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| Burr Bot by Andrew Crowell |
I have known Andrew for a rather long time and have had a LOT of fun with his
puzzles over the years. Originally he was known for his gorgeous wooden
creations - mostly interlocking puzzles of his own design as well as remakes
of a few of his favourite Stewart Coffin puzzles.
Before you head off to ask Andrew for your own copy of Burr Bot, I have to
sadly inform you that they have sold out and Andrew has moved on to the next
in his puzzle series. I was just in time because he had a few parts still
lying around and was happy to print the pieces that he needed to complete
the remainder of the puzzle. Lucky me! In fact he also offered (whilst he
was posting to the UK) to make and send me the puzzle he has switched his
attention to - Burr Bank which is supposed to be more complex and the next
step in the evolution of this puzzle sequence. Well it would be rude to turn
him down so I risked the wrath of Mrs S and both puzzles were being made and
arrived a couple of weeks ago.
I quickly became engrossed and realised that there was more to this than met
the eye. The central piece rises up but the bottom piece is not attached to
it. Whilst that was distracting, I did not know what else I could do and just
carried on exploring. One evening in front of the TV left me going round and
round in circles with the pieces quite well trapped amongst each other. I had
to be careful not to be too noisy - 3D printed puzzles do make a certain
scratchy noise when the pieces are moved and I did not want to upset "she who
must be flinched from". I was also making lots of my usual muttering noises
which she also finds very annoying ("Do you have to breathe like that?" I
often hear). I got stuck that first evening but had a breakthrough the
following one:
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I
was amazed
by the quality and finish from a relative newcomer to the puzzling world at
the time. and then it went a little quiet before he burst back onto the
world having taken the rarified arena of Turning Interlocking Cubes (TICs) so
beloved by me and one of my mentors,
Bernhard Schweitzer, totally by storm and designed some of the most amazing puzzles any of us
had ever seen. Whilst he still produced a few of his own designs in wood he
has moved into 3D printing in a big way and sells them via his store
here or through
Etsy.
I am always looking for more beautiful wood but I still love the puzzling
experience in plastic but tend not to put many of these on display. The
advantage of the plastic is that I can box them up and store them in my
garage and then play with them again at a later date without having to worry
that they might degrade in storage. Today's puzzle will definitely not be
going into storage now that I have solved it - it will go on display in one
of my cabinets - it is a stunning puzzle in looks as well as play
experience. The Burr Bot came to my attention when it appeared in the
IPP design competition last year. Unfortunately due to this pesky virus thing, we couldn't
all get together and play with them and the viewing and voting was done
on-line. I was very intrigued - it was a sequential discovery puzzle as well
as a burr. It also won a Jury Honourable mention
prize. I was determined to get a copy.
At this time work caught up with me - the virus was running riot through the
UK and hospitals were chock-a-block. My workload went through the roof and I
had very little time for puzzling, let alone purchasing. I completely forgot
about it until my friend Steve reviewed it (along with a rather wonderful
looking cocktail) on his
blog. If Steve professes to loving a burr then there must be something very
special and/or very clever about it...he will be the first to admit that
burrs are not his thing. As you all know, they really are my thing. So I
wrote an email to Andrew asking if one might still be available. To my
shame, I wasn't paying proper attention to my email app and sent the email
to Andrew Coles (owner of the
puzzle lock company) who delightfully was obviously used to this mistake happening and
forwarded it on to the correct Andrew. Phew!
That week was quite a busy week for Mrs S and the various postal services as
I also received the latest delivery from Jakub with the Pelikan puzzles to
review, a gorgeous pair of puzzles from
Stephan Baumegger
as well as a lovely heavy metal delivery from Mr Strijbos. I won't say what
she said when my delivery from Mr Fuller arrived this week. Let's leave it
at Whack! Ouch! Sorry dear. Let it be known
that whilst I apologised for so many arrivals, I did NOT promise not to buy
any more.
My work has become quite chaotic over the last few weeks and months. There
is a lot of staff sickness in hospitals just now due to Covid and this is
placing a lot of strain on services. I spend my time trying very hard to get
the work done and help my colleagues clear the enormous backlog of cases
that have built up and often finish work late. I also am the fool who
volunteered to write the on-call rotas for our department and am having to
scrabble around on a weekly (if not daily) basis to fill suddenly opened
gaps caused by sickness. Al of this does not leave me much time for puzzling
and when I do have time, leaves me with a brain that doesn't seem work
right. It was with considerable trepidation that I picked up Burr Bot and
read the instructions.
The cute cubic bot had swallowed something and it was definitely audible
when gently shaken. There was no other information so I assumed that it was
just a burr that I needed to dismantle. Looking at it I could see 4
horizontal sticks in the frame which would interact with what looked like a
vertical central burrstick. Time to investigate and see how they interact.
Whilst I love this sort of puzzle and have a MASSIVE
collection
of these interlocking cubes from
Alfons Eyckmans, I do often really struggle to solve them due to getting terribly
lost.
There certainly is an interesting mechanism inside - I got a clue to this
when I picked it up from my armchair and the key to the Popplock T13 was
hanging from the bottom! There appear to be magnets inside!
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| Within a few moves! |
I had a key piece - now what? I got sidetracked trying to remove the cross
pieces for an evening before abandoning that as fruitless. There are clearly
magnets in it (both the interior of the Bot as well as the key) and it was
going to be important to work out how they should be used.
Mrs S was very amused to see me rotating and spinning the bot whilst trying to
stroke various parts of it with the magnets. Nope! That was not working for me
- time to Think© - ouch!
At this point, I noticed something (no I can't tell you what it is) and this led very nicely to another discovery and then some experimentation produced a whole new challenge. I was off again.
The remainder of the puzzle required more discoveries, more think©ing and more
experimentation - I got quite good at manipulating the burr sticks during this
and only got trapped 4 or 5 times. After my 7th or 8th Aha! moments I was
finally able to cure Burr Bot's indigestion - it's a kind of radical way to do
it (similar to what I see at work many days). In medical terms we have had a
laparotomy (opening the abdomen), gastrotomy (opening the stomach), before
delivery of the unwanted contents.
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| Not a spoiler - it was always obvious this was going to happen |
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| So much fun! |
I am very grateful to Andrew for finding the spare parts lying around to make me a copy. I can see why he won a prize in the design competition - it is a wonderful odyssey with personality and fun as well as a really nice sequence of discoveries, experimentation and thought. I am looking forward to working on Burr Bank which is supposed to be even tougher and more fun.
Thank you, my friend!
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