I am going to start today's blog post all sentimental and maudlin. If
Allard
can do it then certainly I can too - I am MUCH more of a sentimental fool than
him. Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my
very first post
on this blog. It was really just an announcement of an intention to write about
puzzles and then the following day (14th March 2011) was my very first
puzzle related article
and I started with something special - the original Revomaze series. It was
these gorgeous lumps of heavy metal that got me hooked. I needed to find a way
to take my mind off an unexpected near death experience and these were it. Of
course, any true bloke who gets interested in a new toy will take to the forums
and those bastards lovely ladies and gentlemen got me hooked on
more and more puzzles. Within a few months they had forced me into taking the huge leap to my first really "expensive" puzzle (Tom Lensch's version of the
Mazeburr). Yes, I was hooked! I wanted to publish at least once a week until I either
ran out of puzzles, ran out of steam or Mrs S murdered me and I have actually
managed that for 10 whole years (Mrs S really has come close to ending the blog
though). Initially I was publishing 2 or even 3 times a week but that gradually
settled down to my usual weekly schedule. I had been advised by a blogging guru
to set a schedule and stick to it - apparently your readers have certain
expectations and you should try not to disappoint them. Indeed on a few
occasions if I dared to be late then I would get an email asking if everything
was Ok and where was their weekend reading? I settled into a routine and have
managed to write something every week apart from on 2 occasions - I think I can
be forgiven for missing the day after my mother died and also last year when I
was really ill with Covid having caught it at work.
In this 10 years, bloggers have come and gone but the people/puzzlers behind
them all remain - this is just a hobby and people have to live their
lives. I am very proud to stand alongside Allard in completing 10 years of
entertainment for the community. In that time there have been 619 posts on my
main site plus 138 on the associated
New additions page (this was the only way Blogger would let me set up a separate page) and
my pageviews ramped up quite quickly. As of
publication today I have received 1.9 million pageviews and now that so many have
occured after my mother died I can now convince myself it wasn't just all her.
My most viewed posts are on the Hanayama Cast Quartet at 23,300 views followed
by my post about twisty puzzle parity at 22,800 views.
Puzzlemad main site
Puzzlemad New stuff page
I was achieving 10-15,000 views per month but the last 15 months have seen a sudden increase to 30,000! Unbelievable that so many crazy people out there want to read my drivel! My readership is truly global which boggles my tiny mind.
What happened at the end of 2019?
It has been the community out there who has kept me going. The trouble with
blogging is that it is a huge effort to do this week in and week out and it
often feels that you are shouting out into the void. Over the years many of
you have
contacted me or left comments on my posts as well as been in touch via my personal
Facebook page. It is those moments of contact and feedback that make it all worthwhile. I
do not try to monetise this hobby - I gratefully receive a few $CAD each month from
PuzzleMaster if you buy from them via a link on my site but that is the only income
I get. To be honest, I am not really interested in the idea of earning money from my
hobby. I am lucky enough to work in a position where my income is secure and I
want this to remain a hobby. I have turned down offers of sponsored posts,
advertising and SEO posts. For me, this should be all MY work. Except
(and it's a very BIG exception) for the
guest posts
provided for me by my wonderful friend and foreign correspondent,
Mike Desilets. He has come up with the goods for me when I was either too busy
or had nothing prepared. I also like to think that he provides a great view of
an alternative side to this hobby. He certainly collects, solves and writes
about modern puzzles but primarily he has shown off the more vintage side that
I have very little knowledge of. I am exceptionally grateful to him for all
his efforts on my/our behalf.
The desk is out of control! She says I MUST tidy up!
I hope to continue this wonderful hobby of puzzling and blogging for another
10 years at least as long as you will keep reading and as long as Mrs S will
let me. I have a serious space problem - and have rearranged my collection
many times and expanded from one small study into another room. When I mention
taking over another room, the laser burning stare moves to between my eyes and
I can smell/feel burning coming from my forehead. The conversation closes
abruptly at that point!
Now on to today's puzzle reviews. For my tenth anniversary post, I am so
pleased to have received early copies of the upcoming releases from Jakub and
Jaroslav at
Pelikan puzzles. This particular batch is absolutely stunning and has some really special
and unusual puzzles in it.
Pepper Castor
Top view
Bottom - the pepper casting view
This beautiful puzzle screamed at me to be tried first. It's a design by
Alexander Magyarics, it's beautiful in Zebrano and Padauk and most importantly
it's based on a triangular grid. Very few puzzle designs (other than 2D packing
puzzles are very made using a triangular grid. I suspect that this is primarily
because it is harder to design them with it being very hard to tell during the
design process whether there will be unwanted rotational shortcuts. Also there
are very few craftsmen willing to put in the time and effort to make the
required jigs to these accurately. Here we have the perfect combination of a
talented designer who has obviously done his homework and ensured there are no
shortcuts as well as some of the best craftsmen in the world!
This puzzle is named after the pepper shaker/castor because of the pattern of
holes on one end and it quickly becomes apparent that they are there for a
reason. My first reaction during my early moves was that this was seriously
fiddly. Then I realised that changing the orientation of the puzzle made
certain moves easier to control and then I discovered that after 3 or 4 moves,
my ability to backtrack was gone! I was stuck with a piece packing out and
unable to visualise the internals to reset it. Oh well! Better carry on then.
After about a ½ hour of progressively more anxious swearing, I removed the
first piece and then the other two. There was no Aha! Moment as I had no idea
how I had achieved it. I took my photo and realised that I had scrambled the
pieces! At this point, it became quite apparent that this puzzle is a very
special variant on the usual Magyarics theme... he had created a fancy low
piece number interlocking packing puzzle. Very similar to many of his others
but with the twist of a triangular grid and holes top and bottom.
Incredible pieces!
Repacking was a serious challenge, first reproducing the shape to fill all the
gaps in the box and then working out the sequence. Finally actually having the
dexterity to do it was a nice added bonus. This is a terrific puzzle as well as
a gorgeous one!
Rattlesnake
Rattlesnake - you can see why
No release from Pelikan these days is complete without another wonderful packing
puzzle from Alexander Magyarics. This beauty is stunning with a Wenge box
complete with fairly large but quite restricted opening and 3 pieces to be
placed inside made from Zebrano. As usual, the question I always ask myself is:
"there are only 3 pieces...how hard can this be?"
Well, either I am stupid (probable) or this one has a serious challenge to it
(quite likely). Several times I tried to get 2 pieces inside the box only to
have one rotate inside and then block all other movements. Nearly gave me a
heart attack at one point when I couldn't take the pieces out that I had
placed in the wrong positions!
I'm sure by now you all know that I adore the 3x3 cube based packing puzzles
with unusual piece shapes and restricted entry into the container. I have lots
of them from Osanori and Alexander and am always in the lookout for new
variants. Imagine, if you will, yet another one, beautifully made by the guys at
Pelikan but making things much more interesting the box has captive pieces which
hook over two of the sides which can slide into any of the three positions on
each of them. This means we have a similar type of packing puzzles but where the
box can effectively change shape before and during the solution process. It also
means that we have seven challenges where the "sliders" have to end up at
different positions (the eighth potential configuration has no solutions). This
is a puzzler's dream - beauty and multiple puzzles in one. It has been superbly
constructed with a gorgeous Pink Oak box, Wenge captive sliding pieces and
vibrant Purpleheart pieces.
These seven challenges are definitely not trivial, in fact I've only managed
to solve 3 of them so far. I don't think that I have found the "best/longest"
solution to them so I will have to keep looking. This one definitely needs to
be solved outside first before attempting to fit it inside - but the captive
sliding pieces make the thought processes much more difficult. This puzzle is
absolutely fabulous and great value for money - go buy it now!
First challenge solved - YAY!
Akku
Akku - looks formidable straight away!
Dr Volker Latussek has been providing some fabulous puzzles to Pelikan for a few
years now. They are all extremely clever and challenging - some so clever and
challenging that they are beyond my abilities (blush,
Euklid for Nick
remains unsolved). In this release we have Akku (I am not sure why the German
word for battery is the name of this puzzle - maybe Dr Latussek will comment
below). This consist of a wonderful Acacia box and some very precisely crafted
Maple pieces to be packed inside. There are 9 L shaped pieces to be fitted into
the interior of the box. The cavity is 4x4x3 units in size and each L is 3x3x1
unit meaning that there will be just 3 holes in the packed puzzle but with such
a large awkward shape the assembly will need some rotations to get the pieces
into the restricted opening.
This is how it arrived - I cannot put it back this way!
The puzzle is shipped in a special shape that Dr Latussek instructed and I took
the pieces out of the box for the photo only to find that I could not get them
back into that shape again! This was going to be a foreboding of what was to
come. I spent quite a while trying to find how to assemble a 4x4x3 cuboid from
these pieces and even this was a struggle. In the end I resorted to Burrtools to
try and find the possible arrangements - there are 6 ways to assemble the shape.
Time to pick one and get it into the box. Easier said than done! This is a
serious puzzling challenge. After 2 evenings of attempts, I finally worked it
out - wonderful idea. Think of how best to rotate an L shaped piece and then see
what you can do with it. My solved picture is behind a spoiler button - it
doesn't give a lot away but there is some info in the picture that might give
more of a hint than you want - you have been warned! Don't click the button!
Not too much of a clue but I hid it anyway
Fake Cube
Fake Cube - this is beautiful and looks impossible
This glorious work of art has been made from Acacia and Padauk. The aim is to
assemble the complex pieces into a cube shape which can be stood on its' corner
in the stand - these 10 identical and oddly shaped pieces need to assemble into
a 6x6x6 cube. Just doing the simple maths tells me that this doesn't add up -
each piece is 18 voxels in volume with 10 of them making 180 voxels in
total and the 6x6x6 cube will be 216 voxels - quite a large discrepancy. Hence
the name...the Fake cube needs to be assembled so that just the exterior looks
like it is complete and hides the holes inside and on the walls adjacent to the
case. This reminds me of a stunningly beautiful and much more complex
version of the Half-cube puzzles from Vinco. Yet again, I removed all the pieces
for my photo and couldn't put them back into the packing position (I love how
all of his puzzles have a specific arrangement for transport). I have not had
long enough to play with this puzzle - I have managed (by pure luck) to make a
shape that will fit into the case but clearly not correct as there are lots of
holes visible on all sides:
I have not yet had time to play with this one and will review it properly as
soon as I have. When the "TIC master", Andrew Crowell gets together with the
master of interesting interlocking shapes, Christoph Lohe then I have to pay
attention! These puzzles are very reminiscent of several of the best
interlocking puzzles of all time (Lucida and
Identical twins
by Osanori) but almost certainly are going to be significantly tougher to solve.
Chamburr is made from Merbau and Pink Oak and looks fabulous with Pelikan's
usual perfect accuracy.
Cyburr
Cyburr
Another that I haven't yet played with. Like Chamburr, it is a collaboration by
Andrew Crowell and Christoph Lohe but this time made from Mahogany and Maple.
The aim is to separate the pieces from the complex frame and I have no doubt
that it will involve some complex rotations in the process.
On loan from Shane
Just a quick (and not terribly happy) sidenote. Not everyone in this
community is great - I am incredibly proud to have in my collection the
complete set of
Hales puzzles and
they form a centrepiece in my collection. I am very aware that these are
effectively just on loan as the agreement with all of Shane's puzzles is
that they should never be sold and should be returned to the creator when no
longer required. It would appear that there is one deceptive person who has
been skirting the edge of the community for a few years and due to his
terrible behaviour has been shunned by pretty much everyone. If you want to
learn some new interesting swearwords then ask Eric Fuller about Niko. Niko
uses a number of aliases and has duped puzzlers and craftsmen into giving or
selling cheap and has even tried to hack Eric's site. He has a blog which is
pretty rubbish and uses it to deceive quite a few naïve puzzle creators into
giving him copies of their creations which he has then flogged at huge
profit. He has now managed to con a holder of Shane's Viper puzzle out of
someone when they were at a low point in their life and has put it up for
sale at an exorbitant price.
Please do NOT buy this puzzle from him
- he is an untrustworthy conman and does not own that puzzle to sell - Shane
wants it back. If you are contacted by him then just refuse to continue to
speak to him. He has several names that he uses including first names of
Niko, Nick or Nicholas and surnames of Azerty, Nicolas or Demarquez. He is
not worth your time - all of us puzzle bloggers have ceased contact, he has
been banned from all the auction sites and most craftsmen including Eric and
Wil Strijbos are refusing to deal with him. This says it all!
A few weeks ago, I saw with some amazement that a very talented
Facebook
friend of mine, Haym Hirsh, had teamed up with a craftsman to have some of his
puzzle designs made. They looked fun and mathematically based so I decided that
I should give them a try. I was not surprised to see mathematical puzzles from
him seeing as he works at Cornell University having studied Maths and Computer
Science. I love mathematical stuff and even attempted to study for a Master of
maths degree with the
Open University based here
in the UK (unfortunately after my first few years as a consultant I got much too
busy to study in my spare time and had to set it aside but do maintain a more
than passing interest). Haym had teamed up with Fin of NothingYetDesigns
(primarily based on
Etsy
but also now setting up his own
webstore). The
advantage for us in the UK with using Etsy is that they automatically add the
VAT and hence cut out any nasty surprises and delays on arrival of my toys in
the country.
I chose a bunch of designs and Fin said that when the other was back in stock,
then he'd let me know. I was ever so slightly horrified to see how the USPS
tracks the packages. I watched my first batch of 4 go across the US and then
saw an attempted but failed deliver in Florida. In a panic I checked my
delivery address and it definitely said the United Kingdom on
it. The following day, I was even more horrified to see that they had tried
again and actually successfully delivered the package in Florida and my
tracking was showing as delivered. I quickly checked my front door and it
definitely wasn't there. After a reassuring contact with Fin, it would appear
that the USPS consider delivery to the airport as delivered. About 4 days
later I received my pack of puzzles.
They are all really nicely packed up - it looks very like he either makes his
own sealable bags or they are available in every possible size combination:
Every puzzle arrived in its' own sealed envelope of exactly the correct
size
The only thing I did need to be careful of was that the very robust black rubber
bands did not get eaten by my cats! They absolutely adore chewing on rubber
bands and then eat them. It is really unpleasant when they get to the other end
with "stuff" hanging out! Mrs S gave me a very stern warning about the rubber
bands and in fear I kept them safe whilst taking my photo.
Time for More Pie. We start with a pie cut into 7 equal slices and an eighth
waiting to be put in the box. There looks like plenty of room but believe me,
there really isn't. Again, I tried the same technique as I did with the first
puzzle and of course that didn't work. Here we go again - time for another brain
workout. This was oddly even more difficult and took me quite some time to find
the solution. Very satisfying and quite a lot of puzzling for such a cheap
puzzle.
I was on a roll - packing pies had helped my brain power! Time for another one
- I was particularly interested in this as it looked really quite logical -
Eloquint:
Eloquint - 5 L's to be placed in the space
It looks like there is not enough space in the puzzle for them all but the
packing space continues under the lip of the top plate. Each L is 3x3 units and
the space for them to be fitted into is 6x5 units so there is plenty of space
for them to be placed but getting them in proves to be a bit of a challenge!
This puzzle is like a 2D version of the wonderful 3D designs of Osanori Yamamoto
and Alexander Magyarics. Finding the position is one thing, then the challenge
is to actually get it into the frame. It only took me about ½ an hour but had a
very nice Aha! moment.
This is fabulous - I cannot fail! Time for:
Stubborn Twelfth
A nice big square with 11 asymmetric pentagons inside. There looks like
plenty of space for that twelfth. I am afraid that this is where my luck ran
out! I have spent a good few hours fiddling with this and am getting
absolutely nowhere with it. So I moved on to the other one that had to wait
until he made some more:
Trapped
This one consists of a circular space covered by a clear perspex/acrylic lid
which can rotate freely. The 6 Trapezoid shaped pieces can fit under the lid
through a segment removed from it. Just finding a shape that fits in the
circle was fun and a bit of a challenge but it has so far proven totally
impossible to fit them in via the small hole!
It may be that my 2D packing puzzle prowess is limited to pies and "ells"? I
have been working on the Legal packing puzzle on and off for 6 months and have
got no closer with that either - triangles and quadrilaterals are obviously
impossible for me!
I have put them away for a while because I have run out of ideas and I have
been distracted by some
new toys
that have arrived from Jakub. I will need to come back to these later. I always assume that if I keep returning to a puzzle then I will get there eventually. Some puzzles have taken me years! Some puzzles still remain unsolved after year but then I will keep trying.
Take care everyone - most of the world is improving slowly (although the rates in many parts of the USA remain stubbornly high). Keep paying attention to the rules, get vaccinated when it's your turn and we will eventually get back to normal.
Over the last year, I watched as
Alfons Eyckmans
published photos of quite a few more of his "cubes" on his Facebook page. He has branched out into 3D printing recently and seems
to be having amazing success with that but I am particularly impressed by his
interlocking cubes and even have a few named after 3 of my cats. I have been
saying to him that I will buy some of his more recent designs for ages and just
never gotten around to it. But...New year, new leaf and all that crap. Mrs S
isn't paying much attention to all the deliveries so I'll just slip an extra one
in.
I went back through the last year of photos and picked a few (that would be 5)
that I particularly like the look of and asked if he either had them in stock
or could make them for me and in his usual manner he said he would need some
time. I do have a bit of a backlog and of course waiting would not be a
problem. I expected to wait a couple of months and was very surprised that a
month later I was shown some photos and requested for some PayPal. Belgian
post was very fast and I was soon found admiring my new toys and muttering
about "my preciousssss cubes". As usual Mrs S just rolled her eyes at me and
continued looking at shoes and handbags to buy.
More cubes - Yay!
Even though I had received a few new toys the previous week from a new source of
Haym Hirsch puzzles as well as a bunch of puzzles from Mine, I could not stop
myself and had to start on one of these. I picked the 6T burr because it was
slightly less intimidating than the others (solution level is
22.2.1.1.2.1.1.1.2). I think it is made from Oak, Mahogany and Zebrano and is
stunning. It has been made in Europe and so is perfectly appropriate that it has
been made to Metric dimensions (6 x 6 x 14cm) making it a very nice size to work
through the solution.
The humidity has been really quite high here and I have found that a few of
the pieces are a little tight but not so tight as to prevent me finding my
path. On Thursday afternoon, I had no work to do and Mrs S allowed me time to
play. There are several options during the solution and a few blind ends to
travel down but never too far and never too many choices to be made. To be
honest, I know this makes me a lightweight, but I find that puzzles with too
wide a decision tree are just too difficult and not much fun to solve with the
risk of me being left with an unsolvable mess. Over a couple of hours I worked
my way through and removed the first piece:
22 moves completed
As with all his puzzles Alfons has signed it and with his more recent
productions, he has laser etched the year and number produced on it. As I always
do I backtracked to the beginning and went back and forth several times to try
and imprint a path on my limited consciousness. Time to put it down and talk to
the first wife and make some dinner.
I next got to play yesterday and was gratified that I still remembered the
path to that first piece removal (I hate to think what other crucial piece of
knowledge has been dislodged by learning the solution to this puzzle). I
proceeded with the removal of the other 3 long burr sticks and then the 6
T-shaped pieces that give the puzzle its name and am careful to keep them
arranged and oriented properly in the hope that I can reassemble without
having to make a Burrtools file. At this point one of my pussy boys gets very
interested in what I am up to and runs across the table. Aaaargh nooooo!
Pieces are scattered everywhere and I have no idea what goes where - oh well,
photo time:
What goes where?
There are only 10 pieces and a frame...can I possibly manage to work out the assembly with just that and my memory of the movements? I figure it's worth a try because creating a BT file will take me quite a while.
Thank you Alfons - you have made me yet more gorgeous puzzles for my collection and also proved beyond doubt that I am ever so slightly better a puzzler than I was all those years ago. Not much better...just a little bit. Who knows, maybe I will even be able to assemble the latest brass stunners from the Two Brass Monkeys? The Kong puzzle nearly broke me. Mrs S has told me I must wait a while before I buy any more toys (there has been a bit of a spurge recently) and so they will have to wait for a month or so before I buy. The reports on FB have been very good though.
Take care out there guys! The numbers really are improving (in Europe and the UK at least) but this is not the time to drop your guard. If we abandon the rules now then another wave will ensue and hospitals will be in trouble again. We are just about to start increasing our elective surgery to start to catch up with the gigantic backlog and we don't want to scupper that. A lot of people out there are really suffering having to wait for all sorts of elective surgery which our over-stretched hospitals have been unable to safely perform for the last 6 months.
By Alexander Is The Great! Brian is pretty incredible
too...
Pillar by Alexander Magyarics
Whilst my experience cannot be compared to what has been going on in Texas
recently, I am now on day 8 or 9 of no working boiler - I have had 3 engineer
visits and still not fixed. Mrs S is going to murder someone if this isn't fixed
soon and my worry is that it will be me! It had been suggested by a rather mean Facebook friend that I could burn some wooden puzzles for heat whilst my boiler is not working - I am seriously considering unfriending that person and certainly not showing that post to Mrs S!
I reviewed Ennui last week from Brian Menold's
Wood Wonders
recent releases and you know that I could not possibly resist and just buy one
(or two)...I bought a bunch of them - my addiction to glorious wood is being
fed by Brian and Eric and Brian and Alfons and...
Houston, if you weren't covered in snow with a power outage then you'd
see I have a problem!
I bought the Pillar puzzle for two reasons:
I saw Brian show it off on Facebook and was stunned by the glorious grain
It was designed by my friend and "master puzzle designer",
Alexander Magyarics
It's a combination of interlocking and packing puzzle which I absolutely
adore
This beautiful puzzle has been fabulously crafted from Pistachio wood making the walls of the box, topped and bottomed with a wonderful creamy Holly. The remarkably simple pieces are stunning in very deep red Pau Rosa. I love beautiful wood grain and this Pistachio (a wood that I have never seen before) is a wonderful example. Even Mrs S admired the beauty of the box. Of course, she did not admire it enough to want to play with the puzzle much to my relief as it would be quite humiliating to have her solve it in just a few minutes and be much faster than me!
The aim (as with many of Alexander's creations) is to pack the 4 easy pieces into the box through the rather limited opening and also have the opening completely filled with no gap. I picked this one up immediately after my success with Ennui and was sure that I would solve this fairly quickly and rack up a puzzle to write about on the next blog. So I thought that this would be quick? I never seem to learn do I? This puzzle should not be that difficult but it took me 4 evenings of toil and swearing at myself to solve it. Initially I couldn't even find a 3x3 shape that would fill the holes and then none of them had piece orientations that could fit through the holes. Yes, the genius of this is that 2 of the pieces have a very limited number of ways they can fit in through the top and then, due to the 3 unit length of all of the pieces, it is really tough to find a way to get them to move around each other.
On day 2, I found a very nice 3x3 assembly which met the requirements and focussed on that. How could I get those pieces in place. I couldn't do it! I must have become fixated on that assembly because every time I abandoned it because I couldn't move the pieces around each other or get one of them into the box then I would try to find an alternative arrangement and still come back to my original. I am sure that Alexander must have known this would happen. I spent 2 days muttering Alexander's name under my breath along with some other choice expletives and got nowhere.
The disassembly of the puzzle requires a sequence of 20 moves (10.4.3.3) and takes advantage of the unique shape of the pieces and the box. It is very clever. I really don't know how Alexander keeps finding such simple yet such challenging designs. They are stunning - I think he needs to be given a title as I have at the top of the blog... henceforth he shall be "Alexander the Great" (hopefully this won't go to his head and make him attempt to take over most of the civilised world).
I am greatly looking forward to more puzzles from this amazing duo - Brian and Alexander work together so well.
Keep safe everyone. The new infection numbers are going down in most places around the world but this requires constant vigilance and attention to social distancing/mask wearing. The vaccines will start to have an effect (at least on hospitalisation rates) soon as well.
Just a quickie again this week - I had to work yesterday yet again
(unfortunately I missed another Zoom MPP) and when I got home we had a boiler
catastrophe and no heating in the house (not going to be fixed until at least
Thursday 😱😱😱) and this required multiple attempts to reset the boiler
(failed) and then a mad scramble to source some electric heaters. Mrs S is
grumpy/angry at me at the best of times - if she gets cold then I am in serious
trouble! My only hope is that she freezes to an icicle quickly before she has
time to murder me! Some one suggested on Facebook that I cuddle Mrs S to keep
warm on Valentine's day - OMG - that is a dangerous thing to attempt!
At the top of the post is a statement you don't read on this blog very
often! I pretty much never claim to be good at puzzling. At best I think I
am sub par and at worst bloody awful at puzzling. I do wonder why I keep
torturing myself with these things? It may be something to do with the
eternal love of wood (a boy can NOT have too much wood) or maybe the
fabulous community of puzzling folk who provide support (although mostly to
me they just take the piss). There definitely is something that keeps
me buying these wonderful, ever more expensive toys.
So why those extravagant claims? Well,
Brian Menold
put some wonderful new toys up for sale on his site 2 weeks ago and I was
mesmerised - they are just so beautiful and I might just have spent rather
more than I should have. I couldn't resist it and in my defence, these
were just the second puzzles I had bought this year after Aleksandr's
wonderful Ternary pin burr I
reviewed last week. Considering that it is the middle of February, I am telling Mrs S that
I have been very controlled - she doesn't need to know about the other
purchases that are on their way, does she?
Amongst the puzzles released by Brian is a Turning Interlocking Cube
(TIC). I adore these puzzles and will pretty much buy any of them when
they come up for sale but with Ennui, we have added attraction...this was
designed by
Laszlo Kmolnar. Laszlo is one of my favourite designers. He is delightful to chat to
and his puzzles are always fabulous - well thought out with some stunning
logic or a wonderful Aha! moment. I had never seen a TIC design from him
and knew straight away that it would be fabulous. On top of that, the
TIC-Meister himself,
Bernhard Schweitzer, had been extremely complementary about it:
"It has a very very unusual move for solving, a combination of
'unnormal' turns coordinated by 2 pieces together, I don't have any
similar solution moves in all of my 240 different TICs (Turning
Interlocking Cubes), it is a must for a serious TIC collector"
WOW - what an accolade! Click, it was in my cart. Then, I am delighted to
say, Brian was absolutely on fire! He used DHL for the postage which was a
little more expensive but unbelievably quick - it took less than a week to
arrive and was not held up by customs (I assume that I will be billed soon
for the VAT that I will owe). After a short quarantine in the porch by Mrs
S, she heeded my plea and unpacked them (yes, I bought more than one
puzzle) for me on Thursday evening for me to play with on Friday.
I set to on Friday evening whilst watching a bit of TV and, as is usual,
tried to find the position of all the pieces. This allowed me plenty of
time to admire the gorgeous wood choices - Brian has used Movingui,
Bocote, Peroba Rosa and Maple for this one with some lovely contrasting
dowels to strengthen the joints - the pieces are gorgeous and beautifully
finished as always. I seemed to be on fire...I found the placements of the
pieces in ust a single evening! Unheard of for me and I hoped this boded
well for the assembly - but...Brian had said this about it:
"This puzzle has a very difficult to find maneuver. You may be tempted
to force the pieces together but you should not do it. You will be
able to make the move you must just be patient (or lucky) and keep
searching. It requires precision. I have put each of these puzzles
together several times and finding the move never got any easier and
often took several tries."
As always with these puzzles, it is one thing entirely to find the final
positions of the pieces and another, much harder challenge to get them
into said positions. I started that straight away and noticed a very
interesting move for one piece and then tried to insert the second. No way
was that going in - completely blocked. Maybe change the order of
insertion? Piece 2 inserted first yep! Oh dear the second (first) piece
also blocked. No matter what, these two had to go into these positions and
even if they were 3rd/4th the same problem would occur. This was the main
challenge of the puzzle.
I discovered some interesting possible moves of one piece but was still
stuck and couldn't get them into the correct positions when the other
piece was in place. Time for bed and back to work again on Saturday. This
was going to cut things really fine for a blog post this week! After my
boiler shenanigans yesterday evening, I was a little frazzled and sitting
in a room just about heating up with a fan heater listening to Mrs S rant
about the failure of British Gas to offer an appointment any sooner than
Thursday (we have a service contract) and I focussed on Ennui to try and
decrease my feelings of "weariness and dissatisfaction" (the
definition of Ennui). Eventually I narrowed it down to only one potential move for those
pieces and remembering what Brian had written, I fiddled very carefully.
AHA! That was Good!
Actually, it was better than good. It was amazing - I have done quite a
lot of TICs over the years and I cannot recall a move sequence like that.
The precision required is amazing - everything needs to be placed
absolutely perfectly to the fraction of a millimeter. The rest of the
pieces were inserted over the next few minutes to give me my assembled
cube:
Man! That was good!
As Brian stated, undoing the assembly is fairly straightforward but putting
it back together never seems to get any easier - it must be just perfect or
it won't go - brilliant design by Laszlo.
In the end I managed it in 2-3 hours over 2 evenings - that's pretty quick
for me to solve a puzzle - I was Fast and I was Good......for once.
I might have a few more puzzles to play with and hopefully something to
write about next weekend. Wish me luck!
Take care out there guys - the numbers in Europe and the UK are heading in
the right direction and even in the craziness that is the USA, the
infection rates are decreasing. But this is not the time to let down your
guards - stay at home as much as possible and wear your masks when out and
about.
My Russian friend
Aleksandr Leontev
is another king of the
N-ary puzzle (alongside
Namick Salakhov) and when he emails offering toys my brain just starts to dribble and I
immediately hand over cash. You see, I just love N-ary puzzles - some might say
that they aren't really puzzles but I argue that if you need to explore a
sequence to discover a logical sequence of moves then that is the very
definition of a puzzle. Plus if one of the best puzzlers in the world,
Goetz Schwandtner, collects them, solves them,
writes about them
and
catalogues them, then they are certainly going to be good enough for me.
Ternary burrs
Initially I had just been wanting to add to my collection of Ternary burrs -
above is
Eric Fuller's
reproduction of the Ternary burr (designed by Goh Pit Khiam and originally made
by Brian Young) and
alongside it is the wonderful extension to it "designed" and made by my genius
friend
Derek Bosch. Whilst I always prefer wood, there is definitely something special about the
plastic ones too. This little collection got me thinking about other puzzles I
had that may belong with them - how many Ternary puzzles in my collection? I
found quite a few with the help of Goetz' site and even managed to find a good
few of them (there are a few missing in action because I have them stuffed into
chests of drawers and not on display).
As many Ternary puzzles as I could find
After placing my order with Aleksandr, it only took a week for it to arrive and
then it sat around whilst Mrs S quarantined it in the porch and then I needed to
find time to play. Yesterday I was forced to write our on call rotas a week
early because I'm an eejit and put myself down to work next weekend when I would
normally have written it. Luckily catching everyone by surprise with an early
rota meant I had less requests to contend with and it took quite a lot less time
than usual. I was therefore able to play afterwards and only fell asleep once
during my playtime.
Grooves give a hint
First few moves
According to
Puzzlewillbeplayed, the N-ary sequence for the
Ternary pin burr
is 162 moves long which, by the standards of Aleksandr's previous puzzles,
really quite short and very pleasant. In just a few minutes I had the sequence
worked out and completed with a piece falling onto a cat's head (he barely
noticed - another advantage of plastic puzzles):
161 moves done
N-ary pieces removed
At this point I had a little blow to the head! It occured to me rather
stupidly to try and look inside. This didn't end well as the pieces move
against each other very smoothly and easily under gravity alone. I turned it
out of the horizontal orientation and peered inside just in time to watch
several pieces drop out onto the cat (who began to pay attention). I
desperately tried to prevent them from falling out and dislodged several more
and it became very unstable and collapsed in a heap on the cat who ran off my
lap with rather sharp claws - OUCH (but no Whack!) scattering pieces
everywhere. Oh boy! Now I had a REAL puzzle on my hands:
Mrs S told me I had to stop last night and then it was time for bed and then
it was time for breakfast and blog post writing - this puzzle currently sits
on the Kitchen granite nicely ordered and taunting me - can I put it back
together? I am sure I can do it if I enter all the pieces into Burrtools but
am not so sure if I try and use my very small tired brain! I'll give it a go
and report back next week:
It may stay like this for a while...unless the cats get to it
first... It may end up partially under the fridge!
This was my first puzzle acquisition of 2021 - if this continues then I'm hoping
for a VERY good year!
I have finally received my second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and am hopeful that this will allow me to be a bit safer and certainly prevent me from reinfecting Mrs S as I did in June. She was not impressed with the size of my viral load!
Stay safe guys - it's improving out there but nowhere near what we need to allow us to relax our vigilance.
I'm sorry guys, today I have nothing solved to write about and no new arrivals to show off. I got into this hobby as a result of something horrific which occurred at work with the aim of taking my mind of things and helping me relax. I even started a website about it to encourage others in their puzzling pathway. I have maintained at least a weekly post for almost 10 years with something new for you...until today I'm afraid! In fact the last couple of days have been incredibly stressful as I desperately try to solve something so that I can blog about it. I have had to admit defeat (actually Mrs S has got fed up with my groaning and swearing as I tried and failed) - a relaxing hobby? Nope, actually it's now quite stressful!
At one point during this I made a lovely sliding and rotational movement which I thought was so perfect that it had to be correct but it still left me unable to insert one last block and then to my horror I couldn't reverse the beautiful move to take the pieces out. I spent a horrible ½ hour puffing, panting and swearing at myself thinking I had permanently locked up my toy. This really pissed off Mrs S and she forced me to stop torturing myself with the question, "I thought that this was supposed to be fun and relaxing for you?" She's not wrong, I gave up trying to solve it for the time being and here we are with nothing solved and only a tale of woe for you. Allard loved it and solved it but he's a much better puzzler than me. Can you do it?
I did also try to solve the Legal Packing puzzle which others have raved about
Legal packing
Nope! I couldn't solve this one either! I have lost my Mojo.
I hope that my solving powers will return soon or this is going to become a very boring blog for you all to read! Unfortunately I have to work the next two weekends in a row and won't have much time to figure something out - the pressure is on! Sigh!
Keep safe everyone! The vaccinations are underway but it will be a very long time before the world is safe.
Way back in October (seems like a lifetime ago with the way I am living just now) I saw Eric offer the Six Slabs puzzle for sale and I was lucky enough to grab a copy before they all sold out a few minutes later (it does seem very hard to buy these days!). I couldn't resist the beauty of the Curly Maple box with corner detailing and blocks made from Wenge.
Hexahedroom
Apart from the look I was enticed by the text in the description that said it was reminiscent of the Hexahedroom puzzle from years before. I had never managed to get old of an Artisan copy of that puzzle but a very very good friend of mine had been kind enough to make me a copy so that I could experience it. I had absolutely adored that puzzle and the mere mention of a similarity to this was enough to send me running to my trackpad to click on the buy button.
Having said they were similar, I have to admit that the similarity is purely in shape and intent...they do not even remotely share the same solving method. The aim of Six slabs (designed by Brendan Perez) is to insert all "six slabs" into the box such that they all fit properly inside with nothing protruding out into the window left for the purpose. Unlike Hexahedroom, the pieces are all the same shape, cuboids (NOT cubes) and the holes for insertion have a specific orientation.
Inside the box at diagonally opposite corners there are 2 cubes glued in place which significantly hinders you. In fact, it is these blocks that turn the assembly into a puzzle:
Diagonally opposite fixed cubes causing an obstruction
The effect of these cubes is that the slabs have to be oriented the correct way so as not to be protruding out the hole and they hinder the movement inside. When this arrived back in November, I was a bit busy with work and had had my butt kicked by Volker Latussek's Euklid for Nick. This made me rather fearful of all packing puzzles and I put it aside on my puzzles to be played tray in the living room. The cats were particularly fascinated by the ties of the bright orange bag that Eric had put the 6th block into and that alone kept me amused for a little while.
Finally, Mrs S was starting to agitate about the ever increasing number of puzzles on my pile and she told me in no uncertain terms that I should either solve them or file them in one of my cupboards and stop slobbing about! This forced me to pick it up when I finally had a couple of days over Xmas and New Year and have a little play.
This is a lovely little puzzle which took me a couple of hours of off and on fiddling to work out the correct sequence. It is really quite satisfying when the last piece slides into place. I will need to store it in the unsolved state and bring it to work to challenge my colleagues at work when we get back to working normally. Maybe it is time to return to my nemesis from Volker? Maybe Theo has pushed me the correct way and I will finally manage it?
If anyone has an artisan copy of the Hexahedroom puzzle they are willing to let me buy then please contact me and I will be very grateful.
Stay safe out there guys! The new Covid variants are running amok amongst the UK, European and American populations and there is some evidence that not only are they much more easily transmissible but they are also more deadly. We are now frequently seeing people in their 20s and 30s needing ventilation and even dying. Once you are on a ventilator you will be on it for at least a month and then need a very prolonged period of rehabilitation after that and who knows whether you will ever return to completely normal! My own health has not completely returned to normal yet and I am 7 months after my bout with the virus. If you can keep away from others at all then make sure you do so and if not take precautions - masks are cheap and easy to wear - they DO help.
This post is going to be a cathartic admission of guilt/failure and I apologise
to those of you who expect more of me. Way back in August I participated in the
TwoBrassMonkeys' Kickstarter campaign for a chunk of extremely heavy metal. It arrived in
October, beautifully presented in a small aluminium briefcase and recalling my
abject failure playing with the prototype at the MPP in February I was
determined that this would not beat me. They called this the Kong Puzzle and the
last few are still available direct from them
here.
I took my photos of the pieces and Mrs S hovered around with threatening
comments about what painful or even fatal violence she would perform upon my
person if I was to drop any piece of this and damage any of 1) the granite
work surface, b) a kitchen tile or iii) the glass kitchen table we eat at
and which I occasionally puzzle at if there are two many pieces to play with
on an armchair. She did say that it was perfectly acceptable for me to drop
things on my toes and break them! She is so considerate.
It is even more gorgeous outside the case
I did wonder for a while whether having a violent Scottish woman muttering
dark imprecations at me was going to put me off in my puzzling prowess and I
am tempted to blame everything on her. But let's face it...you all know that I
am a bear of very little brain and am generally quite rubbish at puzzling.
Especially assembly puzzling (and packing puzzling and sequential movement
puzzling and coordinate movement puzzling and...)
Meanwhile, my difficulty in solving this was rapidly made into a humiliation
when quite a lot of my puzzle friends on
Facebook quite promptly showed off their completed assemblies leaving me
feeling ever more inadequate. I had my photo of the final shape and was all
set to work it out. I counted notches and whilst this did sort of assist me
a little in my understanding of piece placement (only a little bit), it did
not really help me find moves to use. There is no key piece which means that
the final move will need to be an insertion of a multi-piece assembly (?2
??3 pieces or even more).
After Shane showed off that he had assembled it I redoubled my efforts!
Shane is well known as a lock genius and a great woodworker but he is not
well known for having a long attention span. To me this meant that Shane
must have solved this in under an hour! Ok we are talking Shane
here...probably under 30 minutes 15 minutes! There must be
a system to it! I tried and tried to find a method nad persistently came up
blank. Mrs S was very relieved to be proved correct in that I am completely
blank. Another couple of weeks of play whenever I had some time was not
helpful and I resorted to Burrtools only to realise that I couldn't work out
how to program the cylindrical rods into it. I'd better put it away for a
while to preserve the tattered remnants of my sanity.
More recently, whilst perusing Big Steve and Ali's website, I came across a
page which I had not seen before -
hints and solutions. I had a look and was gratified to see that they had typed up some hints
without completely giving it away. I printed the hints off and when I went
to look at them properly had a frustrating time reading text typed backwards
complete with a reverse font (that really forces you to concentrate). I went
through the clues one at a time in order not to give myself too much away at
once. Erm, I needn't have worried about that - the first few clues can
barely even be called clues and after that they don't really add an awful
lot more. Still stumped!
Their final clue was a photo showing which are the 3 horizontal long sticks
and their orientation. I was more than a little peeved to realise that all
my earlier trials had not used any of those sticks in any of those
positions. Sigh - I am so bad at assembly puzzles. I picked out the correct
3 and then tried to rearrange the others into place. I'd like to say that I
managed to work the positions out but none of you would believe me and I
don't blame you. I made lots of shapes that looked promising but certainly
were rather difficult to hold in position whilst I added new pieces and
always at the end had 2 or 3 sticks impossible to place. Several more hours
of attempts and a rather hair raising near miss at breaking a tile and I was
no closer.
I simply have no idea how to go about this sort of assembly puzzle! I can
make a little progress by thinking about numbers of notches but then I am
left with a huge amount of trial and error which I cannot keep track of. The
pieces all are extremely similar and after 5 or 6 assemblies I lose track of
what I have tried in which orientation. Yesterday evening I was reaching the
end of my tether and finding the whole process no longer enjoyable - I was
also running out of time to solve something for the blog today (I am sure
that you understand that puzzling is something I struggle to find much time
for at the moment).
To my eternal shame, I had to click on their final link with step by step
instructions of how to assemble the Kong. Even following said instructions
proved rather tough in my weakened, frazzled state but finally after several
months I had something to put away on display! Mrs S watched agitatedly as I
moved it to the granite to take a photo:
Eternal proof of my shame!
It does look gorgeous on display which is just as well because the chances of
me ever dismantling it are very low.
If any of you can tell me what I can do to find ways to assemble this sort of
thing then I would be very grateful. I just don't even know how to go about
it! I can assemble many 6 piece burrs but seriously struggle with them when
they get to slightly higher assembly levels (in fact I have so far completely
failed to assemble Brian Young's
Mega Six
burr - the hardest 6 piece burr ever designed)
Well! I can't do this one either!
I look forward to hearing from you all with your tales of success to make me feel even more useless and also expect lots of information on how to go about solving these sorts of puzzle with simple step by step techniques.
Stay safe out there everyone! It is really quite bad in most Western nations just now - infection rates are incredibly high with hospitals approaching breaking point (mine included) - now is not a good time to get seriously ill.
It appears that the only way that I can have Hex and keep it up is to use rubber
bands. Allard had to remind me how to have Hex by myself as it had not occurred
to me that I could support my rod(s) without female assistance and when Mrs S
refused to help me have Hex and I read about Allard's fancy threesome with Gil
and Derek as well as a rubber (band) I had a hunt around my house for rubber
bands of my own. We don't have rubber bands in the house because the cats absolutely
love them and as soon as your back is turned they chew through them and then
swallow them whole. Whilst this sounds very funny, it really gets unpleasant
when they reach the opposite end of said cat and they then get the zoomies with
elasticated poops hanging out! It's especially bad if they romp across my pillow
whilst I am asleep and something rather yucky bonks me on the head! Hence, after
just one morning of zoomies, there are no rubber bands around!
When doing my annual rummage through my excessively heavy work bag to try and
lighten my load, I find a very heavy set of metal chunks from the
TwoBrassMonkeys! It was the Nova Plexus puzzles in Brass and Steel that I have singularly
failed to solve so far. I had bought these way back in September 2019 and
after a couple of months of concerted effort to assemble these beauties, I had
totally failed and had given up. They had accompanied me to work for a year
without managing to be assembled.
I had bought mine directly from Big Steve and Ali but they are also available
from
PuzzleMaster
if you live in the Americas. They arrived very nicely packaged in a box with a
useful (and highly inappropriate bag for a senior doctor to carry around in a
hospital):
Nicely boxed complete with carrying bags
It was this very monkey pouch that had been with me for over a year. The extra
item that had been supplied but not pictured was a couple of large zip bags
filled with Loom bands. Whilst I had never joined the craze to create pretty
things from Loom bags as I am a 50something year old bloke and not a 10 year old
girl, I had tried all sorts of techniques to use these Loom bands to hold the
pieces of the Nova plexus in place whilst I had attempted what I figured was a
correct assembly. I even tried multiple bands per rod intersection but no, it
still kept falling to bits as I attempted to insert extra pieces.
The Loom bands were my salvation when it came to assembling the coordinate
motion Hex puzzle, Bish, Bash, Bosch. Mrs S was not going to have Hex with me
and going solo was going to need assistance. Apart from getting stuck inside
the intersections/notches and preventing the final part of the coordinate
assembly, they proved very helpful and I finally had my trio of Hex assemblies
for my Best of 2020 post:
Thank you for the Loom bands Steve!
Whilst my little pile of bands were being eyed by one of my pussy boys and I had
a couple of days off over Xmas, I realised that maybe I should make one last
ditch attempt at putting these bloody things together. Boxing day turned out to
be rather full of swear words but I made some progress. I was almost there when
someone made a bid to eat a pile of the bands and it all fell in a heap in my
lap. Sooo close!
After pushing the hungry cat away, I tried again and finally after 15 months I
had it...the brass version was assembled and stable (even without the Loom
bands) - Yay! Flushed with success I fetched the stainless steel version. I
had thought I would put that one together in the mirror image of the first but
just couldn't seem to manage it! In the end, after another couple of hours of
swearing and repeatedly having to fend off a cat with a rubber fetish, I went
back to trying the same way around.
There was something different about the Steel version - it was MUCH tougher
than the brass one despite being identical. I would always get to the very
last step of trying to get it clicked together and stable when it would always
crash into a heap. Had I gotten a faulty set? Knowing Steve and Ali's
stringent standards, there was no way that would be the case - it must be me
being crap!
Finally after 15 months! I really need to make them a mirror pair
I kept at it for another 2 days and at last have my pair of Nova plexii
assembled together. There is definitely something about the Steel one that makes
it particularly tough. Maybe it is that it is that bit less flexible than the
brass version? I have no intention of taking them apart again although before I
put them away on display, I do have a hankering to disassemble one to make it a
mirror version. Gulp! Maybe not!
Next I need to spend a few more hours with the Kong puzzle - so far I have
singularly failed to find an assembly for that as well. The mini briefcase
is taking up a lot of space on my desk and needs to be cleared away. There
is no way that I am going to carry that around at work! It weighs 4Lbs and
might permanently damage my shoulder! Here goes!
Stay safe out there guys! Things are now absolutely horrendous in the UK NHS just now with huge numbers of Covid cases being admitted to hospital and requiring either CPAP or ventilation just now. For the first time we are being forced to cancel urgent cancer surgery in many hospitals because the critical care beds are not available post op to look after people who have had major major surgery. I cannot remember in my 30 years as a doctor it ever having been this bad. It is much much worse than any winter Flu surge and we are seeing people in their 20s and 30s with no pre-existing conditions requiring ventilatory support (once you are on a vent then that will be you for at least a month). If you possibly can - stay at home! You don't want to catch this and you don't want to give it to your parents or grandparents! Hopefully in the USA, now that the Orange prick is going to be ousted, the American public will have a decent set of policies and approach to mitigating the dreadful problems they have had there with this virus.
