Sigh! I have to say it yet again...I'm an eejit! I caused myself a flurry of
work at the last moment for this post because I wasn't paying attention. I blame
it on the fact that Mrs S is back "ooop North" again and I am home alone with a
disturbed cat and a workload that is just too high including having to work the
weekend yet again! The disturbed cat is gradually being made better by Prozac -
yes, he's on the happy pills and making me look like a coke addict. Every couple
of days I can be seen cutting a white powder on a glass coaster with a razor
blade! The capsules are 20mg and I need to give him 2.5mg, hence I open
capsules, pour out white powder and use a double edged razor to portion it into
eighths and into little spoons for each day. The image is perfect, all I need is
a rolled up £50 note and I am ready to be arrested! 😱😱😱
Having given my excuses, here is todays puzzle and what I did:
Bouquet
I had a little splurge with Brian Menold's
Woodwonders store
(I cannot resist the gorgeous woods and his fabulous choices in puzzles) and
one of the delights was a caged 6 piece burr designed by Christophe Lohe - the
Neighburr. I love burrs in general but I am hopelessly addicted to caged burrs
- especially if they are caged 6 piece burrs because the addition of the cage
can turn a relatively straight-forward exploration of simple moves into a
wonderful interlocking nightmare. It is also made much more fun when the basic
grid for the pieces strays away from the standard 2x2xn grid. The Neighburr
has burr sticks based on a 2x3x6 grid and ads in the feature that one end is
2x3 and the other 2x2. This allows for much more interesting shapes and
interaction. My copy has a wonderfully white Holly frame and the pieces are
beautifully coloured Koto
(white),
Kirandy
(yellow) and
Redheart. This puzzle is very reminiscent of the
Bouquet
that I bought and wrote about a few years ago. That one was a fantastic
challenge with a level of 23.3.5.3.3 and this one was described as an even
harder level 34.3.2.2 - who could resist? Chris has a special skill with his
designs - he always manages to find interesting shapes, interesting moves and
just the right difficulty level.
Having received a bunch of puzzles from Brian, I put a few of them in my work
bag and started playing whenever I had a brief moment at work. The disturbed
cat was interfering with my ability to concentrate at home! There are quite a
few moves open to you initially and all but one fails to lead very far which
is also part of Chris' special skill. As you work your way in the puzzle does
become a little rickety and require a little bit of control of the pieces to
allow subsequent moves to happen but no rotations seem to be possible to
inadvertently knock you off progress. On several occasions I got lost and
couldn't seem to progress or find my way back but always after a little panic
found my way to the start. In my usual to and fro process, I managed to
gradually work my way in. This puzzle has a wonderful unlocking sequence with
a lock mechanism being used, moving a piece before re-locking and then
carrying on with another piece. The sequence of Aha! moments is wonderful.
I got to a point where there were a good few pieces sticking right out but not
actually free. Everything could be seen inside but I just couldn't find the
next move. At this point it was time to extubate a patient and I put it down
for a couple of hours. The break did me good, on picking it back up, I could
see the next moves straight away and I removed my first piece. Time to
back-track. Except...I tilted the puzzle to align the removed piece and a
precariously hanging second piece fell out on to my anaesthetic machine.
Aargh! I bent down to pick it up hoping that I remembered the correct
orientation and tilted it again whereupon 2 more pieces fell out - Double
aargh! At this point with my surgeon laughing at me, there was no hope that I
would be able to assemble it again without Burrtools. To be honest, I don't
really mind that because making the BT file is all part of the fun.
Interesting pieces
I took my photo this morning of the pieces and looked through my photo database
and to my horror realised that I had dismantled this one without taking my
initial photo. I needed to make my BT file and reassemble it before I could blog
about it. As I said above - I'm an eejit! When I went to BT to enter the pieces
I suddenly found that this was not an easy one to enter the starting shape
without having an assembled puzzle, or at least a photo to use as a reference.
Luckily Brian has photos in his
archive gallery but even then, this one is a bit awkward to enter into BT without having
a puzzle to rotate around and look at from all angles. My initial attempts
produced a puzzle with no solutions but after a bit of fiddling with my pieces
and pushing them into the frame and rotating it around, I managed it and
reassembled the puzzle.
This is absolutely terrific as I have come to expect from Chris. It even has
some repeatability due to the lovely locking mechanism.
Now, it's time to clean the litter tray (yuk!) and spend some time with the
disturbed cat whilst playing with some of the others I received from Brian:
Uroborus by Girish Sharma
Persistence of memory by Alexander Magyarics
RIB
RIBlet
RIBeye
Yep! A series of wonderful Ribs designed by Andrew Crowell. These are 6 piece board burrs that need to be assembled with rotations. I hope that I have more luck with these than with the RIPley board burr which I haven't managed to assemble after quite a few years!
This might be a bit less coherent than normal - I am a bit sick and had to work
whilst ill. My thought processes are even slower than usual.
It would appear that
Dedwood crafts has become one of my new obsessions. I missed out on the early
productions because they were boxes and I "don't collect boxes" but later
there were puzzles with interesting shapes and even robot faces which spoke
to me. Those voices never seem to go away and my chats with my psychiatrist
friend reassures me that they are "normal". Admittedly, when we chat, I am
armed with needles and syringes and he is armed with an ECT machine but I am
sure that he is not frightened of what I might do with my weapons and is
telling me the truth.
Well, several months ago those voices told me to buy the Uplift puzzle
from Dee as soon as it came out. It's just a bit embarrassing to be
writing about it now when it arrived at the beginning of October last
year. My excuse? Erm...it's quite difficult! At least for me it was. This
has literally been on my evening armchair alongside me to be played with
ever since then. I attempted to solve it every evening for several months
without getting anywhere. Lord! I am rubbish at puzzles!
This fabulous creation is simply gorgeous...and huge! It is made from
quarter-sawn Sapele (with an incredible lustre and grain with a layer of
nicely coloured Cherry. The dimensions are 6.75" diameter and 2.25"
thick. The aim is to open it up and find the hidden compartment (and a
surprise). The central area of the top section can rotate freely around
in circles and nothing seems to happen when you do spin it. There is a
button on the side where a section of the Sapele can be pushed in a few
mm. The obvious thing is to push the button whilst spinning the centre
around and of course, it does absolutely nothing. That is disappointing
and pleasing at the same time. After a little while trying the same
thing over and over again, it occurred to me that I hadn't tried to just
lift the lid off. That little wedge on top just lifts off having been
held on by a magnet. Inside is the cavity - it's the same size as the
wedge/lid and it's empty. It is quite clear that there is a whole lot
more space inside for another cavity and that must be what we are
looking for.
Interestingly, the centre section can still spin around with the lid off
and the whole interior spins with it. This is a cue to start playing
with the button again whilst spinning the interior/centre. I got bored
of this after a week when nothing new happened and was left scratching
my head wondering what else I could do. Playing around with the magnet
on the lid, did reveal that there are more magnets inside but I was
completely unable to trigger any changes with it. Now what? It was clear
that the layers that are visible on the outside are also maintained on
the inside spinning part of the puzzle. There seems to be a little
movement between the layers but no change in position, orientation or
push of the button (with or without magnet placement) would change
anything. Desperation began to set in around February after about 4
months and Mrs S sniggering at me. I was thinking about submerging it in
gin when a slip whilst holding it caused me to almost drop it. The new
hand position I found myself in revealed something special for me. I
wish that I could say that I worked it out through sheer bwain power but
alas no!
After my little accident, I had more puzzle to look at! There were
cavities to explore and more movements that didn't lead anywhere until a
poke of a finger got me one of Dee's little tools (those of you who have
played with other Dedwood puzzles will have seen these acrylic rods. I
was making progress! With the appropriate tool poised, I found a place
to use it and...it did nothing. Nothing at all! Yet again, I was left to
try different orientations and combinations of moves with or without
button presses whilst standing on my head. Needless to say, I looked
very silly and totally failed to continue in my progress. Sigh!
After another few weeks of swearing at an inanimate object, I noticed a
rather subtle feature that had eluded me up to this point. Aha! What if
I do this? Aha! again. After five months I had finally found the hidden
cavity and my lovely little surprise. I have not shown Mrs S that
surprise for fear that she will beat me over the head with the puzzle -
she really doesn't like what was inside the Uplift. Don't
look if you don't want to see what is waiting inside:
This would have scared the crap out Mrs S
All in all, this was fabulous value for money for me. There weren't very many steps involved but I found 2 of them almost impossible to find and a real diversion that had me fooled for longer than I am happy about! I cannot wait for the next release from Dee. I have still not managed to reset the Wardrobe to put it away which is upsetting Mrs S a lot!
Pelikan spring release - coming 17th April 2pm CEST
I do apologise to all of you and especially to Jakub and team about spreading
the reviews over 2 weekends! I was just too busy to work on all 6 in one week
and have any chance at all of solving and understanding them. It did not change
Jakub's intended release date but has inconvenienced him by being late getting
my reviews for him.
Today I finish off the final 3 and they are something else in terms of
complexity and difficulty. They are also very beautiful!
Euklid for Bernhard
Euklid for Bernhard - simply gorgeous
This fabulous addition to the Euklid series (I have still not managed to solve
the
Euklid for Nick!) is a tribute from Dr Volker Latussek to the amazing puzzler, collector and
friend, Bernhard Schweitzer. Volker wrote the following about the design of
this puzzle:
"When Bernhard Schweitzer told me that he was winding up his puzzle
collection, I remembered our first meeting at Bernhard's house. Back
then, I had designed my first puzzle, which I wanted to enter in the Nob
Yoshigahara International Puzzle Design Competition in 2011 after doing
some web research. I didn't know that the IPP was being held in Berlin
at the time, and Bernhard hadn't told me, but he encouraged me to send
in my two copies. WAY is still the most important puzzle for me today. I
called it the Puzzle Construction Set because it could be used to
formulate very different challenges. I didn't win a prize at the IPP,
but the puzzle was published by Popular Playthings under the name
ROUNDABOUT. Unfortunately somewhat modified. But back to Bernhard.
Bernhard showed me his collection at the time. I had never seen
anything like it before. He told me stories and anecdotes about some of
the puzzles from the community, a world that was completely unknown to
me. I still remember the HASELGROVE BOX by Jenifer Haselgrove: it was
probably my personal key experience that gave me time to think about
what I should, and hopefully will, come up with over the years.
With EUKLID FOR BERNHARD, I want to say thank you for the encouraging
comments on my ideas and the time we spent together at the puzzle
parties at Bernhard's home in Glattbach.
It has become a EUKLID with an addition. When the six blocks are packed
into the box, give the puzzle a good shake and then open your ears for a
short walk with Jenifer Haselgrove to empty the box again.
Thank you, Bernhard."
Volker tends to stipulate not only the delivery packing as well as the
dimensions of his puzzles but also the wood choices as well. His decision
this time was absolutely inspired as it is an absolutely gorgeous
combination of Purpleheart for the box and Downy Birch for the pieces.
Interestingly the pieces are all very similar in size - 21mm deep with 3
pieces 47x25mm, 1 of 47x47mm, another 47x30mm and the other 52x25mm. There
are only a few combinations of sizes that will fit within the walls of the
box.
Now I had not read this tribute when I received and worked on my copy of
this puzzle and had no idea that it might have a common feature with the
Hazelgrove box. That would not have helped me much because I don't own and
have never played with one of those famous puzzles. I set to in the usual
way that I do with this sort of puzzle - I look at all the pieces and try to
see which dimensions are combinable inside the confines of the box.
I found several ways that all the pieces would fit inside but the restricted
opening meant that I was unable to achieve the vast majority of them. I
played for a couple of days with it and failed every time until I had a
sudden Aha! moment and all 6 pieces were inside. I was very pleased with
myself and took my obligatory photo. Only when I received the introduction
from Volker did I begin to question myself. My solution did not have any
fancy locking mechanism and seemed a lot simpler than most of the previous
Euklid puzzles. I looked at the solution that was provided by Jakub and my
solution was different. You have 2 challenges here - an easier one (mine)
and a REALLY fancy one that was the one intended by the
designer. The intended solution requires thought and dexterity - it is very
impressive (rather like Bernhard!)
Stefka-Flop
Stefka-Flop by Dr Volker Latussek
This is another (and to me, unexpected) entry in the Flop series of packing
puzzles. I have said on several occasions that this Flop series
of puzzles by Dr Latussek are an incredible feat of puzzle design and when
coupled with Pelikan's magnificent craftsmanship and wood choices, they are
some of the highlights of my packing puzzle collection. This one was
stipulated to be made with a glorious Purpleheart box and Acacia soma pieces.
Volker wrote the following about this puzzle:
"Since 1987, the 1996 Bulgarian Olympic champion, Stefka Kostadinova,
has held women's high jump the world record with a height of 2.09 meters
- providing a fitting conclusion to my little series of packaging
puzzles with the STEFKA-FLOP. As previously announced, LITTLE TETRA-FLOP
will come as an encore, however, I would still like to pursue the
principle further and use the term FLOP here and there, e.g. perhaps for
a COFFIN-FLOP.
STEFKA-FLOP with seven pieces follows DICK-FLOP with its six Tetra
cubes and FRITZ-FLOP with only five pieces. The boxes are completely
filled, and the opening is so large that some pieces have to tumble out
of the box. STEFKA-FLOP has a very unusual, and very beautiful, new
turning movement in before a flop.
Oskar van Deventer has previously published STEFKA-FLOP under the name
UNFOLDED-FLOP. The seven pieces corresponds to the SOMA CUBE with an
unfolded v (I). That was a consolation, because at first, I couldn't
find a SOMA-FLOP with all seven pieces of the SOMA-CUBE."
They are not just packing puzzles with restricted openings...they are
also variants on the Soma cube, using entirely Soma shaped (or a subset of
them) and also are TICs as well with the very important requirement that a few
of the pieces cannot fit through the entryway without rotation and then often
need rotation into place inside the box which adds a special requirement for
the correct order.
The Soma cube has 240 3x3x3 assemblies and I am still ashamed to say that it
takes me quite some time to find even one of them! And that is without the
restriction of doing it within a box and also without further hindrance of
restricted entry and rotational moves! This is going to be a hell of a
challenge for any puzzler. I spent 3 days attempting this amazing feat of
puzzle design and had to peek at the solution to find the last 3 pieces to be
inserted. Having restricted the number of pieces I needed to experiment with,
I finally managed to find a bunch of cubes that assembled that way and then
still could not get them into the box. With a deadline looming I looked at the
cube assembly that was required and spent another happy hour or so working out
how to put it inside the box. Even with a huge clue, it is still a decent
challenge. I am sure that the rest of you with more time to play will manage
this without help.
This is a fantastic addition to the series and I cannot wait to see the others
that Volker intends (I am sort of hoping they won't be quite so tough).
SISU
SISU by Benjamin Heidt
The word Sisu is a Finnish word - it is not easily translatable into English
but it roughly means:
Strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in
the face of adversity. Sisu is not momentary courage, but the ability to
sustain that courage.
Does this mean that it requires enormous strength of will to solve it? I
also noticed that there is a hole in the box which goes all the way through
and remembered the scene from the recent movie where the hero stabbed a Nazi
in the head through and through with his knife. I've added the image below - it's not suitable for people of a nervous disposition or children - You have been warned! Don't look unless you really want to know what the Finnish war hero, Sisu did.
It has been beautifully made by Jakub and team from Mahogany, Ash, some magnets and a steel ball bearing. It is a restricted entry packing puzzle as we have seen many times before and also has pieces that are based on the Soma puzzle. Making this one very different from the others we have seen before, the pieces have some beautifully drilled holes in them. Some of these holes are blind ending and others are part of a channel through the piece and out another hole. The aim seems to be to assemble the pieces in the box and close the lid on top and then to roll the ball bearing through the maze that has been created until it comes out the other side. This means that the assembly requires the formation of a maze that goes entirely through the puzzle. This significantly adds to the challenge!
Now this is an interesting puzzle to write about! I have so far not come even
close to solving the full thing. Just before starting to write this review, I have finally managed to assemble the pieces into a cube shape - I am ashamed to say that this has taken me a whole day! I then went to BT and discovered that there is only one possible assembly for these pieces into a cube. I will then need to see how to get them into the box through the H-shaped entry - I assume that only one of the 6 possible orientations of the cube will be possible to assemble in the box and probably not without some fancy sequential moves. The pieces that have rotational symmetry will need to be oriented correctly to form the complete maze - whilst the piece shape might be symmetrical, the holes and channels are not. After this I will have a blind maze to negotiate with the ball bearing.
I love a puzzle with multiple challenges and this will require some significant "Sisu" to achieve it! Despite not having completed the challenge yet, I know that this will be an essential purchase for you all. Hopefully Mrs S will not get upset with my muttering and stab me through the head later tonight!
Thank you Jakub, Jaroslav and team for the wonderful challenges and also to the amazing designers - you are all brilliant.
Get there at 2pm CEST on 17th April to get your pick of these puzzles.
Hello again everyone! I'm a bit behind with my puzzling this week - it's been a
bit hectic and I have had to do extra work to cover sickness and other "stuff"
at work. I was hoping to have all the reviews for the latest offering from
Jakub, Jaroslav and team all done in a week but I will have to split it up into
two posts. We have some terrific challenges on offer here:
From the back left:
Euclid for Bernhard by Dr Volker Latussek
Stefka-flop from Dr Volker Latussek
SISU by Benjamin Heidt
YLEM by Benjamin Heidt
Airlock by Pit Khiam Goh
Xmas Stocking by Osanori Yamamoto
These should be going on sale on April 15th hopefully. I can review four of
them today and plan to have the rest of the reviews up next weekend. Here we
go...
Airlock
Airlock by Pit Khiam Goh
Pit is an incredible designer - I have seen his puzzles do very well in the
design competitions and I have a good few of his designs in my collection
which have
appeared in this blog. This one is wonderful as well because of a series of really nice Aha!
moments.
I had been certain that I had seen this somewhere before but a search of the
internet only found a few pictures that did not ring any bells. It is a tray
packing puzzle with a restricted entry hole. It has been beautifully made by
the Pelikan team from Wenge, Purpleheart, Mahogany, Maple and Limba with an
acrylic grille over the top. The delivery placement is useful to keep the
pieces together and shows that certain moves will be required. removing the
pieces reveals that all the pieces will need rotation and that 2 of the
pieces are really quite restricted in how they move and can be placed.
An odd time of the year to have this one brought out but delightful
nonetheless. I would suggest that you all buy this as either a belated
Christmas present to yourselves or as an advance one for December for the
significant other puzzler in your life. Hopefully you can stash it away for
long enough and still remember where you put it. It is a rather pocketable
size - perfect for your own Xmas stocking. As delivered there are 3 little
feet inside the stocking already and 2 outside. Time to work out how to get them all inside.
This is the second time the Benjamin has appeared here and the second Pelikan release that includes his designs. There is something very clever about his designs which are delightful to see on display and also brilliant to explore and solve. This stunnning creation in Acacia and Purpleheart appeared to me initially to be "just" an 18 piece burr but with an odd configuration of the pieces leaving a hole in each of the 6 faces. But...this is not "just" another 18 piece burr - it can quickly be seen that it is a 19 piece burr (something I have never seen before) and it requires a fair bit of exploration to work through.
These high piece number puzzles always frighten me because they often either have an incredibly complex/high level disassembly or after a couple of pieces are removed, can become very unstable and collapse on you. I can reassure you that this wonderful burr has a fantastic and almost logical unlocking mechanism which is an absolute delight to work through. There are a few moves available at first and the easy ones don't appear to lead anywhere. After some exploration and a nice Aha! moment, a new move becomes available which is very helpful in revealing the beginning of a locking sequence. The disassembly is a wonderful and very achievable level 19.2.2.3.2.3.2.2.1.1.2.1.1.1.1.1.2. giving a total of 46 moves to take it completely apart.
19 pieces - beautifully made by Pelikan!
This monster was beautifully stable right down to the last few pieces. I very much doubt that many people can assemble this from scratch but a few of you will be able to. Some may be able to remember what you did and be able to backtrack. I, on the other hand, barely remember my own name and therefore had to resort to Burrtools for the reassembly. Entering the pieces into that wonderful program and then adding the colour restrictions for the assembly was also great fun and a nice part of the challenge. The assembly required quite a bit of dexterity initially but was a delightful part of the challenge. If you like complex burrs but are frightened of too high a level then this is perfect.
I hope to finish the rest of the puzzles this week and get my reviews up for you next weekend.
Keep an eye out for these - they are fabulous for all levels of puzzler.
