Pelikan Creates Some Flops and New Horizons

Upcoming puzzles from Pelikan and their wonderful designers.

I wasn't expecting anything from Jakub, Jaroslav and team until after the upcoming IPP and was very surprised when an email came from the wonderful Pelikan guys informing me about their upcoming releases and a request for reviews as soon as possible. I then received a beautiful bunch of toys and a growl from she who frightens everyone who meets her. To be honest, I cannot blame her this time - there are another 8 puzzles here and I hadn't put away the toys from the last delivery yet. I know my desk is under the toys but I haven't seen it for a very long time!

Luckily for me, a general email had also gone out telling the world that the Pelikan team were taking a summer break and not returning until tomorrow (10th July) and I, therefore, had a nice 10 day period to plough through these fabulous and difficult puzzles (GULP!). Luckily, I managed to do it (apart from one incredibly tough challenge) with a tiny bit of cheating from Burrtools.

These should be going on sale within the next week or so I hope.

First I have to start with the 2 incredible puzzles from Dr Volker Latussek - they have given this post it's title. We have two more puzzles in the Flop series - believe me, these are not flops as puzzles! They are incredible and one is seriously difficult! Volker emailed me and Jakub to explain what he was trying to achieve:

Fritz Flop

Fritz Flop delivery position

Fritz Flop pieces

Fritz Flop has been beautifully created using a lovely pale Downy Birch wood.

I just love how Volker always specifies a delivery setup for his puzzles. It can be quite a challenge if you aren't paying attention to return the puzzles to the start position. Volker wrote this:

"With the release of TETRA-FLOP I announced a small series of four FLOP-puzzles: FRITZ-FLOP, DICK-FLOP, TEFKA-FLOP and SOMA-FLOP. As an encore, the series will be completed with TETRA-FLOP and for lovers of L-shaped tricubes L-FLOP.

The FLOP series puzzles each consist of a cuboid box completely filled with various tricubes and tetracubes. The box has the largest possible rectangular opening on one side. Each of the four FLOPs has a unique kind of rotation. The solution to each should be unique.

When a FLOP is placed on a flat surface with the opening at the top facing forward, the movement of the pieces is sometimes reminiscent of the Fosbury flop - a revolutionary high-jump technique that sent established records tumbling. The inventor of this technique is the forgotten Austrian athlete, Fritz Pingl, for whom the first FLOP puzzle is dedicated.

My friend Fritz hoped the puzzle could be made in birch wood, and Pelikan were able to fulfil his wish. Many thanks for that.

FRITZ-FLOP has only five pieces: two tricubes and only three of the eight tetracubes, making it the smallest FLOP. I think it's really suited to being a coffee table puzzle. I selected this combination from what seemed like an infinite number of possible combinations. I suspect it is the only combination that fulfils all of the characteristics of a FLOP puzzle. The fact that this combination exists at all, fills me with great wonder, as does the story of the high jump. Please play and enjoy."

I reviewed the Tetra flop from the last release and am surprised to see that some are still available for sale. It was a seriously difficult puzzle but had some wonderful moves in it. I needed a little help and despite that did not feel that I lost out on the puzzling. Working out the moves required after getting a little position help did not detract in any way from my puzzling pleasure.

With the Fritz Flop the puzzle is certainly a lot simpler in design and hence very solvable without help. It is still a challenge with the simpler set of pieces and only looking for a 3x3x2 block shape. The fun part is getting the pieces through the restricted opening which it just smaller than 3x2 in size. There will be rotations and space needs to be left for the rotations to occur. Knowing this helps with working out the possible assemblies to try. Before writing this review I entered the pieces into BT and found that there are 28 possible assemblies of the pieces into the block but doing this is not necessary for the solution. I picked the pieces that I felt were likely to be the last to be inserted and then tried to place the rest into a shape that would allow it. Of course, my first decisions were incorrect and I spent a good few hours attempting impossible solutions - they looked good but there was no way to insert them through the opening. Most of the assemblies stand no chance of insertion and can be discarded quickly. After a few hours, I had exhausted everything I could find apart from one which looked promising but I just couldn't get it to assemble in the box. Time for a break and the following day, I had a fabulous Aha! moment - not only is this a packing puzzle but it is a sequential movement puzzle as well. The rotational move is simply joyful.

Believe me, there are no clues in this photo!

I heartily recommend buying this set - it is pure Latussek genius!

Soma Flop

Soma Flop delivery position

Soma Flop pieces (yes, it's a Soma cube)

Soma Flop has been made using Jatoba and Limbs woods - the voxel size is the same as the others in the series. Again there is a very specific position for the storage. Volker wrote this about it:

"Originally DICK-FLOP and TEFKA-FLOP were scheduled to follow after FRITZ-FLOP, but SOMA-FLOP is really special. Everything is there: the seven parts of the SOMA-CUBE and even a cube-shaped box. The only tricky thing is the size of the opening.

Only?

I learnt a lot from my experiences with SOMA PACK and SHRINKING SOMA, but I couldn't achieve what I was hoping for from a FLOP puzzle at first. Obviously, the search was eventually worth it: SOMA-FLOP has a wonderfully confusing solution, which I suspect my mind wasn't willing to see. I couldn't see the solution for absolute ages because I didn't know it existed. I guess that's the difference between the designer and the solver: as the solver, you can trust that SOMA-FLOP has a solution! The opening is amazingly large - any larger in fact and the SOMA pieces could effectively be packed as into an unrestricted box.

My thanks to Pelikan for making this idea a reality and to Oskar van Deventer for inspiring me to create SOMA-FLOP with his PENULTIMATE SOMA."

This puzzle caused me "some difficulty" and a minor heart attack. I have waxed lyrical about Soma cubes before and certainly feel that everyone who collects puzzles should have at least a plain Soma cube and a variant or two in their collections. Combining a Soma cube with a packing puzzle and incorporating aspects of TIC puzzling too is a major triumph. This puzzle is very VERY difficult but don't let that deter you. First thing to do is remove the pieces from the box. Easy peasy? Erm - yes as long as you don't allow anything to move once there is a little space in the box. I was not careful enough and after removal of the easy two pieces, stuff slid around inside and I couldn't take any more pieces out. OMG! It took me over an hour to free them up and get to the point of attempting to solve the puzzle.

As Volker has stated, there is a nice large entry to the box but not quite two voxels wide. This restriction is the key to the rotational requirement. The non planar pieces need to be tilted to be inserted and there needs to be enough space for this to be allowed to happen. Does this help you narrow down the assemblies? I think it does if you are an assembly puzzle aficionado. I am an assembly idiot and as everyone knows - there are 240 possible cubic assemblies of the Soma pieces. 

I played for a while trying to randomly find cubic assemblies that would allow the non-planar pieces to be inserted early and the linear pieces last. I found a few but had no way to easily narrow them down. I do think that this is possible for all you great puzzlers who read my drivel but for me to manage it, I would require many days or weeks of attempts and a lot of swearing. I had a deadline to meet and therefore had to use a hint. I got the solution and squinted at it quickly so that I only viewed the two pieces that were to be entered last which would leave me to find the positions of the other pieces and then the rotation(s) required to solve it. After 3 days of working on the cube to be inserted I realised that  I needed more help. Burrtools told me that there are 18 assemblies that allowed the last 2 pieces to be where I needed them and from there I could visually restrict the other solutions until I had a few possible solutions to work on. 

I worked on these possibilities for another couple of days and managed to decrease my solution set to just one by totally failing to get the pieces into the box. That last assembly also wouldn't go in - even when you know what goes where, it is really really hard to make it happen. My Aha! moment came as a huge relief and pleasure. This is simply superb! I don't think that there are any spoilers in the photo but I have hidden it behind a button just in case.

This took me days!

Petit Box

Petit Box by Osanori Yamamoto

Another beautiful creation by Osanori-san made using Limba and a very vibrant Purpleheart.

Recently, Osanori-san has been designing a whole set of interlocking puzzles where board burrs pieces are locked inside a box frame. I have previously reviewed his Gem puzzle and the Slider 2 which is still available. Like Slider 2, this has four plates trapped inside the cuboidal frame and there is a lot of movement after the first few pieces have been moved. This puzzle is a very nice fun challenge. After that first exploration, the pieces move very freely and it is quite easy to get stuck in a loop. There are a few places where it looks like rotations begin but these are not useful to you. On several occasions, I thought I was getting quite close to the removal of the first piece but could not find the pathway and kept backtracking to the beginning. The fun part of playing with this (and it's predecessor) is that it opens up enough for you to be able to look inside the frame and see what is blocking your moves. In the end for me, I had to open the space inside right up and then plan a potential disassembly. After that, it was "just" a matter of utilising the space that I had to wind the peeves around each other. The removal of the first piece takes only 12 moves but it is a real challenge to find them. Reassembly is fun if you have memorised the positions and the pathway and quite possible from scratch if you have not and you are highly skilled.

4 plates and a frame.

Connecting Cubes

Connecting Cubes by Lucie Pauwels

There are 3 wonderful challenges by Lucie in this release by Pelikan and this one is delightfully colourful and a fun challenge for beginners and experts alike. It is very reminiscent of some of the wonderful challenges made by Vinco that I reviewed many years ago.

This consists of 8 cubes each of which has a unique arrangement of a slot cut out of one face and a connecting board on another face. The aim here is to make a 2x2x2 cube. There are also a few other possible simpler assemblies which you will find along the way. I think this is a perfect coffee table puzzle. It looks gorgeous and is something that no one could resist picking up and playing with. The best way to approach this is to actually think© about the different types of pieces and how they interact and allow the chain of cubelets to build up. I started off with random attempts at assembly and quickly realised that wasn't going to work for me. After that, I attempted an exhaustive search for the correct combination which also failed due to my inability to remember my previously attempted assemblies. Having discovered that that there is much more to this than meets the eye, I categorised the cubelets and established how the different subtypes interacted. After that, it took me another 5 minutes to assemble my cube. It is very pretty and I won't show you the solution!

Archipuzzle

Archipuzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie designs a whole gamut of different types of puzzle and this is a very different design to what I have seen before. It looks very simple like many of her designs but has just the right challenge level. This is very reminiscent of the extremely challenging Stuffing Burr from Dr Latussek (also still available). The aim is to take the 5 L-shaped notched sticks and assemble them in such a way that the notches are all filled. Lucie's version has 5 sticks which alters the challenge considerably. Each stick has the notches in a different set of orientations. Like most puzzles, I started with random assemblies to see what happened and how they all interact as the chains build up. Quite quickly I came to realise that the chains move further and further apart and then the final piece cannot possibly reach to bridge the gap. Then I realised that the alternative was to build a clump of pieces and hope the ends were close enough to reach each other and then also have the notches the correct orientation. Just as with all of Lucie's designs, this also doesn't work well and it actually requires a little analysis of the types of pieces and how to use them. All in all, this took me nearly an hour and I had my assembled chain. It's a fun thing to do and it's only a slight shame that the created shape is not particularly attractive for storage.

Oekanda

Oekanda by Lucie Pauwels

Oekanda by Lucie Pauwels has been beautifully crafted from Oak with Bubinga pieces. It is reminiscent of the Pin-up box from the February release which is an entry in this year's IPP design competition

The third challenge from Lucie in this release is a real fun one that also requires proper analysis for a satisfying solve. It is a packing puzzle but with a difference - the frame is extremely open and the pieces properly complex making it also an interlocking puzzle. It arrives with the pieces sort of randomly stuck in the frame and on taking the puzzle out of the packing bag, half of them fell out and I couldn't work out how to put them back.

These pieces are really quite complex which made me think it would not be too difficult a challenge to assemble into the 3x3x5 shape with 2 voxels sticking out into the frame. My confidence was misplaced! I found this to be a real challenge to create a shape. My random attempts failed (as usual) and then I realised that I had to think© about the shapes and what possible ways they could be oriented within that cuboid shape. Having realised this and starting to work more systematically on the shape and interactions, I was able to discount quite a few of my possible placements. After an hour of play, I had a major Aha! moment and found my assembly outside of the frame and then worked to place it inside. It really is quite lovely and a fun challenge. I have put the next picture behind a spoiler button - it's not much of a spoiler but don't look if you are worried about seeing too much:

Solved after a bit of analysis

Alma

Alma by Alfons Eyckmans

Alma has been made using Maple, Purpleheart and Wenge.

It would seem that no Pelikan release is complete without something wonderful from Alfons Eyckmans. He designs burr puzzles that are both beautiful and interesting to solve. The Alma looks like a very complex construction but is actually just a 6 piece burr made from L shaped plates. I cannot resist Alfons' burrs - there is always something fun to explore and this is no different. The pathway to the removal of the first piece is fairly well hidden but there are only a few relatively short blind pathways to get lost in and the removal of the first piece takes a fun 10 moves. After this it remains quite a stable construction (just a slight tendency for one piece to sag) and then another 4 moves to remove the next. 

6 very nice L-shaped plates

Having disassembled this over about an hour, I scrambled the pieces and left them for a while before attempting a reassembly. I thought that I had a reasonable memory of the process but somehow got stuck and kept going round and around in circles with one of the pieces continually being trivial to remove and not being interlocked as it should. It took me another hour to realise what I was doing wrong and get it back together. I definitely think that for the more advanced burr puzzler there is plenty of scope for this to be an assembly puzzle and for the "normal" ones amongst us (are any of us that normal?) this is a fun one to partially memorise and then work on the assembly from that. Of course entry of the pieces into Burrtools is also part of the fun.

New Horizon

New Horizon

The final, but definitely not the least impressive, of the puzzles in this release is New Horizon from Alfons Eyckmans made from Pink Oak and Wenge.

This is something new from Alfons - I initially thought that it was another of his interlocking burrs in the shape of a cube and oh boy! was I wrong! Some of Alfons' cube burrs are really really tough but this is a whole other level. It is not at all what I was expecting - it is not a disassembly puzzle, it is an assembly challenge and a very very tough one. To take the cube apart it just requires finding the correct places to put your fingers and the pieces just pull apart sequentially until you have 12 rather interesting shapes to analyse.

I removed the first 6 of the pieces and decided to put them back together to form the cube. Unfortunately, even with only a 50% disassembly, I could not seem to work out which pieces went where and in what order. Whilst looking for the entry point for the first of those 6 pieces, another one fell onto my pile and then I really was in trouble - I couldn't remember the order of any of them and quickly decided to complete the dismantling - it was quite a fun thing to do.

12 odd shapes

Having taken my photo I have embarked on an assembly challenge and so far have completely failed. There are notches and "sticking out bits" to analyse and which restrict how the pieces will fit together. Also the orientation of the 1x2x2 voxel oak protuberances which will ultimately form the corners can only fit together in certain ways. This will require quite a lot of analysis and I suspect, will end up with me resorting to Burrtools. But the clever ones amongst you should be able to assemble this from scratch - it will be a wonderful challenge. I will keep trying for a week or so before I resort to BT.

So what should you be buying from this release? Personally, I think they are all fabulous. My favourites have to be the Flop series from Dr Latussek - even with a small cheat they are a wonderful challenge with some brilliant Aha! moments. You should also pick up the remaining Tetra flop to ensure that you get the whole set. After that, I definitely enjoyed the Oekanda from Lucie and the Connecting cubes is perfect as a coffee table puzzle. If you are a burr fanatic then Alfons' puzzles are a delight and I adore these framed plate puzzles from Osanori.

There is something for everyone!

Octaballs - Never Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth...

It Might Bite You or Poke You or Frustrate You!

Octaballs by George Bell (kindly made by Allard)

At the beginning of the year Allard reviewed a nice little bunch of puzzles that he had made based on some new designs by George. He called them "diabolical" and I was intrigued. I have lusted after a full set of the Pennyhedron puzzles from the ever so slightly warped Australian dentist Stephen Chin (Ok he is more than slightly warped!) but have never managed to find them at a reasonable price and Chinny keeps threatening to fleece me when I have talked about buying them. George worked with Chinny on many of them and more recently has expanded the geometry to include a hybrid shape between an octahedron and a ball - hence the Octaball. I think there are quite a few new interlocking designs that he has found.

I commented on Allard's page that I am not allowed a 3D printer (apparently, I am told on good authority that arrival of one of these "terrible addictive devices" is grounds for divorce). I was thinking about asking George if I could buy a set from him when Allard let me know that he had made a second set and would let me have them. I thought that it was terribly good of him to preserve my marriage like that. They arrived in mid January and I had a look and admired the lovely materials that had been chosen for the printing. They have really improved over the years. Allard had bundled them all into a ziplock bag all together but had given me a list of the numbered pieces which belonged in each puzzle.

Later that week, one evening after work, I set to attempting the first assembly. I picked one at random. I couldn't work out which was going to be the easiest and chose the first with all 4 identical pieces. It is pretty easy to assemble the first 3 into the shape and can see how the last one will go in. Putting the bloody thing in, however, is another thing entirely! These things have teeth or pointy bits. As you probably know, these are coordinate motion assemblies and I am really not great at that sort of thing. You would think that with what I do for a living, I might find these relatively easy. Except that by and large, I don't do things that require multiple hands holding things in precisely the correct precarious position. I spent an hour attempting to assemble this first one and failed with a lot of swearing which upset Mrs S almost as much as the purchase of a 3D printer. I moved on to another one which had 4 different parts. There is no difficulty working out what goes where but actually doing it was really really tough. I failed on all 4 of them that night and for a little while had a sore thumb where I had managed to lever a pointy bit under a thumbnail.

Tyler had chimed in on Allard's post and had concluded that no human can assemble them without assistance from another helpful human and I was beginning to think he might be right. Allard maintains that Gill did not assist him but who trusts what Allard says about anything? I looked around the house to see if I could find a "helpful human" and there does not appear to be one of those living with me - I was doomed to fail, suffer sore thumbnails and swear a lot before receiving the laser stare and even a Whack! Ouch! On evening number 2, I juggled all the pieces using a hand to hold them and a thigh to prevent a piece falling out whilst I introduced the final piece and Aha! I had a result.

Over the next two evenings, I managed to assemble 3 pieces in, extend the coordinate motion out as far as possible whilst maintaining stability (with a couple of them, I had to work out which pieces were the best for this extension). Then I used various parts of my anatomy as a third hand/stabiliser as I extended beyond stability and finally introduced the fourth piece. I quickly realised that using my nose as a stabiliser was no use as I couldn't then focus close enough to see to introduce the next piece. Thighs seem to work best and one time the top of a sleeping cat's head did the trick. It took me over a week and I had some assembled Octaballs:

Phew! That was a bugger!

These have been sitting on my desk all assembled and looking lovely since then. Unfortunately, I have to chair several MS Teams meetings every month and having a nice big screen at home means it is better to work in my study than in my office in the hospital. The trouble with that is that, I have these lovely big worry-beads just a foot away from me whilst I chat to colleagues. I cannot help myself - I often pick them up and find it quite relaxing to gently start the coordinate motion off and slide them back and forth. Except...

A bloody cat jumped on my lap during one meeting frightening me half to death! The Octaball in my hands that was partially opened flew out of my hands and sprung apart on the floor. In my and his surprise, he shot of my lap and knocked another onto the floor disassembling it as well. The horror on my face was visible to everyone in my meeting. It may have been even harder to assemble them a second time! Aargh! They have been put away in one of the bookcases to prevent this happening again. 

Another gift horse came from Neal. When I bought the set of Dessert TICs he added in a couple of gifts to the package that he had 3D printed. Again, I am not allowed one of these and so I can only ever get these from other people. I reviewed the wonderful Screw burr in May and loved it. Also in the package was a copy of Screw Fit by Oskar:

Screw Fit by Oskar

It has also been beautifully made and is lovely and bright. It consists of a ring made of 4 pieces held inside a nut. There is nothing for it other than to try and screw the nut off the ring and it becomes immediately clear that odd things are happening. The different pieces move in all different directions until they suddenly fall out - OMG!

That wasn't very bright of me

After my initial pleased exclamation, I put the pieces in the bag and left it for a few weeks to try and forget the way they had been assembled/disassembled. 

I was able to work out several times what was required but actually doing it is less easy than it sounds. It would appear that this one also needs more than 2 hands i.e. a helpful second human which I don't have. In the end, after much "effing and blinding" this went together again with instructions to self:

"Don't do that again!"

Unfortunately, I don't often listen to myself and the worry bead thing happened again. I now have it in pieces next to me again and fully expect it to stay this way for a while. I am definitely not terribly bright - but the lovely shiny toys keep talking to me!

Thank you to both of my wonderful puzzling friends who have delighted and frustrated me for so long.

Aaron Proves That Einsteinian Insanity Works For Me!

Spear & Shield
designed by DDK and hand made by Aaron Wang

For the last few years Aaron Wang has offered a whole bunch of wonderful new disentanglement puzzles for sale before the IPP begins. Every year I buy a big bunch of them and over a very long period of time solve a couple and completely fail to solve all of the rest. I always thought that I was quite good at disentanglement puzzles but since virtually meeting Aaron I realise that I’m actually rubbish at them.

He ranks the difficulty level on a scale of 1 to 10 and then 10+ beyond that and almost every single puzzle that he sells seems to be 10 or +. It may very well be that this is the reason that I can’t solve the bloody things! However, this may not be true - below is the Telescope puzzle which, allegedly, is a level 7 and I can’t for the life of me get anywhere near solving it:

Just level 7? Not for me, it’s not!

The Spear and shield looks fairly simple.

There are just 2 moderately complex pieces that are interlinked and a single obvious exit point. There is no string, no hinge, nothing that even gives a hint of why this is a level 10+ puzzle.

The complicating factor for the design here is that each of the pieces is formed by a double loop and the starting position has both double loops interlocked with each other. To me, it just looked like a matter of sort unwinding them and moving from two interlocking loops to one and then off and this is what I set out to do…way back in August 2022 when they arrived.

Let’s just say that I have attempted to solve this every few months ever since then and gotten absolutely nowhere!

The advantage of a puzzle involving string is that there are so many wonderfully inventive ways that you can make the string interact with the wire holding it in place. Also the disadvantage of a puzzle involving string is that there are so many wonderfully inventive ways that you can make the string interact with the wire holding it in place. If you don’t have a quick reset mechanism then it’s easy to end up with a knot that can leave you with a dead puzzle after a bit of play. So here we have no string which means that the disadvantage of having lots of ways to destroy your puzzle have been removed but also that advantage mentioned above isn’t there and you have very limited number of ways to make the parts interact. I quickly found a very nice way to make the M shaped area interact with the exit point and this led to a little unwinding of the double interlock. However, it always seemed to lead to having a single wire tangled in a double.

For quite a long time, this was all I had. Supposedly, the likelihood of achieving a position that you cannot get out of is lower for pure wire puzzles. Well, I must be very talented because I got to a single wire interlock and couldn’t get back to the beginning or advance in the solution. I kept trying a couple of very promising sequences only to always return to my incorrect position. I couldn’t advance and I couldn’t backtrack! Aaargh! This "dead puzzle" condition continued for a month or two and I did the same moves over and over again and then one time, despite doing the same thing as always, I was back at beginning. Amazing Einsteinian insanity in practice! I have no idea what happened.

This week, I have been up in Edinburgh for a little bit of holibobs (including a few visits to the outlaws) and I brought a few toys with me to play with. The advantage of disentanglement puzzles is that they take up very little space. The spear and shield came out quite early on and I began my insane sequence…yet again! I got to my odd intermediate position and somehow was able to move back and forth this time from here to the beginning. I could not progress, however.

Until suddenly, I could! I have absolutely no idea what I did differently, but I had moved one locked wire out of place. Yet again, doing the same thing over and over again had ended up with a different result this one time!

I think I have discovered a new puzzle genre - the Quantum Puzzle!

Having moved one locked area to somewhere else, despite not understanding how, it was immediately clear what was required next. It was a bit awkward to achieve it without force but a few minutes later, I had a new photo!

Spear and Shield (no idea which is which)
And no idea how to put it back together again!

I was all flushed with success, I had a new photo to be taken and a story for my website but my new quantum puzzle has a problem. I have to assume that there is a paired puzzle somewhere else in the universe that is now in the starting position and this one is entangled with it. I’ll never get this back together until someone else (an alien maybe) solves the other one wherever it may be. I have tried to return this back to the starting position for most of the week and simply cannot do it. I guess it will take me another year and doing the same move over and over again until one day something different happens.

The Radiation From Walter's Radio Fried My Brain

Walter with his rather large radio

Yes, Dee Dixon has done it again! He sold me a new toy and it took me a very VERY long time to solve it and, sob!, I needed a nudge.

This beautiful toy matches the lovely Canarywood Walter that I have in my collection. It is made from iroko and jatoba woods and  measures 4.5 x 6.5 x 1.75 inches. This is a perfect size for all the manipulations that were needed for the solve…several of them were a bit fiddly. There are an amazing 20 steps in the full solution to it.

When it arrived I noticed a wedge of wood freely able to rattle about behind the speaker grille and I had to contact Dee to ask whether the rather rough postal service (the box had a bit of a big dent in it) had dislodged something - he reassured me that it was supposed to be there.

There is a story to go with the puzzle:

"When a wave of Angry Walters waged war on the world, we fought back valiantly, seeking to remove the cold fusion generators that fueled his robotic rage. Some of us succeeded, disabling the power sources in support of the sapien resistance; others struggled to make sense of the robotic systems, their patchwork patterns too puzzling, too complex to understand. The robots exploited this gap, continuing to grow in numbers as we humans faltered in the face of their fury. But the Walters soon faced a new dilemma: as they grew, so too did the need for an infrastructure that could sustain the new robotic world order. As humanity sought refuge online, sharing stories of the underground at war with our new overlords, offering advice to those who could not overcome the Walters' power, as we banded together, the Walters' world frayed at the edges, humanity chipping away at the cracks within. The Walters scrambled to fill in these gaps, developing new communications technology that allowed for the instantaneous transfer of information between synthetic minds. Such profound development rested on the invention of the Dimensional Electronic Divergence Chip (DED chip), a small component that disseminated data through tiny wormholes connecting the radio devices.

Humanity's hope faded as the radios allowed the robots to respond quickly to each battle, each spark of resistance snuffed out as soon as it surfaced. Humanity learned that the removal of the DED chip could turn the tides of the robopocalypse, diminishing the Walters' ability to communicate. But they knew that any such success would come at a great cost, and so they ensured that the removal of these chips would not be such a simple task. After humans stole what copies they could, they discovered that the removal and manipulation of the DED chip allowed them to transmit their own data, indistinguishable from that sent by the Walters, creating the opportunity to subvert their communications to humanity's own ends.

Human fighters recently secured a shipment of radios that are being shared across the global resistance movement. We must find our way through the robotic defenses built into the devices to remove the DED chip and undermine the Walters' newest weapon in the war for our world's future. Go forth and answer Walter's Radio!"

Now, that must be the longest spiel I’ve ever seen come with a puzzle! It can be summed up as use tools to dismantle the radio and remove a special chip. So where to start? Looking at it there are plugged holes on each edge of the puzzle and a push button on the back. Pushing all of these did absolutely nothing apart from wiggle a millimetre. 

The next thing I noticed was that the speaker grille could rotate freely and didn’t seem to engage with anything and then I realised that the wedge of wood inside was able to drop into one of two gaps on opposite sites of the grille. It takes a bit of dexterity to manipulate the wedge to where I needed it. Interesting! I guessed that I needed to find some way to make that wedge interact beyond that circular area. This led to a bit of exploration and 4 areas that would block further movement as the wedge fell further through. I found some positions did nothing and others seemed to manipulate something inside. This was fun. Very quickly I found that one of those interactions did something that gave me a new tool or at least a piece of the puzzle and left a hole.

And then it was less fun for a very very long time. As usual, I got in touch with my insanity and did the same things over and over and over again hoping for something different one time. Mrs S was convinced I had actually gone nuts because she watched me do them multiple times but tried in every orientation o could think of. Of course, nothing changed! I was on the verge of trying to do it in a handstand position or even submerging it in gin. I had noticed a few things of interest but they didn’t help for this current position. I was stuck…yet again!

Then, at the last Midlands Puzzle Party, I happened to walk by as the puzzle solving machine that is Louis Coolen was playing with a copy. He had got to the same point as me and had tried something that I hadn’t managed in several weeks/months. It wasn’t helping him but I instantly realised that I had already found something that would help him. I suggested what to do and it worked - Louis had found another puzzle piece and I had a plan to take home with me. That very evening after I got home from the MPP, I gushed about what a great time I had had and immediately picked up the radio and managed the next step.

Of course, I got stuck again! Removing the two pieces that I had so far led to something very tempting and I pushed another piece that looked like it may have interacted with the previous two. It pushed a little way in but stopped sharply after a little way and nothing else happened. I then had a brainwave (or brain fart) and manipulated other things to give me some extra space and pushed even further. Needless to say, it didn’t do anything useful and got wedged in place quite hard. I had locked the puzzle up! Aaargh! The instructions say that no banging is allowed but there had to be banging to reverse my stupidity. It would probably be best if Mrs S bashed some sense I to me occasionally.

Yes, stuck again. I had 2 pieces, a few things I had already worked out I could manipulate and nothing helped. I stayed like this working my inner insanity again for the best part of 2 weeks. I even drew a diagram of what I had found and what I thought might be happening inside. At this point, I did one of my usual moves but was holding the puzzle differently and I saw what one of my moves was doing. Oddly, I have always held the puzzle in a certain way and had not been looking at the opposite side whilst doing my insanity thing. This time I was hoping it differently and noticed the effect of a manipulation. Little empty bwain creaked into activity and I thunk to myself - "what if I…?" 

The Ded chip

I had another tool! This tool was going to need a bit of dexterity to use but I figured that if I tried the move that had landed me I trouble earlier but using the new tool then I might get somewhere. It certainly did something but the move was visibly locked. This time I, and my diagram, had a solution to that locking mechanism. A bit of fiddling and another tool followed by another and another. Now I had quite a few pieces that were of interest to a cat and I had to put them in a plastic bag. The moves were flowing now and from here I managed to find the final moves and deactivate the evil radio. All this was done in a single evening with me getting more and more excited and Mrs S getting more and more fed up with my muttering and shouts!

This puzzle was an absolutely wonderful odyssey! I didn’t count the moves but the 20 that is in the description from Dee is just the right number. There are a couple of very hard to figure steps which may be my stupidity or may be because they are so well hidden. Once found, there is definitely progress before the next halt occurs and some real thought is required. In all, this probably took me 15 - 20 hours of intermittent fiddling (even if quite a lot of that was Einsteinian repetition). The final sequence was genius and beautifully setup. The craftsmanship here is astonishing. Every piece is perfectly made to lock and interact with others. This has put Dee's work on my "must have" list.

Walter's radio deactivated with the makers mark shown

A Gift That Was Fun and Gifts That Are Humbling

Boxed Six Board Burr by Frans de Vreugt

The Dutch tend to be pretty amazing puzzlers! I know several and work with quite a few to produce the CFF journal and they never cease to amaze me with their skill, knowledge and sheer bloody-minded persistence at solving things. I hope, one day, to be as good a puzzler as the Dutchmen (and woman) that I have met. I doubt very much that I will manage it but I'll keep on trying!

At the last MPP, Frank was thinning out some of his puzzle collection (only the ones that aren't part of his particular special interest, Kumike and Journet puzzles) and he handed me a couple of IPP exchange puzzles. Both of them had been given by Frans de Vreugt. The Boxed six board burr was one of Frans' own designs which had been made in association with Buttonius and given away in 2004 at the Tokyo IPP (24). I did not realise properly what it was because it had been packaged with 4 of the burr plates in the frame. After I took that assembly apart and realised that the pieces are really quite simple, I was very attracted to it. I am awful at assembly form scratch and board burrs are particularly difficult for me. I have had the RIPley board burr next to me on my desk for the last 3 years and have not even come close to assembling it!

RIPley by Andrew Crowell and made by Brian Menold
I just cannot solve it despite years of attempts!

So with some trepidation, I began fiddling with the boxed burr earlier this week - I figured that with such simple pieces, I might actually stand a chance. It is very portable being only 35mm across and easily pocketable for fiddling at work. Unfortunately, I seem to specialise in very  major surgery these days and I have to keep my concentration 100% on what is going on - I kept taking the puzzle out to play and quickly realised that I couldn't do it at work. In the evenings, I had better luck and managed to find a nice logical assembly of the board burr outside of the box and attempted to repeat the assembly with the box. Oh dear, the slots in the faces of the box are very restrictive and my "beautiful" assembly wouldn't work. At this point I seemed to have some blinkers on and I couldn't find an alternative assembly for a couple of hours over 3 evenings whilst watching TV with Mrs S. Eventually I found an assembly that looked like it might just work - after carefully arranging the pieces in the right order I set to work and assembled the puzzle:

Assembled - very simple and very clever

I kept it assembled for a few days until I had time to take my photo and then discovered that I couldn't take it apart. It's quite humid and hot in the UK at the moment and some puzzles are getting a little tight. This was a little tight but the internal edges were not bevelled and moves had to be perfectly aligned to get them to move. I had found one move but the second move would not happen. It took me a rather frantic hour to find that a different piece needed to move first and then it could be disassembled. Just a little gift from a friend - it was great fun and a lovely challenge.

Quantum Entanglement designed by Pit Khiam Goh

Another present from Frank at the MPP was the boxed 6 piece burr very reminiscent of the Internal combustion burr made from metal that I reviewed way back in 2011 except this has 6 sticks that lay across each other in 2 groups of three. When I took the photo, I thought that the aim was to find a way to insert the two loose burr sticks into the puzzle as it had been given out. I did have a quick fiddle and it looked to me like the pieces that were in the box were actually captive. Doh! I am not terribly bright, though. After my success with the boxed burr, I properly looked at this and realised that it would be impossible to insert the other two pieces in this configuration. I then spent 10 minutes and removed all the pieces (eejit that I am I forgot to take another pic!). I then looked into how these pieces could be positioned that might form an assembly. I did find a few and realised that I was in trouble. If I could easily find a few ways to orient the pieces that might work then there were probably going to be quite a lot and I would never be able to work out which was the right one let alone find a 48 move assembly.

I was not particularly upset by this as some puzzles just need Burrtools and I find that whole process really quite fun (I know that George Miller considers it perfectly acceptable to play with BT as a solution method). I programmed in the pieces and it spat out a solution in about 3 or 4 minutes. I had been correct to give in so fast - there are 964 assemblies and only one solution! I assembled the puzzle using BT and was amazed at the beautiful interplay of the pieces - the box literally is only there to keep them all in the correct planes. I have kept it assembled and will work on a disassembly at a later date but I fully expect this to be a rumblingly impossible experience for me!

The WDIGMI Xmas puzzle from Tanner Reyes (made by Tye Stahey)

I had admired the Xmas question mark puzzle on Facebook a while ago but had not bought a copy because I figured that it would be too difficult for me. Tanner saw my admiring comment and had a copy left over and he generously decided to send me a copy as a gift. 

Tanner burst onto the puzzling scene with his incredible YouTube channel "What Did I Get Myself Into". In it he shows off some of the most complex and beautiful puzzles that have ever been produced and does it with humility and humour showing off his huge enjoyment in this crazy pastime we have gotten trapped doing. His collection is pretty awe-inspiring and having started puzzle design and teamed up with Tye from Nothing yet designs. The puzzle had obviously been made for Tanner to give away as Christmas presents and mine arrived complete with a lovely wooden Christmas label. I put it down for the week whilst I played with the supposedly simpler puzzles above and have been working on it yesterday evening and today.

There are 7 pieces to fit inside the question mark and three holes in the top to place them through. Except the bottom hole is too small to insert any pieces through and must be there to allow manipulation and orientation as the pieces slide down. This puzzle is lovely to play with and very tactile. So far I have gone through the gamut of randomly inserting pieces and moving them into random positions, randomly inserting pieces and moving them into specific positions and finally trying to assemble a reasonable shape outside the puzzle frame in the hope that I will find at least something that might possibly fit. I doubt very much that I will mange this but it is gorgeous to look at and beautifully made. I do not know whether it can be solved using Burrtools - I suspect that the holes in the top mean that rotations will be needed but if I ignore those then I might at least find an assembly or two. First of all, I will need to work out how to use the non-rectilinear grid in BT. Again, humbled by the generosity and brains of my fellow puzzlers. I wish I was as good at solving these things as people think I am.

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I was delighted to receive the Burrtools file for the Sher-lock - a notched Trifecta direct from Girish himself. I had tried to find an assembly for the puzzle with the key pointing frontward but despited finding several possibilities, there was no way that I would be able to put it together. My plan is to assemble it using BT by my side and then leave it for a while before attempting the disassembly myself without having any memory. As expected with all of Eric's creations it is gorgeous in this orientation:

Time to work on taking this apart.

Also - for those of you who have purchased the "Ode to the Bevel" puzzle by Dr Latussek from Pelikan, a correspondent of mine who is exceptionally talented has found a second solution to the puzzle. It is very clever even if not quite as elegant. If you have solved it one way then you should look for the other  solution. I love it when this happens as it gives you much more bang for your buck. I do hope that another run of these will be made - it is a terrific puzzle.

Tough For Me - A Real Strugg L

Strugg L by Junichi Yananose

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

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

Just 2 moves!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Burrly Legal Cylindrical 18 piece burr

A stunning 18 piece burr which took years to develop

Ali's Bolt

The Rhombic Maze Burr

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