The Burr Bot Took His Gold to the Burr Bank

Burr Bank by Andrew Crowell

I have been home alone for a week whilst "she who must be flinched from" has been oop north visiting the outlaws. You might think that this would be fabulous as I could slob about, eat crap, watch a lot of action movies on the TV and play with my toys! Unfortunately, I still had to work and I had been left a list of chores to do and had to look after a disturbed cat. I am far to frightened of her to leave the place in a filthy state for when she came home so the cleaning etc still had to be done. I did manage to find a little time for some action movies (Dune was a little slow) but I always appreciate a film with Milla Jovovich in it. The puzzling was really rather good as you will read below.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Andrew Crowell's Burr Bot and I absolutely loved it! Unfortunately it is not available any more as Andrew has shifted his attention to the next puzzle in the sequence, the Burr Bank. As far as I can tell, it is not yet available for general sale and my copy is an advance one prior to him making them more widely available. I do not know how many of them will be made because this is a tour de force - Many people seem to think that 3D printed puzzles are easy to make, you just set the machine to go and the puzzle comes out the other end. I know for certain that this is not the case - the design has to be perfected which may necessitate multiple reprinting, the machine settings need to be just right, the finish and infill need to be perfect and, in the case of these, lots of magnets need to be glued in place. The thought and work that has gone into this creation is staggering.

There are no real spoilers here but I have hidden several of the other photos behind spoiler buttons - don't click if you don't want to see.

Just like with Burr Bot, the aim is to open it up and find the hidden treasure inside - in this case it will be gold. Comparing it to the prior creation, this one is obviously significantly more complex. There is the usual four horizontal burr sticks (which I assumed were different form the predecessor) and also the vertical one that interacts with them. Except this time, the vertical one is trapped by a lid with a hole in it. Interesting to see but nothing moves apart from the horizontal sticks so off I go to see what is possible. Just like before, there are quite a few movement possibilities and I was worried that I would get lost (this is always my perpetual fear when playing with complex burr puzzles - I have one of Alfon's puzzles trapped in a halfway position which I cannot get out of).

I needn't have worried, the movements are not so many that I could not keep track. I made a particularly interesting discovery and was able to do it repeatedly and was happy to proceed with the next step. I was able to remove the top panel:

Looking good so far

At this point I got a bit overconfident - remembering what had been done with Burr Bot, I attempted to do the same thing...again and again and again! 

Of course, I was too stupid to realise that Mr Crowell was not going to make it easy for me. I got stuck at this point for a couple of days - what I wanted to do just wasn't going to happen and I was too thick to stop and try something else. Eventually, I got fed up with failing and looked properly at what I had and what I could do. There was something obvious to try that I hadn't thought of (did I say already that I am not terribly bright?) and once I thunk it then I had something else to try as a result. 

Suddenly I felt I had made some really big progress - the bottom section came off:

This is fantastic! I really felt like I had achieved something and still had a long way to go. Looking at the lid and base was no help. There was obviously stuff to be done with them but I couldn't see how it was possible.

Maybe if I went back to what I had been trying and failing at before? Well that was clever - now my impossible aim seemed to be achievable.

Having done the puzzle multiple times now, I have come to realise that Andre has done something rather unexpected with the puzzle sequence. I can't tell you what it is but if you get a copy for yourself and play a few times then you will notice something special about the sequences that are needed. It is an added bonus that made me grin for quite some time.

Gradually accumulating more and more parts

Once I had feed a fair number of parts of the puzzle and looking at what I had, there seemed to be something obvious that I needed to do. I mean, really really obvious! So I did that obvious thing multiple times without anything happening. Yes, stuck again! At this point it was time for me to think© yet again. I am not good at think©ing and having to do it multiple times during one puzzle solve was pretty painful but quite enjoyable - everything that you need is there in front of you but despite being in plain sight, is not obvious. I noticed something special about one of the pieces and realised that was going to be useful. Also, at one point I did wonder to myself, why do I have two of those when previously I had achieved my procedure using just one of them? (No I can't show them to you) and then the reason hit me in the face. I had to use both of them (it was not because one was spare). 

I tried something doing something for a third time and this time it was useful:

That shark gets everywhere!

The rear of the coin - a ?

Having found the money, I was all flushed with success. Solved a puzzle in time for the blog post this week except...why was the a ? on the back of the money? I also had a nagging thought that maybe it was not the end result that was intended. The pieces that I had did look like there was another area to explore and the instructions (which I had not read since I took the photo a few weeks ago) were clear that the "cantankerous fellow" had hidden gold in the bank. The coin I had found was definitely not gold in colour. Time to think© yet again and maybe find some other tool and way to open the final compartment. It didn't take me much longer but the Aha! moment was wonderful - I had plundered the plastic gold:

Aha!

What an incredible puzzle! There are multiple facets to it with tools to discover and work out how to use. Some parts have wonderful moments of realisation to them only after doing them a few times. Every single corner, plane, flange and magnet has been carefully designed into the puzzling process. Andrew has taken what he learned from Burr Bot and taken every aspect a step or two further. I adore my wooden puzzles but this is something I will treasure for a very long time - despite being plastic, it is still beautiful and is one of the best puzzles that I own. It will be a major contender for puzzle of the year 2022. Thank you, my friend!

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Wil Tricks Me!

Aus dem Effeff

Recently I made a rather special purchase from Wil Strijbos and was delighted when there was a little extra gift in the very well taped box. The Aus den EffEff puzzle is a "simple" packing puzzle. A complex shaped hole in the frame in which there are a bunch of Eff's (10 of them). They are dual sided being white on one side and a really vibrant red (presumably Padauk) on the reverse. The instructions are to take all of them out and place all the pieces in place red side up. As you all know, I am terrible at this sort of puzzle but there is something compulsive about it - the pieces fit together nicely and it is strangely therapeutic placing them in the frame so that they lock together. At least it is for the first week!!! 

😱😱😱

I have spent quite a few hours idly trying to put this together and was beginning to wonder whether this was one of those impossible puzzles that I have been a victim of before. I always would get extremely close and yet there was always one voxel in the wrong place:

Almost there but almost is not good enough!

I've been having a little email conversation with the great Michel van Ipenburg recently and he asked how I was getting on. After admitting my total failure he offered a clue - literally an emphasis on a single word did it for me. The solution was obvious if I had tried to actually think© about it but that is not my strong point and it took a little nudge. The aha! moment is delicious and I finally managed to pack the puzzle properly. Wonderful challenge as well!

Rotating on a GalacTIC scale

GalacTIC designed by Andrew Crowell and beautifully made by Brian Menold

I have not really managed to do an awful lot of puzzling recently - a lot going on at home and at work - life just gets in the way. I am working on the Trauma operating list all day today and this one puzzle was all that I managed to write about for you - in fact, it is all that I have managed to solve and fully understand this week. Hopefully, things will settle down and I will have something good for you next week.

Brian Menold (aka the Published Professor of Wood) recently released another batch from the fevered mind of Andrew Crowell. The world of the TIC (Turning Interlocking Cube) was, until recently a fairly stable one about which Bernhard had managed to publish a series of 3 articles encompassing the whole lot. Along comes Andrew and we are up to our eyeballs in TICs and Bernhard's articles need a major update. When Brian releases new stuff, I pay attention, they are well made of beautiful wood and he always chooses the right difficulty level and always chooses puzzles that will be fun.

The GalacTIC was sent out assembled (different to the others released the same day) and here is what he wrote about it:

"This is one of Andrew's few designs that he recommends as a disassembly puzzle. It is easy to see why when you see that the last piece takes 19 moves and many rotations to remove!! I found myself actually wondering if all of this was necessary when I was assembling these! I will say that the first few moves are rather easy, then things get interesting. And good luck getting it back together. Moves - 1.1.3.4.6.19 with 10 Rotations"

How could anyone resist that? I know of at least one genius/sucker for punishment who asked for it to be sent out disassembled! I am not very bright and not very good at assembly puzzles and just went with the flow.

It is a lovely little puzzle (it is classic Menold in its' look) and nice to see that Brian has added some half-lap joints for strength as well as a brass pin for the most complex joint. The wood choices are a delight and this will look great on display.

I started with this shortly after the delivery arrived and spent a good few evenings on it and have to say that I am really glad that this was sent out assembled - there is no way on earth I would have managed it from pieces without first having taken it apart. The first 3 pieces come out fairly easily without rotations. It has been pretty humid here in good old "Blighty" for the last few weeks i.e. it has poured pretty much continuously for days! This has meant that the puzzles are a little tight and it took a bit of doing to find which pieces would move at all at first. After those first 3 pieces are removed then it starts to get interesting - we begin to need turns and then another piece comes out. At this point, with the last 3 pieces in place, I began to struggle...it took me a whole evening just to release the next piece! Now just an "easy" matter of disentangling the last 2 pieces - one is a nice open frame and then the other is a relatively small solid piece with "sticky-out" bits. How hard can it be?

OMG!! The separation of the last 2 pieces took me over a week! There are so many turns that I began to get dizzy! It is rotation on a GalacTIC scale! Not only are there very specific and often hard to find rotations (one is really tough) but also there are blind endings after some rotations requiring backtracking! I got lost and in a panic a few times! After that week of toil I had my pieces:

GalacTIC pieces

Next, I did my usual (with some trepidation) and scrambled the pieces and set them aside for a night. I went back to the assembly challenge the following evening and had an absolute ball trying to reassemble it! Luckily after so much time on the disassembly, I knew the order for the pieces to be inserted and went straight to the difficult challenge of those first 2 pieces. Only one insertion position is possible but after that...hell! That was a struggle. A good 90 minutes of pain and swearing and I had it done. Phew!

This is an absolutely stunning design! I really do not know how Andrew does it - his mind is completely warped (I am sure that Mrs Crowell will vouch for that!) I am very grateful to Brian for bringing these marvellous puzzles to life for us and hope that more will be coming in the future. In my future, I see an attempt at assembling another batch of TICs that are taunting me in my puzzles to be solved pile! I just need some time!

TICs so Difficult They Cause Facial Pain

Should They Be Called Tic Douloureux?

PedanTIC

My usual expression

There have been a bunch of puzzles that I bought from Brian Menold (the published Professor of Wood) that have caused me serious difficulties! I have spent ages and ages on them and was on the verge of giving up. But...you all know me! I keep trying at many puzzles for months if not years and do even occasionally solve them. I was on the verge of having nothing to write about this week due to lack of time and my failure to solve anything which spurred me on to greater efforts. The end result was that my "Plug face" went from one of gormless confusion to one of utter pain as I concentrated ever harder to try and find the position required for these blasted blocks of wood. Mrs S. even started to laugh at me between her coughing spasms!

I developed a Tic!

She thought that I was in pain with my expression of anguish and the odd noises I started to utter. Hence the subtitle of this blog post. In "Tic Dourouleux", severe pain in the face caused by Trigeminal neuralgia can cause facial contortions/spasms but in this case, I developed facial contortions in response to playing with a series of TICs! Of course, all of them had been designed by the "Master of Brain Pain", Andrew Crowell.

I had been carrying PedanTIC around with me for a few months since it arrived and had almost given up on it when Ali asked me about it at the last MPP. It would seem that he also had been stumped by it for a long time. I initially got it confused with another TIC and told him that I had solved it but after getting home, I realised that it was the one in my bag still awaiting its' Aha! moment. Whilst I felt vaguely guilty for not remembering, it was only for a moment - I am sure that Ali had helped with the mass destruction of my Happiness cubes. It did make me appreciate even more how difficult the puzzle must have been - Ali is an assembly machine...if he struggled with a TIC then it would have to have been VERY difficult indeed!

The PedanTIC had been an entry by Andrew in the design competition in Japan. Brian had offered copies for sale a little after the IPP ended. Brian wrote this about it:

This little gem is definitely a challenge. This is probably similar in difficulty to GalaTIC (previously offered) in terms of moves and rotations. At one point you are making 26 moves to add the next piece! Extra joinery was needed for this one too. Lap joints and brass pins keep everything in order. Olivewood, Black Limba, Okoume, Chechin and Bocote are the woods in these.

I have written about GalacTIC and absolutely adored it (despite finding it incredibly difficult) and could not resist buying something of an equivalent challenge and of course, those woods are totally irresistible to me. I did not expect it to be quite this difficult, though!

Finding the correct position for the pieces was not actually that tough for me and it was quickly obvious that 3 of the pieces would just slot into place at the end of the puzzling. This left 2 pieces to place within the frame. Oh boy! What a tremendously tough challenge it was placing 2 pieces! In my desperation to have something to blog about, I spent hours and hours on this one puzzle over the last 10 days. There are lots of possible moves which I find quite hard to remember and ended up taking notes. On several occasions, I had made an interesting move, tried to find a further move and not only could I not find a further move but I could not backtrack out of the position I was in. Aaaargh! I think that last Sunday after publishing my blog, I had my final breakthrough. I was in a new position and suddenly realised that it ould allow the 2 pieces to interact back and forth repeatedly. There was a lovely dance of the pieces and I had achieved the end position without really understanding how. Quick! Take a photo! Over the next day or so, I worked out what I had done and can now repeat it at will. I am very surprised that it did not win a prize.

At last! That is a damn fine puzzle causing a great facial expression

After that, it was time for the next tough challenge - also designed by Andrew Crowell - the Caged Cubes:

Caged Cube #1 (right) and #2 (left)

As soon as I saw a picture of these puzzles on Brian's Facebook page, I knew I had to have it. I have to buy as many of Andrew's designs as possible and this was stunningly made - I chose the Wenge frame. Brian wrote this about it:

This design from Andrew Crowell adds a twist to his usual "rotational madness". Now you must assemble the cubes inside the frame! Two sets of pieces come with one frame for economic reasons. One set of pieces are all the same wood and the other is a variety of exotic and domestic woods. An instruction sheet is included for the proper way to solve the Caged Cube.

I started on this at work this week. Even assembling the pieces into a cube shape outside of the frame is quite a challenge! After about 45 minutes I managed to find the assembly for the multiple wood #2 but could not seem to find the assembly of #1. I left it with a medical student for about an hour in the hope that it would keep him occupied for a bit whilst I did my boring paperwork. He failed too!

Some corners are missing

Having at least found the shape for #2, I decided to begin the true challenge of putting it inside the frame. The space inside the frame will fit a 4x4x4 cube exactly - there are no protuberances inside but the gap in the sides has a corner piece which means there are no 4x4 windows to fit through. Luckily the cube has several of the corner pieces missing which will allow the pieces to slide about once placed inside the frame. It requires rotations just to get the pieces inside let alone making them interlock together.

This puzzle is the perfect mixture of linear movements and rotations. The challenge is immense and fun - I spent 3 days on it having found myself stuck at several points being unable to insert the next piece inside the frame (let alone get it into place in the cube too). Finally, on Wednesday evening I let out a shout and my facial pain was relieved by the presence of a cube in the frame - yay! I think I even know how to remove it and repeat the process! My photo was taken!

Yeeeeehaw! That was great fun and really quite tough.
Caged Cube #2 assembled

Next, it was on to Caged Cube #1 and it nearly killed me! The interaction of the pieces was so blocked that, for a while, I could only get the 2 larger pieces inside the frame! Every single step of progress with this puzzle was a huge challenge. Getting a third piece inside was difficult which felt like a huge success when done. Then getting the fourth piece inside required me to take everything I had done before apart and start afresh. Ouch! After 2 days I finally managed to get the 4 larger pieces inside the puzzle and could work out how they interact with each other - finally time to add the little L shaped piece - how hard could it be?

Place the L

This is a spectacular challenge! It is quite obvious looking at the surface of the cube that there are 2 places that it can physically fit. The instructions that came with it tell the (by now very agitated and pained) puzzler that the 2 white dots should not be visible on the surface when it is complete. This immediately rules out one of the positions.

It's just under the surface! How hard can it be? Aaaaaargh! I spent 3 days on this and was on the verge of publishing an "I have failed" post when I had the most wonderful Aha! moment of the year so far! No matter which ways you move all the pieces within the frame, you cannot seem to find a position to insert the L piece to allow it to be rotated into place. Everything is blocked. I spent quite a few hours just on this piece placement alone. I even questioned whether I had to dismantle what I had done already and start again.

Then...literally ½ an hour before moving to my study, I found it! OMG! That is a really difficult puzzle! All three of these are also candidates for my top 10(ish) of 2020 - they are simply wonderful! I now feel safe to bring them to an MPP to allow the guys to play!

Incredible! One of my favourites so far!

If you get the opportunity to try either of these three TICs then go for it. They are simply amazing - you will need some time because they are really quite tough. I say that not because I struggled. But if Ali had difficulty then at least the PedanTIC must be a significant challenge!

I cannot wait to see what is coming next!

An Entirely New Type of Puzzle?

The recent collaboration between Chris Lohe and Andrew Crowell

Last week's post showed off the recent releases from Jakub and Jaroslav at the New Pelikan Workshop and I am pleased to see that many of you did read my drivel and have bought the wonderful new toys when they went up for sale. In fact two items are sold out already (if you did miss out on anything then I am sure that they will eventually be stocked by PuzzleMaster). I received all 7 of the puzzles and I am always very aware that Jakub is waiting for my reviews before he puts them up for sale so the pressure to solve and write is very high. Luckily for me this time there were two of the batch that were sent to the Zen puzzler himself, Ken Irvine, for review and I did not have to be too fast with these. Ken is a master of the design and solution of interlocking puzzles and is very uniquely placed to give an opinion of the two beautiful lumps of wood and if you read the blurb on the Pelikan site on them, then you already know that Ken was extremely enthusiastic. I did, however, really want to try them and give an opinion for you all (even if I am not sure why you even read my stuff let alone pay attention to what I think).

First of all, let me say that these puzzles are absolutely amazing and you should buy them straight away - unfortunately the Cyburr has sold out already but in my opinion the Chamburr is the best of the two and certainly MUCH more difficult. Stop reading this right now and rush over and buy - you will not regret it.

I have waxed lyrical about Christoph Lohe and his designs many many times over the years - he has a very unique talent for designing puzzles that are just the right difficulty level and really interesting to solve with some very long and difficult to find sequences but always fun to work through - he is almost a savant. Then we are all aware of the incredible effect that Andrew Crowell has had on the puzzle world. He has taken the rather small rarified area of Turning Interlocking Cubes (TICs) into the stratosphere in terms of interest and difficulty. So...when these two incredible puzzle designers team up I just have to sit up and pay attention! This is should definitely prove to be something simply spectacular and YES it is incredible - it is almost like they have developed a whole new category where the interlocking puzzle is combined with the TIC without making something that is impossible for humans.

Cyburr

Starting with Cyburr (this is the one you should pick up first), we have a gorgeous cube made with a Mahogany frame and Maple burr sticks. It has been beautifully finished and the initial moves are buttery smooth. There are a number of choices possible at the beginning and quickly you can home in on the correct path. Some puzzles I find are spoiled by having too many blind ends or some that go much too far before petering out. I like a fascinating sequence with a few side paths to explore but not too much risk of getting hopelessly lost. During the pathway through this disassembly, there is a wonderful dance as the pieces are weaved around each other inexorably towards an exit. The exit this time seems possible at several times as the burr sticks get less and less interwoven but even when one is separated from the pack then it still cannot be simply pushed out. This is where Andrew's wonderful skill has come in...rotations are required. Not too many that it is possible to get hopelessly lost and entangled. He has designed it so that rotations are actually very difficult to achieve and are only possible with exact positioning of all 3 of the pieces within the frame. This is not going to happen by accident - it requires thought©. The Aha! moment is wonderful. Two rotations are required and the pieces are ready for your exultant photo:

Stunning precision on that craftsmanship

The reassembly is a serious challenge! This puzzle cannot be solved by Burrtools but the process of disassembly should take you back and forth enough to lay down a decent muscle memory to allow you to scramble the pieces and still be able to put it back together again. If I can do it then all of you (who are considerably cleverer than me should manage it). I do agree with Ken that this puzzle is probably too difficult to be sent out as pieces to be assembled from scratch - only a very few of us could manage that. The Cyburr has a sequence 38 moves to remove the first piece which is a prodigiously high number especially as 36 are linear before the first rotation is required. If you see this up for sale again then buy it!

Chamburr

Next up is the Chamburr (I am not sure why it is named this but for me this is the "Champagne of the interlocking cubes" - it is stunningly fun and really quite a tough challenge. I did not know at the time that this was the harder of the two and this was the one that I started with. Again it is beautiful with the frame made from Merbau and the three burr sticks made from a lovely warm Pink Oak. It is slightly less aesthetically pleasing than Cyburr purely because it doesn't have the completely filled face that the other does. But it is stunning. The movements of the pieces are smooth and again there is just the right number and depth of dead ends to explore. The Chamburr is slightly easier at the beginning than the Cyburr but gets MUCH more difficult about ⅔ of the way through. With both of these puzzles, Pelikan has made all of the internal edges of the burr sticks and the frames very sharp which I suspect is to prevent any illegal rotations being found but the adverse effect of this is that finding some of the linear moves can be quite hard as the pieces need to be held just right and everything lined up perfectly for them to slide on each other. This can be a little infuriating at first but it does mean that finding the linear moves is more than just pushing and pulling the pieces randomly. It is more that the moves need to be thought out and planned. After 10 or 15 minutes of play with each of these puzzles I came to appreciate the precision and sharpness of these edges and used them to my advantage.

The Chamburr has a couple of very interesting rotations that are possible at about the ¾-way mark and apart from a bit of a panic when I thought I couldn't undo them, I realised that this made for a fun dead end and quite a bit more exploration without risking getting lost. After realising my misstep, I continued. The linear part of the path for this one is VERY complex and several times I got to a point where I could not backtrack without a huge re-exploration of that part of the path. I must have gone back and forth over that section of the solution 10 or 15 times before I understood the dance path of the pieces and could repeat them easily. After 43 moves (amazingly, all of which are linear) the first piece can be removed. This is a stunning odyssey before the remaining pieces can be taken out of the frame with a rotation:

43 moves to take the first piece out!

Despite the fact that the initial part of the solution is linear, this is by far the toughest of the two. It is incredibly difficult to find your winding path through the moves - these pieces dance about in and out of each other and the frame but the pathway is really well hidden. The requirement for the rotations is the icing on the cake - it makes the puzzle constructable and also means that if you get stuck you cannot just go to Burrtools and make yourself a solution file. You HAVE to persevere with it and work it out. It is worth it - just keep trying and you will understand it eventually.

Reassembly is just as challenging - the rotations are easy to find but then you have to backtrack through that very well hidden pathway. It took me several hours over 2 evenings to get there. This is a candidate for one of the puzzles of the year for 2021 - AMAZING!

At the moment the Chamburr is still available here - buy it straight away and if you find Cyburr up for sale again then don't hesitate.

That Will Teach Me Not to be Too Confident!!!

Groove by Alexander Magyarics made by Brian Menold

Very busy again this week at work and not much time for puzzling. I attempted 2 puzzles and solved only one! I got a bit cocky and thought I could solve one of them pretty quickly and left it far too late - that will teach me!!!

Over the last year or so thanks to Jakub and Jaroslav's fascination with the oddly compulsive packing puzzle designs from Osanori Yamamoto I have found myself rather addicted to packing puzzles. NOT the classic "find a way to stuff all the blocks in a box" packing puzzles (although I seem to enjoy failing at those too - I've still not solved the Euklid for Nick). I have fallen for the rather more interesting interlocking type puzzles that involve only a small number of pieces to fit in a relatively small box but having to do it through a very limited entry hole.

I couldn't resist the recent releases from Brian which had 2 of these puzzles and of course. Brian's wood choices are astounding. The Groove puzzle above is a classic from that genre. There are just 3 relatively simple pieces to be fitted into a 3x3x3 cubic box which has a big "groove" cut out of the top (this groove also has a couple of interesting curly ends which make it even remotely possible to pack. Brian made a couple of different versions - all had this incredibly beautiful Spalted Tamarind box and my copy had Wenge pieces to be packed.

Many of these have the added challenge of requiring that the solution also completely fill the entry hole to the box. This added challenge can sometimes make the puzzle much harder or occasionally make it easier by giving a clue for the possible final conformation of the pieces. In this case, I was very grateful for the extra requirement as Burrtools reveals that there are 2076 possible assemblies of the piece into a cube shape but only the one with the holed covered is actually assemble-able.

Having spent some time chatting to Alexander, I decided to start with this challenge. Even taking the photo of the pieces had to be delayed - it arrived partially packed as you can see in the small picture above and having taken one of the pieces out, I was stuck! The remaining two pieces were locked inside. I could not for the life of me remove them. It took me until the following day to be able to remove them. I am not sure whether it happened in transit or Brian had been deliberately mean but one of the pieces had been rotated in the box and it took me nearly two hours to work out what was going on - I am really not very bright! Once the minor panic was over, I took my photo and set to work. Of course I did NOT go straight to Burrtools! I only did that just before writing this post. Starting outside of the box, I quickly realised that there were a LOT of cubic assemblies and decided to settle on looking for one that covers the interestingly shaped hole - there are 38 assemblies (again discovered just now) which will meet this particular criterion which already helps a lot. However my feeble brain had managed to find quite a few straight away and then couldn't keep track of them - there must be a way to reduce the potential solution set further. Luckily for me there is a very obvious limitation...the groove winds in a clockwise fashion which limits the orientation of the pieces for entry into the puzzle. Thank goodness for that! Another evening of puzzling and I finally had my assembled puzzle:

Thank goodness for that!

I love these packing puzzles so much because there is very little of the random trial and error that is usually involved with conventional packing puzzles. They require proper thought© and attention to the restrictions provided by the puzzle designer. I have quite a large collection of these from both Brian and Pelikan puzzles and am looking forward to yet more - they are terribly addictive!

Corner cube by Andrew Crowell (also made by Brian)

At the same time I could not resist the Corner cube - apparently Andrew Crowell (the master of the Turning Interlocking Cube) has branched out and moved into packing puzzles (this is apparently part of a series called the ARCparent series - how come I haven't heard of these before). My copy is absolutely gorgeous made with a Tigerwood box (look at those stripes) and Curly Maple pieces. The aim, as usual is to place the pieces in the 3x3x2 cavity of the box through the small opening in the top corner and again, the opening must be covered at the end. 

Silly me left this to yesterday evening to attempt (did I tell you that things are very busy in healthcare at the moment and I had not had much time recently?) I looked at the shapes of the pieces and thought that this would not be a particularly difficult challenge. After all, 2 of the pieces are just 1x1x2 blocks! Oh boy! How wrong could I be? I had become a bit blasé about these having solved so many of Osanori's similar puzzles. Last night I actually had a PROPER look at it and, to my horror, realised that there was something rather special here...the entry hole was not a unit size - it is 1½ units in all dimensions which seriously limits the ability to insert pieces or have one sticking part way out whilst you add another. OMG!

After nearly a couple of hours of play, I have to admit that I have completely failed! I have managed to get all the pieces inside once but not been able to fill the entry hole. I am beginning to wonder whether rotations might be required! Part of me hopes so but another part is screaming nooooo!

That will teach me not to get too confident!

Take care out there! There is little sign that the virus is under control yet. The UK might be reaching a second peak and hopefully come back down the other side soon but much most hospitals are struggling to cope and maintain even a fraction of their normal services. Many parts of Europe have horrific numbers and a hospital catastrophe going on. In the US the Orange Idiot has completely given up on looking after his people (surely what should be a president's primary concern) and the numbers being reported there are truly a nightmare scenario with 181,000 new cases and 1400 deaths on Friday alone - please be careful. Go out and about only where necessary, keep your distance from others (especially the elderly, the obese and the immunocompromised) and wear a mask.  There is NO excuse not to wear a mask in public - they do not affect blood Oxygen levels, they do NOT make you breathe in CO₂ - if your breathing is worsened enough by wearing a mask, then imagine how bad it will be when you have caught Covid-19! You probably should not be out and about amongst other people! I wear a mask 8-12 hours a day - it is uncomfortable but tolerable.

TwisTIC'ing Away With Andrew

 

TwisTIC
This version with brass reinforcing dowels

One of the puzzles that I bought from Brian Menold a few months ago has been sitting on my desk for quite a while - the TwisTIC puzzle designed by the incredible Andrew Crowell was one that I couldn't resist. The description of 5 exotic woods by Brian immediately makes me start to drool and with this version having brass dowels for reinforcement, I could not resist. The trouble is that I cannot resist any of the Turning Interlocking Cubes when I see them come up for sale.

The TICs have really helped my puzzle solving abilities which many thought was impossible for me. More recently, I have received most of these puzzles as disassembled pieces requiring assembly which several years ago would have been something I would never have considered. However, practicing with these seems to have improved my 3D visuospatial ability enormously and (even if I struggle a bit...or even a LOT) I do manage to work out where the pieces need to go and usually manage to work out how to get them together without resorting to asking for assistance from any of my savant puzzle assembly friends. 

I couldn't resist this because of the look at the description by Brian:

"I've just entered rotation hell! I think I lost count after about a dozen rotations. I really think this is the most difficult TIC I have tried so far. I must admit though, I think it has surpassed HypnoTIC as my favorite of Andrews designs. I don't even know what else to say except that, if you feel that you are rather good at this type of puzzle, you have to give this a try. Let me know if you are humbled by the experience!"

If Brian thinks this is tough then it is going to be hellish! On this basis, everyone should try it. There was a bit of a delay before I received it and several people on Facebook who had got their copies quickly had shown it off and exclaimed about how long it took them to solve. I reckoned that I was sunk but in an enjoyable way.

The pieces are beautifully made as always and I love the wood choices (I'm such a sucker for beautiful wood) and having convinced myself that my skills had not left me by solving the TriumviraTIC (with only a little struggle). With 5 pieces it was always going to be at least slightly tougher but interestingly, I even had a hard time working out how the pieces should end up. This didn't bode well at all. After almost 3 evenings of work, I at least had an idea where everything should go - time to start on the rotations.

At this point, I realised just how good this puzzle is...it reminded me of my favourite rotational interlocking puzzle of all time, the Changing Partners puzzle which I bought many years ago from Bernhard Schweitzer (designed by ChiRen Chen)

Changing Partners - 2 out of 6 possible challenges

        

ApocalypTIC

This puzzle has been amongst my top TICs ever since they really became a "thing". The multiple rotations are just as confusing as the Changing Partners because of the sheer number of turns as well as not being clear how to start to orient the pieces against each other at the beginning. It is a wonderful and tough challenge. After a day of randomly trying to put pieces together, I decided to think© and realised that this needed thought and planning. Certain pieces would fit together in a certain way only if a starting orientation was used. This narrowed things down quite a bit and I was off. After working like this for an hour or so I had my wonderful Aha! moment. 

TwisTIC finally solved after a week!

ApocalypTIC

Yes Brian, this is a brilliant and ever so slightly hellish puzzle - definitely a great addition for the collection but probably not for beginners. One thing that I really am looking forward to is a new 5x5x5 TIC designed by Richard Gain together with Andrew Crowell. They worked together to design this and Richard printed it at home. Apparently he had been unable to assemble it without assistance which means that it will be incredibly incredibly tough - I've asked for him to print me a copy too and they will be up for sale on his Etsy site in the near future (the stl files are up for sale already).

Have a great afternoon everyone - keep puzzling.

It's 2019, I Got a Bouquet and It Was FantasTIC!

Is That's a Hat-Trick?

......Erm No. This is About 4 Puzzles and Not 3!

Bouquet

At last, I have finally found some time to play with some toys and might have had some success at last! Yay! I can now tell Mrs S that I do still need to buy new toys as I am solving the old ones. I am not sure she believes me but I am sticking to my story.

I am going to start with the Bouquet which I bought from my good friend Brian Menold's Wood Wonders store quite some time ago (I am ashamed to admit that I got it way back in August and it has sat on, under or next to my puzzle chair ever since then! I love variants on 6 piece burrs (hence I own quite a few burr sets) and a burr with a frame (like Terry Smart's Premiere puzzle which I reviewed here) is completely irresistible for me. The fact that this particular puzzle was designed by another friend, Christophe Lohe, makes it even more special - he has a unique talent for designing puzzles that are just the right difficulty level and really interesting to solve. When I say "just the right difficulty level", I do mean it despite this taking me 3 months to complete!

Brian made a few copies of this in a number of different wood varieties and my rather striking copy is a Wenge frame, with Padauk and Maple burr sticks. It is simply stunning on display - maybe that is the real reason I left that on or around my chair for so long? BLUSH! It is very tactile, a lovely weight and feel to the finish (as we have come to expect from Brian) and I kept failing at it! There are quite a lot of moves possible from the beginning...some of them really look like they are leading somewhere until the trail runs cold and backtracking is required. Not only are the paths quite deep but there are several of them! They all look so enticing that I default to my "Einsteinian insanity" approach and kept getting surprised when nothing happened. Yes, I know, "she" is quite right...I am NOT terribly bright! I think I am supposed to be quite good at puzzling after such a long time but I always struggle.

Round and round and round in circles, I went! Surprisingly never getting bored (this shows how good a design it is) and as always got nowhere. I was obviously missing a critical move somewhere. But where? In fact, I was missing 37 moves (the puzzle is level 23.3.5.3.3)! In shame, I kept doing the same thing and putting the puzzle down for a few hours or days and even had thoughts of shelving it for a while - then in October, Mike published a review saying that he had managed his copy after just a few weeks. I continued my advance into madness and worked on it every evening. There had been a few comments on Facebook about it slightly taunting my prowess which kept me motivated.

At Last!!!!!

Finally, earlier this week I found something - instead of doing the same thing over and over again, I made a few moves and looked inside (visibility is great with this puzzle) and saw a potential opening. What if I???? Oooh! That's nice! Suddenly a new configuration but blocked again for a while. After a little more brain-ache, I realised that there was a certain rhythm to the sequence and then the first piece came out followed by the second. Removing the third and later pieces took a bit of figuring too as I tried to avoid inadvertent rotations and also keep a vague memory of the piece positions.

Wow! That is an absolutely brilliant BRILLIANT puzzle! The movement of the pieces is perfect thanks to Brian's craftsmanship and the design is simply awesome! This is one of the best 6 piece burr variants I have played with. Well done Chris! It is no longer available (due to the excessive time I spent solving it) but if you see one come up at auction then don't ask any questions, just buy it!

2019

Another puzzle which I received from Brian in the same delivery was the 2019 puzzle designed by the equally amazing Klaas Jan Damstra, another absolute favourite designer of mine. I wasn't sure about this particular design but I cannot buy just one puzzle from Brian...I think I may have bought 5 at that time!! Whack! Ouch! Brian made it sound intriguing with his description:

These pieces move about within the frame quite freely despite the rather close tolerance of the frame to the pieces. I was afraid there may be some unintended solutions but I was not able to find any. Not terribly difficult but a pretty good challenge that seems easier than it really is!

When it arrived, and I tried to take photos of it, I was amazed at just how mobile the pieces are! They basically slide around freely all over the place, including lots of rotation of all the pieces. It feels like it is just going to fall to bits but despite all the movement, it remarkably remains intact. It was really quite tough to make it sit nicely for a decent photo - in fact, if you turn it upside down it will not sit nicely to take a picture!

Despite all this movement, it is not a trivial puzzle to solve and there are no illegal solutions either. I played with this one when I got fed up with failing at Bouquet and realised after a couple of days that this also needed to be solved by looking inside. Once I started doing this then the Aha! moment occurred and I said to Mrs S that "I love it when a plan comes together" (that is for those of you old enough to remember the A-team). After 3 or 4 evenings of fiddling I had my 2 pairs of sticks and the lovely pinwheel frame:

That was a nice piece of fun

The reassembly is not a terribly hard challenge but you must remember which orientation to hold the frame and then try not to get the order of the pieces wrong when you put them back.

FantasTIC by Andrew Crowell

I cannot resist buying a TIC (Turning Interlocking Cube) when a new one comes up for sale! My collection is now pretty extensive - not quite up to the level of the world expert, Bernhard but still pretty good. I had noticed that there had been a couple of TICs in the IPP design competition and they looked like they had been made by Brian (apparently they hadn't). The designer initially was not known but let's face it...we ALL know who has been turning out TIC designs like there is no tomorrow for the last year or so! Yes, Andrew Crowell is some kind of evil genius when it comes to these. The sheer complexity and beauty of the designs that just pop into his head is nothing short of incredible. Luckily for the puzzling community, Andrew had allowed Brian to make a nice batch of them after the IPP was complete.

I had bought a few TIC's at the same time as I bought the Bouquet and 2019 puzzles but mostly they remain unsolved as a small pile of pieces around my puzzle chair. Despite that, the new ones looked so gorgeous that I had to have them. If Andrew thought they were good enough for the competition then that was all the encouragement I needed. These arrived at the beginning of November, after taking my photo and admiring the gorgeous combination of Purpleheart, Redheart, Yellowheart and Holly that had been used, I set to work straight away.

They are a wonderful 3 phase challenge...firstly, work out where everything needs to go (this can sometimes be a massive challenge if the pieces are small or not very complex). Secondly, try to establish the order in which the pieces might need to be added to the puzzle and finally, twist your bwain in the same way that Andrew has when he worked out all the required rotations. For many of these puzzles, I even get stuck at the first stage of the solve process! A puzzle with rotational moves always comes with the ever-present worry that a glued joint will be snapped but here, Brian has excelled himself with the very attractive dowel reinforcements in the pieces at risk.

This puzzle lives up to its' name...it is truly FantasTIC!! It is not terribly terribly hard and has just enough to keep you working on it for a good few hours (in my case days) and the positioning/rotation of the pieces follows a lovely logical sequence. That is...until I attempted to place the final piece! I knew where it needed to go but for the life of me, I could not get it into position. I tried to change the order of insertion but that just blocked other pieces. Stuck - AGAIN! Sob! After playing and sleeping on it for a couple of nights, I had the most marvellous Aha! moment! A very unexpected rotation suddenly leapt into my tired brain and I had my cube:

It lives up to its' name!
Andrew and Brian - you are amazing!

I have taken to storing these puzzles (as well as most of the Osanori Yamamoto packing puzzles) in the disassembled state so that I can challenge myself and friends again in the future. I went back to this one to write this article and...Lordy, that's still a huge challenge! One of my favourites of the year!

Hat-Trick by Laszlo Kmolnar

Finally, the 4th puzzle in the Hat-trick(????) from Brian is a gorgeous packing puzzle from another designer I am proud to call a friend, Laszlo Kmolnar. He is one of the most interesting packing puzzle designers out there and I try to get a copy of everything that he designs. In fact, with the names Laszlo Kmolnar, Osanori Yamamoto and Volker Latussek, we have the best packing challenge designers in the world today!

As soon as I saw this glorious creation in Box Elder and Redheart I knew I wouldn't be able to resist. The wood is stunning, the joinery on the box (with the highlighting corners) is gorgeous. Plus, another puzzle from Laszlo HAS to be added to the collection. It was a Top ten vote winner in the IPP design competition which means that there is something fun to the solution and hopefully doable by me.

The box cavity is 4x3x2 voxels in size and there are 6 identical L shapes to be placed inside. It did not take me very long to find a number of possible assemblies but at that point, I stopped dead. The T-shaped slot in the top of the box makes the insertion quite tricky! Pieces go in nicely at first and then we are stuck. It's immediately obvious that rotations are needed but where? There is a lot of space inside for the rotations to be done and I reckon I was stuck on this for a couple of evenings. The Aha! moment was a delight - it took me a couple of hours in total to solve it and with the calibre of the IPP attendees, it will be a perfect difficulty level for them to solve in the competition room.

It's gorgeous packed too!

Phew! That was quite a blog post and finally some decent solving by me! Hopefully, this winning streak will keep going! I have spent a few weeks on Brian Young's Ages sequential discovery burr and to my horror have literally only found 2 small moves so far! Luck! Don't fail me now!!!