be unlucky for me?
Now I need to find a way blog more efficiently on a bloody old computer - sigh!
Keep safe everyone - if where you live, the lockdowns are being gently loosened then please be careful! Don't go crazy out there, don't go mixing with lots of other people. Keep protecting yourself and your family. This is a very nasty and unpredictable virus - just because you are young and healthy does not mean that you won't be hit badly - I have seen quite a few unpredictable deaths.
Errrm! I might have been a little stupid last week!
X-ray cube properly solved!
On Facebook, it had been asked by someone what our approach to solving puzzles was. There were several fantastic answers by puzzlers who are far better than me at actually solving these blasted toys and I had to admit that my approach was a little scatter-brained:
I think this is a good approach!
Before I start on today's puzzle review let me have a small catharsis and expose the poor state of my brain to you all! In my recent review of all the upcoming Pelikan puzzles, I had given the impression that I had solved and enjoyed Volker Latussek's X-ray cube - Enjoyed? Yes, solved? Blush...nope! Unfortunately, I have to own up to being really not terribly bright!! I had slid open the lid, poured out the contents without paying attention to the arrangement and then assumed that the challenge was to put all the odd shapes back inside and close the lid again. I thought that the name of the puzzle came from the X shape that was visible through the hole in the top and bottom of the box. Doh! Now, whilst I had found doing that a significant challenge (and it is certainly one that you all should try), this was definitely NOT the main aim of the puzzle. Both Volker and Jakub contacted me to inform me that I was not terribly bright! (my words, not theirs).
Now on to my regular reviewing! Which unfortunately reveals yet again that Allard's fascination with using the brain might actually be right! Damn! I hate saying that!
Logical Progression
Logical progression is a design by Rick Eason and was made by Eric Fuller. You may not know it but Rick is responsible for the design of two of the best disentanglement puzzles I've ever worked on - Tricky dick (aka Day Trip) - available here in Australia and here in Europe) and it's tough brother Return of Tricky Dick (aka City Trip) - also available from Tomas Linden here (at the moment they are not available from PuzzleMaster for those of you in the Americas). It had taken me a very long time to solve those two brilliant puzzles and, true to form, it required thought rather than random movements to solve them.
Initially, the Logical Progression was not particularly interesting for me because it wasn't as beautiful as most of Eric's usual creations and I didn't realise who the designer was when I first looked on the store. I thus missed out on the first batch after they sold out pretty quickly. Only later, enticed by the designer's name, did I spend some time reading the blurb on the product page. I had been much too dismissive on looks alone. I realised that this would almost certainly be a really fun challenge! Lesson no. 1 - always read the description as well as drool over the pretty pictures. Eric's description said this:
"Logical Progression is a very unique cube. With only one solution which must be accomplished with serial assembly, it seems at first look that this puzzle will be a trial and error nightmare. However, the puzzle is designed such that scrutiny of the pieces will reveal their positional constraints; therefore the puzzle can be solved by analysis rather than guesswork."
Having finally gotten around to reading this, I decided that I should get a copy and contacted Eric, I was pleased to hear that another batch was due to be released - phew! When it was released, I missed out on the fancy exotic wood but still managed to get a copy in Maple and Oak. When it arrived it was a rather odd-looking and very rickety 3-inch cube. It definitely is not one of my most beautiful acquisitions! I really hoped that it would be as good a challenge as claimed.
Having taken the photo above, I pulled at it a bit and a cluster of pieces slid off and then another few. After removal, some of them swivelled around on the dowels and lost their orientation. Boom! There was no way for me to recall how the bloody thing came apart. I lay out all the pieces for my customary photo:
Oh dear! This looks rather more complex than I had initially thought!
Then I bunched all the pieces together so I could sit down and try to remake my cube. At this point I was beginning to regret my purchase!
Having finally abandoned my usual random movement approach, I had to look at the puzzle and think about possible arrangements of the pieces. It consists of 16 different L shaped tetrominoes, each with holes in 3 of the voxels and a 4 voxel length dowel fixed inside one cube and which will run through holes in other adjacent pieces. With only one 4 unit long dowel per tetromino and 16 in total, it is important to establish possible orientations for the entire puzzle. This was my first Aha! moment! It is definitely NOT as random as I thought. In fact, not only can you work out possible patterns for the rods, you can then narrow it down layer by layer.
Then I had to look at all the pieces and sort them into subtypes and decide on potential rows/columns - it began to look rather confusing on paper but many little Aha! moments were happening:
It looks much worse than it is.
As Rick says...it is a Logical Progression
