It was only
a month ago
that I wrote about the last release from Jakub, Jaroslav and team's
Pelikan puzzles. At that time they had beautifully reproduced the first 4 in the Minima series
designed by the incredible
Frederic Boucher. This time the next 8 are here in yet another gorgeous selection of
woods and you really need to add them to your collection. The four from the
last release that I have written about are
stillavailableasindividual
puzzles or a
set of four. There is a Minima 13 but only so far only released by Frederic himself
and Tye Stahly) it is possible that will also become available in the future as well.
From Nothingyetdesigns
Original from Frederic XIII
If they are going to be released like the last set then they should be in
sets of four as well as single puzzles. The wood choices are perfect:
Minima 5 - Limba and Bubinga
Minima 6 - Ash and Ovangkol
Minima 7 - Wenge and Maple
Minima 8 - Ovangkol and Zebrano
Minima 9 - Acacia, Padauk and Wenge
Minima 10 - Zebrano, Purpleheart and Maple
Minima 11 - Merbau and Padauk
Minima 12 - Bubinga and Acacia
Obviously, like the rest of the Minima puzzles, the aim is to pack the
pieces into the box and leave it so that no gaps are visible through either
the large holes, small finger holes or slots that facilitate rotational
moves (if the number of voxels is less than the 12 that would completely
fill the box). Continuing with the pathway that the first four took, these
get progressively more difficult but are always very fun to solve. The
rotations are beautifully facilitated by the various holes and slots cut
into the box and no force is needed. Some of the rotations are really quite
tricky to work out and in several puzzles there are multiple rotations for
one piece. As before, the wooden box makes the challenge much more difficult
as you cannot see what is happening inside once a piece or two have been
placed. I had not managed to solve Minima 8 in the acrylic box version
despite months of trying
after receiving them in September last year. Minima 8 doesn't look like too much of a
challenge with 3 simple L-shaped tri-ominos and a single 3 voxel straight
stick but there I had huge problems with it and was gratified when a couple
of correspondents agreed that it was a really difficult puzzle.
Minima 9 and 10 are slightly different having pieces of 2 colours and whilst
packing is the aim, the difference is that with Minima 9 the puzzler has to
place them so that only one of the colours is visible through the holes in
the box (for that one there are 2 solutions - one for each colour).
Interestingly, I found one colour quite a bit harder than the other. Minima
10 has only one solution and needs to have only the vibrant Purpleheart
visible from outside of the box. Minima 11 and 12 are very deceptive having
relatively simple pieces and quite a lot of large holes in the box but they
are also a huge challenge - almost as difficult as number 8. They both took
me 2 or 3 days to solve but at least not the several months of the
former.
These puzzles are so much fun and this explains why I have a
HUGE collection
of these Minima puzzles of varying types and from various designers.
Basically I will purchase any of them when released to add to my
collection. I would say that these are ESSENTIAL purchases for
anyone seriously into packing puzzles - they are stunningly beautiful and
a fabulous challenge and the Pelikan team have made them so well!
The other puzzle being released by Pelikan alongside the 8 Minimas is the Empire burr by Jorgos Anastasou. This beautiful and complex 11 piece burr is presented as a rather dense block structure with a sort of dome on the top as would be seen on an emperor's palace. It has been made with a lovely set of woods (Padauk, Wenge, Acacia, Purpleheart and Maple for the vertical sticks forming the dome and a very warm Cherry for the walls). The first move is very well hidden partly because the pieces are quite snug and it required a good bit of pushing, prodding and pulling to find what could move. Once you have found the first move then it is quite quick to remove the first piece (there are just 5 moves required to separate it from the puzzle) but removing the next piece will prove a considerable challenge. It is only another 7 moves but finding the correct ones was very difficult for me. I went round and around in circles for a long time failing to find a critical move until I found it quite by accident. Unfortunately I did not notice what I had done until I realised that new positions were available to me and I was completely unable to backtrack! After a good half-hour of trying to return to the start, I gave up and continued with the disassembly which was great fun as it remains pretty stable right to the end. The final disassembly level is 5.7.1.2.3.2.2.2.1.2 which doesn't look terribly challenging but for me it is just right!
Reassembly required me to have a lot of fun with Burrtools but I think that those of you who remembered your pathway might manage without it and the genii amongst you might just manage to put it together from scratch.
Jorgos is really designing some fantastic puzzles and I am so pleased that Jakub is agreeing to make them available to us in such fancy woods. This one will look stunning on display in your collection.
It's always a great but scary day in the PuzzleMad HQ when a big blue box
arrives from the Czech Republic! I am always delighted to see the delivery man
(and he seems pleased to see me too) but Mrs S is much less happy about it. She
knows that there will be a pile of puzzles lying around for a while to be solved
and me making funny noises and pained faces as I struggle to solve them within a
deadline. She always complains about the progressive buildup of toys but I think
they look gorgeous and also they keep me out of mischief which should make her
happy. Whack! Ouch!....or maybe not!
The delivery this time included:
Minima 1 to 4 from Frederic Boucher
Minima Smiley from Frederic Boucher in Acrylic as well as a re-release of
the wood version
L'Escargot from Jorgos Anastasou
Farmacia by Dr Volker Latussek
Minima One to Four
The first four Minima puzzles
Now this is very exciting! I have
previously written
about the Minima series from Frederic Boucher. I do seem to have reviewed quite a
lot of his puzzles over the last year or so - he is just so talented at
creating designs that are simple looking but having a tremendous yet still
accessible challenge. Here is another chance for you to get a copy of the
whole set of 12 Minima puzzles over the next few releases. They were
originally released by
Tye Stahly and sold out completely more than once. Apparently these are quite
difficult to manufacture and both Tye and Jakub have stated that they are
really tough.
Jakub and Jaroslav plan to create these in batches of 4 to be bought as a
set or individually. This month will start with the first 4 which are
definitely a great challenging introduction to the series. They have been
created with a bunch of different woods which make them stunning on display.
They are made with the following wood combinations:
Minima 1 - Elm and Wenge
Minima 2 - Walnut and Acacia
Minima 3 - Purpleheart and Ash
Minima 4 - Jatoba and Padauk
The aim is to pack all the pieces into the boxes with all holes covered when
packed. Like most of Frederic's puzzles, some very interesting and hard to
find rotations are required. They get progressively more difficult from
Minima 1 to 4 and are made all the harder with the Pelikan versions because
having a wooden box which you cannot see through means that you really have
to plan your approach before starting to place the pieces inside. After the
second piece is inserted it gets increasingly difficult to place others and
you cannot see what is causing the blockage. Also the precision of the
manufacture and the fact that the wooden box is less slidey than acrylic
ones means that any rotations need to be very precisely placed or
they will not work.
I had to solve all four of them again from scratch as I had no recollection
of the solutions from before (don't tell Mrs S that I only need about 10
puzzles to be solved over and over again!) They are such fun and this
explains why I have a HUGE collection of these Minima puzzles of
varying types and from various designers. Basically I will purchase any of
them when released to add to my collection. I would say that these are
ESSENTIAL purchases for anyone seriously into packing puzzles - they are
stunningly beautiful and a fabulous challenge!
Minima Smiley
Acrylic version
Re-released wooden version
The Minima Smiley was first released in December of last year and along with
the rest of the Boucher Minima's made it to my Top 10 puzzles of the year.
It was so good I actually spent several paragraphs gushing about how it
challenged me and scared me half to death as the magnets inside caused
various things to clack together unexpectedly. This time the Pelikan team
are re-releasing the original version in wood (Mahogany and Maple with a
Yellowheart smiley ball) and also an identical one with a see-through
acrylic box and Bubinga pieces. They both solve the same way but obviously
one is solved blind by deduction and the other is entirely visible. The
solution is fabulous and classic Boucher with a wonderful set of Aha!
moments.
Which should you buy? The wooden one is the most puzzling but the
see-through version is wonderful to watch as you manipulate the pieces. You
obviously need both in your collection!
L'Escargot
L'Escargot by Jorgos Anastasou
This is the second puzzle for
Jorgos Anastasou and is a wonderful animal shaped burr. We have a wonderful snail which
is asymmetric like the delicious escargot we can eat. This is different
to Pelikan's earlier snail puzzle of their own design which is more of a
sequential assembly/disassembly puzzle.
Pelikan have made this with a wonderful smooth and tactile Walnut and Zebrano
shell and an Ash body (there are some Wenge eyes too).
Obviously, the aim is to dismantle it and then reassemble it. Of course, the next part of the fun is creating your own Burrtools file for it as well. Maybe you can manage the reassembly before the BT file? The disassembly is a fun sequence of moving parts of the shell as well as the body around and gradually you can see an opening come into play which will allow the first piece to be removed. Even after removing the first piece it is still a challenge to remove the next and then the others are much simpler. The disassembly sequence is a perfect level 14.11.4.3 giving you some rather complex looking pieces:
Huge fun
I actually managed to keep the pieces in a reasonable orientation and position to be able to reassemble without resorting to a BT file but I doubt I could do it if I had scrambled the pieces. I am sure that all of you would easily manage to do it though.
Farmacia
Farmacia by Dr Volker Latussek
This is not even a complete disassembly
The Farmacia by Dr Latussek is absolutely gorgeous with a box made from Acacia and vibrant Padauk pieces to be placed inside.
It arrived with the pieces formed into a cube that slotted into the box but did not fit flush to the bottom. The aim is to remove the cube of pieces and reassemble it into the box so that they all sit flush with the top of the box.
Only when I took the first few pieces out did I realise why it was standing proud - each of the packing pieces are L-shaped Triominoes. Each of these triominoes has a central cubie which is solid and attached at each end to two others. One end-cubie has a hole drilled into one of the faces and the other end-cubie on the other end has a protruding short dowel which fits inside the drilled holes (these are also at varying positions on the faces). There is also a single hole in the centre of the base of the box and a single dowel in the centre of one wall (pictured left).
This puzzle is not for the faint-hearted! Having taken the pieces out of the box for my photo, I couldn't actually recreate the cube shape to get them all back in again. So far I have been experimenting with the various ways that these can be assembled into shapes and how to build up bigger shapes. I suspect that this will be a huge logic puzzle very similar to the Logical Progression puzzle from the late Eric Fuller which took me over a year to solve. This will require some proper thought and planning to solve. So far I have not managed anything yet but I will keep at it. So should you, it is beautiful and a very tough challenge.
Last week I
wrote in frustration
about the final one in the numbered Minima series (number XIII or as Allard
would make it - XXXXLIII). I have owned this one (from Frederic himself) for 4
years and a delightful portable plastic version from
Tye (if you ask him nicely, he might make some more). I had failed and failed
on this and eventually owned up to it as a catharsis on my little corner of
t'internet.
Of course, as soon as I confess to the puzzling world about how useless I am
at packing puzzles, disentanglement puzzles, boxes etc, I have one of those
wonderful Aha! moments. This time was no different. The day after my
confession, I was working from home chairing a meeting and then in the
afternoon we had our departmental Morbidity and Mortality meeting was held on
MS Teams (No I didnt have to confess to any mortality!) I tuned in from
the comfort of my conservatory with a pile o'puzzles next to me. My colleagues
are now used to me playing with toys during these meetings and I get quite a
few comments from people when I solve a particularly fearsome twisty during
the meeting. For some reason, they think I'm some kind of genius and they are
unaware of quite how bad my failure rate is.
The pieces of Minima XXXXXXXXXCIII were in a pile waiting to be put away and I
couldn't resist another period of self flagellation and set to work again.
This time, after a few minutes of trying the same tricks over and over again,
I looked at the slanted cut on the tetromino and wondered to my self:
"Self, what could you do with this odd cut?"
Suddenly a new idea hit my rather like the back of Mrs S' hand and I found a
new and interesting possible movement that I hadn't thought to try before. It
was too beautiful a move to be anything like chance - it had to be designed
in. Suddenly, this made me look at the slanted cuts in the two triominoes, and
again I was slapped on the back of the head - these pieces could be positioned
in such a way that the fancy first move would slide by. Oh wow! What an
incredible idea!
All that was left was to use the more conventional Minima type rotational
moves to set everything up. It's a rather gorgeous sequence of moves to end up
with all the pieces packed into the box and almost left me gasping with
delight.
Four years of puzzling!
The Minima 13 was the first of the series I received and was, I assume, the last
of the series that Frederic designed. To my mind it is the very pinnacle of the
Minima puzzle design - if you don't have a copy yet then try and find one to
complete your collection (I assume that you have the rest of the set from
Pelikan???) In
the title of my post this is the "sublime".
The look of exultation on my face when I finally solved it during our
departmental meeting did not go unnoticed! I saw a few colleagues grinning and
got a couple of messages. It was time to carry on with some more of them.
The Minima series from Frederic is really quite extensive now. Not only has
Frederic expanded beyond the original 13, others have jumped on the bandwagon
and seen the huge possibilities of "simply" packing a 2x2x3 box with smaller
pieces that may or may not require rotations. Lucie Pauwels, is a very prolific
designer who has appeared on these pages
many many times. Lucie decided to try her hand at Minima design and here is one that I have
had sitting waiting but not tried due to lack of time. It's the the Minima Nest which I purchased from Tye at the end of last year. It is also currently
sold out but again, if you ask nicely, maybe more can be printed. Lucie took the
standard 2x2x3 box and stood it on its end and then shifted each of the 3 layers
a half voxel sideways. She then took some simple pieces and shifted several of
them a half voxel across as well.
Solved it in a single afternoon! Maybe I'm getting better at puzzles?
That puzzle was ridiculous - so clever but not too hard.
Finally we return to another sublime one - it's probably a bit ridiculous
too!
Minima Twig by Frederic Boucher
Frederic hasn't finished with the Minima designs! This one was released
around the time of the last IPP and produced again by Tye of
NothingYetDesigns. It's also sold but there's no harm in you all sending him thousands and
thousands of emails clamouring for a remake. It has also been sitting in my
pile to be solved in the conservatory (yes, Mrs S is not really happy at how
many piles I have dotted around the house). I still had another hour of
meeting to go and therefore picked up a third challenge of the afternoon.
The Minima Twig again consists of the standard 2x2x3 box but in this case
there is just a single entry hole in one corner and each of the six faces
has either a single drilled hole or a track the diameter of the hole. There
are 6 domino pieces to be placed made from a choice of woods (I cannot
remember what the one above is) and with a steel pin in the centre of a
single voxel on each of the 6 pieces effectively making triominoes. There
are 3 L shapes and 3 straight lines. Obviously each of the metal pins is
intended to protrude from a hole drilled in the box. Rotations are allowed.
Placing the pieces in the box and posting the pin through the holes can
restrict the movement of the pieces and cause blockages. This will require
careful planning. I found that the requirement to pierce the holes made it
much easier to work out possible assemblies and then in my head working out
whether a disassembly would be possible was quite fun. There is a wonderful
critical sequence to rotate pieces into the box that is required and within
about 45 minutes I had my third puzzle of the afternoon solved. I
personally found that my afternoon Mortality and Morbidity meeting was
a very productive time. Maybe I should ask the bosses to allow us to have
more frequent meetings to get me out of the operating theatre so I can play
with my toys.
Three in one afternoon!
Speaking of operating theatres, I am in one just now doing a trauma list -
Trauma doesn't stop and weekends. I have written this in advance and set it
to auto publish. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing? I hope that you all
have had a wonderful puzzling weekend.
Toweringly Clever...Definitely Not Minima-lly Challenging
Minima Tower by Frederic Boucher - still available from
Pelikan
Last week I reviewed the latest puzzles from Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan puzzles
site. They went on sale on Thursday and a few very quickly sold out. What really
surprised me was that the
Minima Tower
did not sell at all well and I sort of blame myself a little. I had 7 puzzles to
review in just under 2 weeks and all I could do in my review was describe it and
tell how great Frederic is. I should have done better and I apologise for that.
My only excuse is that I seem to have been working 6 days a week for over a
month.
Minima Tower is a packing puzzle from an amazing designer with an incredible
track record of fabulous designs. I missed out on getting hold of the
complete Minima series
from Tye Stahly's
Nothing Yet Designs
store and am still kicking myself about it ever since it sold out. I was so
glad to receive one of the newer designs in the series and really think that
you all owe it to yourselves to get a copy as well.
Visitor Q
Jammed Gem (remains unsolved)
Other incredible designs by Frederic
I have taken this one to work with me since Monday and played in evenings as
well. Believe me, it is a huge challenge despite having only 4
triominoes to pack inside a 2x2x3 space within a 2x2x4 box. Ultimately,
Frederic intended it that the packed pieces form a solid shape at the bottom
of the tower almost like a lift in lift-shaft (elevator to the
Americans). These would not be any fun if the assembly wasn't restricted by
being forced to place the pieces through a 1x2 voxel hole in the top of the
lift-shaft. This puzzle is a LOT of fun!
The box has 5 strategically placed square holes in the side which must be
there for a reason. The reason may be either that a piece needs to be
protruded through to allow others to move or that the hole facilitates a
rotation of a triomino within the tower. The dimensions of the box are tight
enough that the required rotations are completely impossible without
utilising at least one hole in the cage wall. There are luckily a finger
holes in every other position to allow you to manipulate the pieces inside.
It is still a bit fiddly. Interestingly, some (in fact almost all) of the
rotations that look inviting are impossible to achieve despite the holes.
This means that the orientation of the cage when you begin the process is
also critical and gives you 4 possible ways to try what you want to do. I
had to take some notes to keep track of what I had done.
After 3 days, I had hit a brick wall and wondered whether I was ever going
to solve it and then I noticed something very clever. The placement of the
holes allows a very interesting move to be carried out and suddenly a whole
new area of the assembly was available to me. Oh boy! That Mr Boucher is an
evil genius! I can formally pronounce that he joins Derek in the hall of
geniuses. I am rather ashamed to say that solving this puzzle took me a whole week
of attempts and a fair bit of swearing under my breath. The solution is
nothing short of beautiful. Even the great
Dr Latussek
has agreed that utilising holes in the side of the box for fun puzzle
assembly
adds an interesting
dimension to solving a puzzle and if he says so then everyone should agree.
Finally I can show off the completed puzzle:
Solved at last. No real spoilers here.
This puzzle is absolutely fabulous! If you didn't buy it because I hadn't managed to review it properly then I apologise. Go back to the Pelikan site and add it to your collection.
Now, I really must get hold of a few more of the Minima series - Frederic has said that he is designing a whole bunch more.
I couldn't resist it - the first 12 Minima puzzles from
Tye Stahly
Yes, I bought them! After Allard showed them off several months ago and waxed
lyrical about them, I couldn't resist. Of course, the fact that these were
designed by Frederic Boucher was of critical importance - he is brilliant! I was
gutted to hear from Tye that they were out of stock and he had no plans to make
any more due to the sheer amount of work that goes into them. I had to accept it
but asked that I be kept on a list that if he ever does change his mind then I
can be considered for them. It seems that Tye uses slave labour to make them -
the present wife gets forced periodically to work at puzzle production! She does
seem to have some say in the matter and maybe he is as frightened of his Mrs S
as I am of mine. Luckily for me, she said that she would consider making another
batch a few weeks ago and I immediately PayPalled herhim some
dollars and they flew across the pond very quickly thereafter. Yay!
These are miniature puzzles - if you have very big fat fingers then they
might not be for you but I am a delicate flower with fine fingers and they
are perfect (if not a little fiddly). The diminutive size keeps the price
down a bit, thank goodness!
Usually with packing puzzles from
Osanori-san
or
Alexander-san
I start assembling the shape outside the box and work out how to assemble the
shape through the limited opening but with these, the final shape is so simple
that it didn't seem to help. The limited entry-hole also wasn't a help as the
knowledge of complex rotations meant that the ability to insert only one way
had no bearing on the final positions. With every single one of them I had to
use a completely different approach - I needed to look at the box first and
then insert a piece and see how the odd hole positions allowed me to rotate
the piece. I did this with each of the pieces to find what was possible and
then only after that use the knowledge to assemble the puzzle in the box.
Really fun challenge!
I carried on like this during my meeting working them out one at a time.
Minima 2 was probably the easiest
The fun thing is that I have absolutely no recollection of how I had done them.
During the meeting I managed the first 3 and took them apart again each time.
Little fist pump of success each time and I put it away. Of course, a puzzle is
not solved until it is repeatedly solved.
Such fun!
To my shame, I found that I was completely unable to do them again with any
speed despite having done them only 24 hours earlier. Wow! This means that they
have longevity and will be great for a collection being able to bamboozle others
and also yourself repeatedly.
It's odd how they never look difficult but really are
By the time I got to the Minima 3, I felt that I was on a roll and maybe
learning some techniques. This one was a challenge but solved quicker that the
previous two.
Another solved within my meeting Maybe I should have been paying
more attention?
The last I tried that day
The final one I worked on was the Minima 4 and I failed. It looks really
simple with only planar pieces but it seems to be a significant challenge. The
planar pieces do mean that there are more possible 2x2x3 assemblies but the
tetromino is very restricted in the way it can be inserted and I quickly
established that it was impossible to rotate it within the box. This leaves the
rotations being for the other smaller pieces. The interesting thing here is the
holes that facilitate the rotations. There are 2 special holes being just slots
that are off centre. It took me several days to work out the various ways that
the pieces could be rotated and surprisingly they were still quite restricted
within the despite their simple shapes.
The solution to the Minima 4 took me an extra 3 days!
Blush.
3 days of work/play
These puzzles are just amazing! I cannot wait to start work on the rest but I now have to take a break and work my way through the latest of the Pelikan puzzles that I have received (keep your bank balances full for them because they look amazing!
If you get a chance to play with the Minima puzzles then you definitely should. I personally think that the puzzle community should harangue Tye and his Mrs S to make a whole bunch more. They are terrific value and really fun puzzles. Thank you Mrs S, Tye and Frederic for this fabulous opportunity.
I apologise for last week...I appear to have had Covid for the second time and
it's just as nasty as ever! The only difference for me this time is that I had
to obey the government's instructions and continue working with it if I was
physically able. So having been poleaxed on Sat/Sun, I continued to go to my
usual Monday meetings via Teams and then back to the operating theatre after
that. I was told on a few occasions by colleagues that I looked shocking (and even once by a patient)
but I soldiered on wearing my mask to protect others - not really sure how effective that will have been but that's the instructions. I'm currently on day 8 and
still feeling pretty hellish but am at least more functional. Mrs S, on the other hand
is convinced that I am trying to murder her with the virus. Only another week to
go before we feel a bit better. Stay safe out there guys, it's still not a
trivial thing.
On to the puzzling...
It has reached the point now that my friend
Tye Stahly, knows what sort of puzzling I like and contacts me with news of things he
is making that I will want to buy when they are released. He is a savage
businessman as my PayPal keeps emptying into his bank account! Having fallen
for the Minima challenge set by Allard and
Frederic Boucher
a
few weeks ago, I couldn't resist it when Tye showed me that another renowned puzzle
designer had jumped on the bandwagon with the Minima series and found some
other wonderful challenges. One of the best designers in the world,
Laszlo Molnar had decided that this was a good format. I have raved about many of
Laszlo's puzzles over the years and been encouraged about them by my sadly
missed friend,
Felix, who saw the incredible talent and encouraged me to try them and even made
me a whole load of them himself.
The Fibonacci name could only mean one thing:
Fibonacci 1 pieces
Fibonacci 2 pieces
Yep! The Fibonacci series - polyomino sizes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 all to be fitted
into the 2x2x3 box to ensure that all the holes are covered (in fact the box
is packed tight). Having said that the name makes sense, I am a little
mystified about number 3:
Fibonacci 3 pieces Still has 12 voxels but it just doesn't add up!
Tye has made them using his usual multicoloured wooden blocks and beautifully
cut acrylic sheets - I am informed that it is actually Tye's own Mrs S who makes
these and for that he is a very lucky man. I couldn't resist playing with them
as soon as I was physically fit enough to concentrate on anything other than my
chest. They are just as confusing as ever with the requirement to assemble
shapes outside the box first being important and then gradually working out how
to get the bigger pieces inside and what constraints they would have on fitting
in the small ones. Just because there were single and dual voxel pieces does not
necessarily make these easier - the 5 voxel shapes are very restricting and take
up a lot of space inside. The requirement for rotations makes for a lovely
challenge and interestingly, one of these is solved using linear movements only.
I won't spoil it for you by saying which one.
Not to be outdone, the original Minima designer, Frederic Boucher, has
extended his design prowess into flat (2D) versions - except the solution is
most definitely not restricted to 2 dimensions. Not content with making me
rotate blocks around in a box, Frederic has designed a tray packing puzzle -
Flat Minima which is still available:
Flat Minima
In this wonderful little challenge the aim is to fit all the pieces inside the
tray. Again, there is a limited entry way (in fact there are 2) and rotations
are required. The end result is to achieve a 2D image of a 2x2x3 block inside
the "box".
How hard can it be? Well, I know that I am awful at tray packing puzzles and
this has the added challenge of restricted entry and rotations as well as a
viral infection - I figured I was buggered!
The first thing to do as usual is make your shape and that wasn't actually too
hard. Next, work out a possible order of piece insertion. Finally, insert the
bloody things. Erm! It's not quite that simple. The hole in the front and the
side is not big enough to actually insert the pieces. This is why it's not
really a 2D puzzle. The insertion of at least 2 requires rotational moves in
the third dimension and can be quite confusing for am an of my limitations.
Having achieved that, I worked on the remaining pieces and noticed that there
is not a lot of room left after the first couple are in for the remainder to
move about. The Aha! moment with this one is lovely. It probably only took me
about a ½ hour but it was a delightful voyage. There's not much of a clue in
the solved picture but look at your own risk.
Solved it. Looks like a 2x2x3
Finally, another of Laszlo's amazing designs was thrown in as a gift for me
from Tye. The Hardcore puzzle is a sphere packing puzzle:
Hardcore Pack these 3 shapes in the sphere with no force to
close and a snug fit
This is one that Tye had asked me whether I had heard of it and might have the exact dimensions of the pieces. I searched my database and pictures for Hardcore and pronounced that I had no knowledge of it. When this duly arrived, I had a sneaky suspicion that I had seen it before but another search of my database did not reveal that name. I worked on this for a day and solved it with another lovely Aha! moment before realising that I had definitely seen it. In fact, Laszlo had used me as a guinea pig for it before he had come up with the name (hence I had come up blank) - I showed it off back in 2017.
Laszlo's prototype (he called it the Spherical packing puzzle)
I have to apologise to Tye for not realising and helping more - I had seen it before it was named.
It is currently for sale here and is well worth your attention. It is not impossibly hard...it is just lovely and nice to show to non-puzzling friends as a gentle challenge.
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