Pelikan's Post IPP Release

Wow! Just Wow!

Soon to be released by Jakub and team!

I seem to have received a delivery at the beginning of last week and the race was on. I had 7 fabulous creations to work on in just under 2 weeks. The upcoming puzzles from Pelikan are expected to be released later this week - probably 31/7.

From Back left we have:

Cabrio by Dr Volker Latussek

Cubi 8 Plus Alpha by Frederic Boucher

Camel by Theo Geerinck

Hitch by Émil Áskerli

Minima Tower by Frederic Boucher

Unlawful Assembly by Pit Khiam Goh

Curly Burr N8 by Frans de Vreugt

This is an amazing set of puzzle designs and beautifully created by the Pelikan team - there will definitely be something for everyone here.

Unlawful Assembly

Unlawful assembly by Pit Khiam Goh

I started with this delightful puzzle by the master of sliding move puzzles. I already own this one made from acrylic but the wooden one looks much more lovely. Pelikan have constructed this one from Garapa, Bubinga and Oak with wonderfully contrasting colours and a stunningly finished tray to pack the pieces into. There are 4 identical stepped pieces and a cross to fit inside the tray with the challenge being made by the fact that there is a considerable lip covering the tray making insertion of more than 3 pieces quite challenging. It is fairly easy to work out several possible square(ish) assemblies that might fit when playing outside the tray but getting them into the tray quickly gets quite confusing. The temptation is to try and squeeze one of the pieces diagonally under the lip of the tray but don't bother - that requires force and is the wrong way to do it.

The first time I worked on it, the solution took me a good hour or so to solve and that was only because I was familiar with the type of challenge. I gave this to a couple of my assistants/ODPs at work and watched them spend a couple of hours failing to solve it. Eventually I came back to the pieces all packed inside and I happily told them they had cheated! The pieces were in the conformation that can only be done by force. At this point they couldn't remove the pieces and a joint broke forcing it out. This is a great puzzle for beginners but don't let them attempt it unsupervised.

This puzzle should be in everyone's collection!

Curly Burr N8

Curly Burr N8 by Frans de Vreugt

This has been beautifully made with Maple and Merbau. Frans is an interesting designer - he is not prolific but everything he designs has something very different from the usual run of the mill burr designs. There are either interesting shapes or, more usually, interesting ways that the pieces interact and move. The Curly Burr N8 is definitely designed along those lines...it looks like a standard 6 piece and, indeed, there are 6 pieces, but they form frames that interlock inside each other along the same axis as well as interlocking along perpendicular axis. The upshot of this is that the pieces need to move apart from each other before any axial movements can occur. This makes it much more fun and much more mind-bending to solve. There are a few blind ends but not along long pathways and then the first piece comes apart after just 8 very odd moves. After this the remainder dismantles sequentially. The moves are so unusual that despite paying proper attention to what I had done, I could not reassemble it without Burrtools.

6 pieces that look like standard burr sticks

I think that even the burr aficionados amongst you will find the reassembly from scratch a real challenge  due to the unusual way the burr pieces move.

Camel

Front side

Back side

Yes!!!! I adore the animal themed puzzles that Jakub and Jaroslav produce. I know they are often very difficult to design and manufacture but they are just so lovely and give me an excuse to keep another one on display in my living room. Mrs S was away when this batch came in and when I showed her the photo of the delivery even she admitted the camel was very cute and really realistic. It has been crafted from American Cherry which gives it a rich brown "camel" colour. This is a collaboration with a master designer and craftsman, Theo Geerinck which means that the solution will be interesting as well as good looking.  

When first playing with it, only 3 pieces move and I comically pushed and pulled them and then tried to rip the legs or head off it. Of course, that doesn't work. I don't think any self-respecting camel will let you tear a leg or head off without complaining vigorously at you. I was stumped at this point for a rather long time. The fun thing with these sorts of layered constructions is that you cannot tell by looking at them which parts are supposed to be mobile and which are glued together. This leaves you pushing and pulling pretty much everything that you can get a grip on. After a whole day of getting nowhere, I tried a new technique and there was a "click". Aha! Then another click and another before I was able to remove a piece of camel anatomy. Before long I had the poor animal in pieces on my table and was able to see the ingenious locking mechanism which included a couple of pieces that are hidden inside. I scrambled the pieces and left it for a couple of hours and attempted the reassembly. Whilst not impossibly difficult, even that was a fun challenge as I had lost my orientation of several pieces.

This is wonderful and perfect to display as part of a puzzle menagerie.

Hitch

Hitch by Émil Áskerli

Émil is another very interesting designer producing burrs and interlocking puzzles with pieces that have clever ways of interacting. His Puzzlewillbeplayed page is absolutely fascinating. I initially thought that Hitch puzzle (made from Purpleheart and Zebrano) was a straightforward burr but I have ended up reclassifying it in my database as an "Interlocking puzzle". It looks like an 8 piece burr and is indeed made from 8 sticks but the interaction is interesting and requires a series of moves that lead logically one into the next until it is disassembled. Does this sound too easy? Fear not, the moves are very nicely hidden. Initially there are a few pieces that can move and the whole puzzle can form several different shapes at first. I went round and round in circles from shape to shape and looking to see whether it freed anything up. It requires careful inspection of all the pieces that you have in each conformation until you suddenly notice that a new move might be possible. Pelikan have constructed this nice and tight so that nothing moves without a deliberate attempt meaning you need to actually work out what to try rather than random pushing and pulling of the pieces.

Not really classical burr sticks

Only 7 moves are required to remove the first piece and 13 for complete disassembly but the discovery aspect is joyous. Even more fun (and definitely possible because I did it) is to reassemble it from scratch with scrambled pieces. A few of you may be able to do it without memory of the disassembly, but most experienced puzzlers should be able to work out the assembly with a little work. It's brilliant!

Cabrio

Cabrio by Volker Latussek
Doesn't look like much but it is absolutely brilliant!

No Pelikan release is complete without a design from Dr Latussek! When opening the package, it looks very understated. All you can see is a very nicely crafted box made from American Walnut which Pelikan have failed to close properly. Pulling off the lid reveals some rather lovely Zebrano pieces inside forming an apparent 3x3x3 cube. No wonder the lid couldn't close properly - it needs to be slid on from the side and the pieces are in the way.

Looks like a cube

5 pieces to be packed

The upshot of the sliding mechanism of the lid is that this is effectively a 7 piece puzzle with the pieces needing to interact with the base and the lid to get the cube inserted inside and the puzzle closed. It is very reminiscent of the fantastic Slide Packing puzzle by Hajime Katsumoto that won the Puzzlers award in 2016. This time instead of just 4 pieces to insert, there are 5 and 3 of them are non-planar shapes which makes the solution really quite counterintuitive.


I found quite a few 3x3x3 cube shapes that were possible but of course they all blocked the assembly of the lid and needed to start with a completely fresh way of thinking about this. Like many of Volker's puzzles, you need to think about the last piece to be inserted and how you might get access to that and then try and work with the remaining pieces and the lid to make that final assembly possible. There are 2 obvious possibilities for the final piece but then you will realise that you also need a proper plan for the penultimate piece and it is not as straightforward as you might anticipate. I worked on this for several days before I had a glorious Aha! moment and managed to put the lid on properly. This is a work of genius, just like the predecessor.

Are the pieces inside? Take my word for it - after a several day struggle, they are!

Cubi 8 Plus Alpha

Cubi 8 Plus Alpha by Frederic Boucher

This startlingly gorgeous creation by Frederic Boucher is one of the picks of the bunch this release. Not only is it stunning, it is also a very very challenging fun design. Frederic has an amazing and rather warped mind. He has collaborated with several of the very best craftsmen in the world to get his designs to the masses as well as makes some limited runs of his puzzles himself. I am delighted that he was able to find someone willing to make such a complex puzzle available. This beautiful creation has been produced by Pelikan from Wenge, Pink Oak, Purpleheart and acrylic. 

Some very interesting shapes here

There are 8 cubes with sticks of 2 different lengths which, when assembled together, form a 2x2 cube.  I have to admit that just making the cube (albeit with some holes) is a massive undertaking and really quite fun - its a sort of 3D jigsaw that has to slide together in order. However, the real challenge is to pack that cube inside the box so that no holes are visible from outside (unique solution). through a 1 cubie sized hole in the box. Frederic wrote that the pieces interract together like a train on its tracks during solving.

This puzzle is amazing and very very difficult! I might have needed some help with this one! 😱

Minima Tower

Minima Tower by Frederic Boucher

Allard has shown off a whole series of the amazing Minima puzzles created by Frederic and there are a good few more to come. Eric Fuller even converted one into a sequential discovery puzzle. Here we have one of the designs beautifully made by Pelikan from Mahogany and Ash. It doesn't look like much with a 2x2x4 box (upright it will be a tower, hence the name) and 4 simple L-shaped triominoes to be placed inside so that the 5 square holes are each covered by a piece of Ash. There is a single 1x2 voxel entryway. The box has lots and lots of finger holes for you to manipulate the pieces as there will be rotations required. I have only been working on this one for a day and so far not got even close to a solution. These puzzles are a delight and a real challenge but still very approachable by both beginners and advanced puzzlers alike. This will also be an essential purchase for many of you.

This is an absolutely amazing batch of puzzles to be released this time. There is definitely something that you will enjoy. My favourites are the Camel, the Cabrio and Minima Tower. 

Two Guys and a Gal...

Guess Which Was the Toughest?

Free Me 9 aka Two Guys and a Gal (named after the heads of the coins)

Update from last week - my solution for the Rippl puzzle turned out to be completely correct! After checking with Aaron, the critical move that I felt was too tight turned out to be the correct move - my copy of the puzzle was just a bit tighter than it should be. I persisted in doing the tight move because I felt that I had completely exhausted all other options for that section of the puzzle. The rest was an absolute delight and a bit mind boggling. Phew! I'm not as thick as I thought.

I can almost hear your sigh of relief! He finally managed it! Yes it took a hint and partial collaboration with Dominic to get there and it has taken me more than six weeks to get there but, Oh boy, was the journey worth it.

I have only been collecting the puzzles by Joe Turner for a few years and they have never failed to delight me. They are always beautifully made and a combination of wood and metal combined into a very non-intuitive sequential discovery puzzle. Usually there is just a single coin to work out how to release by activating the most ingenious mechanism his diabolical brain can come up with. The mechanisms have been so interesting that the amazing Jon Keegan even collaborated to reproduce the iconic Free Me 5 in metal - I did not have the cash to buy one at the time but they looked amazing and Allard loved it.

For this year's outing Joe upped the ante and gave us 3 coins to release - it has two JFK half dollars (guys) and a Statue of Liberty (gal) one dollar coin - I had no idea there was any such thing as a Dollar coin! This puzzle was Joe's entry in the IPP design competition but amazingly did not win anything due to the incredible list of amazing puzzles entered this year. It will certainly be on my list for top ten of the year.

As usual the coins are held in the block with a dovetail cap at each end. Starting out, progress begins reasonably quickly which gives you some (misplaced) confidence. There is a pretty classic move that Joe has used before that starts the first dovetail sliding. The interesting thing is that this confidence dissolves very fast when that first move stops dead after a mere 3mm of movement. Whatismore, not only does the slide stop dead, it also won't go back! OMG! A bit of frantic fiddling with the puzzle gets it to go back and then there's obviously something else needed. There are not a lot of clues but eventually another aha! moment happens and progress is made with the reward of the first guy. It's nice and shiny and I also receive a couple of tools. These have been causing the locking up and a quick inspection reveals the ingenious way that Joe has made it happen.

After the first coin removal, and the use of the light on my phone to peer inside, I realised that the next coin had to come out the other end. The tools were going to be useful at this point, I was sure of it. There's an obvious place for them to go except sometimes they won't fit and sometimes they will - you need to work out what to make it happen and once you do... nothing gets released! Of course, he's not going to make it easy!

Ok, let's try that classic move again at the same time as using the tools elsewhere. Hahaha! You all know that he's not going to use the same trick twice! Well I didn't know that and spent a very long time trying to make it happen. Yes, the Einsteinian method fails again. There is a tantalising little click and a few mm of play in the second dovetail but it goes nowhere. I have lost count of the sheer number of times I tried the same thing or variants of it in different orientations or with spinning and very nearly submerged in gin. I was stuck.

I was stuck for weeks! This is where Dominic came to my rescue with an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini clue. All he said, basically was to use ALL the tools given. Not much of a clue was it? Of course, I am very stupid and started looking at the coin for removable bits (similar to a classic by Boaz Feldman) but that was not it. I had misinterpreted what was meant as a tool. after another day, I had my Homer Simpson "Doh" moment and realised what tool Dominic was referring to and I heard a satisfying click inside and praise be, there was some movement. Finally! 

I have to sheepishly admit that this had taken me so long because I had gotten completely fixated on one or two mechanisms and been unable to break out of that mindset without a nudge. I dare say, Joe knew that many of us would fall into the same trap. Or maybe it was just me?

After a little more fiddling with other mechanisms I had my second dovetail end removed and my second guy out. Phew! I was on a roll! Except I wasn't. Stuck again...the gal had to come out and the only way out was through one of the existing holes but she was blocked. Looking inside, the basic approach to the removal seemed obvious and I had my tools. But again, it wasn't working. I tried the gin trick (drinking it rather than submerging the puzzle) and that helped me realise something else that was possible but I was stuck again. My goodness! This is a stupendous challenge.

I kept think©ing and kept failing. I even received the solution from Joe (he sent it out to all recipients last weekend) but I was very careful not to look at it. I HAD to solve this thing myself even if it was going to kill me - with all the swearing I was doing, Mrs S might have killed me! Then, after lots and lots of thoughts© I was hit by Mrs S a bolt from the blue and I tried something extra. Wow! That is really clever! I had my gal and a huge sigh of relief!

OMG! Brilliant!
Only took me 6 weeks

Having taken my photos and worked out the reset mechanism, I can now solve the puzzle in one swift fun sequence. It is a work of puzzling art which everyone should try - this is a simply beautiful challenge. Tanks to Dominic for the tiny clue and a special thank you to Joe for the opportunity, I cannot wait to see what you produce next year.

I Think I Cheated...

Did I?

Rippl by DDK

I had hoped to be able to review a different type of puzzle for you today but despite weeks and weeks of trying, I have still not managed to finish the Free Me 9 puzzle from Joe Turner. I had been stuck on the second coin up until early in the week when a good puzzle friend and I started a combined attempt at solving it. Dominic gave me a little teeny hint and I suddenly found what I needed to free the second coin and now the two of us are stuck on the third - we are both noticing the same things, trying the same things and despite two of us doing the same thing over and over and over again, nothing seems to be changing for us...sigh!

In desperation and in the many many moments when I put down the Free me in disgust, I started playing with the Rippl puzzle from Aaron and managed to get very confused very quickly. The rings are threaded such that they straddle two "lanes" of the spirals and the shuttle is through all 8 of them. I thought that this would be a simple N-ary puzzle and with "only" 8 rings should not be too arduous. After all, it's ONLY a level 9 puzzle which must make it relatively simple?

Oh boy! I got a shock! Yet again! I explored this over the last week or so every time I put down the Free me puzzle. Mrs S was most displeased with me because this one really jingles a lot.

The shuttle comes off the first ring and the second very easily but then the third ring is completely blocked. I figured it was N-ary and went back to the first ring and replaced it hoping to get access where I needed it. Nope! That didn't work. I am sure that you noticed that the shuttle can be threaded through the rings both forward and reversed and after an embarrassingly long time, I also noticed that and after trying it with both the first and second rings, I found the one that worked. I had my access to the third ring and the shuttle was off of that one. 

And here I remained for over a week! I tried every combination of forward and back with the shuttle, through the rings forwards, through them in reverse and every single time I was blocked from releasing the shuttle from the fourth ring. What on earth was going on? I just could not get any further! What sort of puzzle blogger am I? A bloody useless one, I think - I should be ashamed of myself! There was a significant chance that there would be no blog post for you today! I have only ever missed one due to illness or death and really didn't want to do it again with no adequate excuse. Is being rubbish at puzzles an excuse?

Finally after 5 or 6 days I found a move. It had the desired effect of getting me access to the next ring but I wasn't happy with it. I kept putting the puzzle back to the beginning because that move I found did not seem right. It required me to slightly flex the spiral to allow the shuttle to be pulled through, I don't think any of DDK or Aaron's puzzles have ever needed even that tiny amount of force. So I kept returning to the beginning and trying afresh. Finally, this morning I bit the bullet and continued with that move and it opened up a whole new section of the puzzle which got very interesting very quickly. It also got really quite confusing but I was determined and carried on. Finally, just minutes before starting this post, I had a solved puzzle:

I have taken it apart but...
have I actually solved it?

Once I had taken my picture, I felt that I had better put it back together and check with Aaron whether I had cheated (I am pretty sure that I did on that one step). 

Erm...putting it back together was a whole extra challenge! I had, as usual, not really paid enough attention to how it came out and then got mightily confused when it would not go back in and when I did get it started on the return journey, I found that I could not seem to get the second ring on the shuttle. Wow! Despite being "only" a level 9, this was a really really tough challenge. Eventually I got to the mid point and tried the final moves to return to the start. Unfortunately one of the rings had unwound itself and was only held on one of the arms of the spiral and I hadn't noticed it. Another 30 minutes of swearing at it when I couldn't get it back to the start and then another 30 minutes swearing at my own stupidity when I noticed the problem. Finally it is back at the beginning and I am hoping to find out whether I had done something wrong at that crucial early step.

Yet again, an absolutely amazing and incredibly difficult puzzle from Aaron and DDK. It shows that disentanglement puzzles with wire only really can be incredibly tough and confusing - it has N-ary elements to it but only a couple of parts are - the challenge is navigating between them. Great value and a hugely bamboozling challenge. My head hurts now and I think I need to lie down for a while.

I Thought That I was On a Roll

But then...

Xmas Tree gift from Aaron

Every time I order a little batch of puzzles from Aaron, he includes a little (or even not so small in this case) extra puzzle in the package. This time it was this adorable little Xmas tree with a couple of baubles on it (attached in different ways to interfere with the slider movement and, of course, the obligatory piece to be removed. This puzzle has been absolutely beautifully made and almost reminds me of something that would have been produced by the wonderful and sadly missed LiveWire puzzles guys.

Having been successful last week with the Ball and chain puzzle that isn't, I couldn't resist playing with this one for a little light relief. Any of you who are better than an absolute beginner at disentanglement puzzles can look at this and immediately see where the exit point is but will also see how it is blocked by the baubles. The challenge here is to get past that part of the blocked path. I am absolutely delighted that with my huge experience of wire puzzles and (BLUSH!) embarassingly enormous collection (I have 6 plastic cases of them in my garage), I managed to solve this clever little challenge in about 10 minutes:

Delightful and not too tough

The sequence is absolutely delightful and fun to do repeatedly. It does show that a puzzle doesn't need to be impossibly difficult to still be fun. This is a nice one that I will be taking in to work with me as we approach the holiday season to bamboozle and hopefully delight my colleagues. I am due to work on Xmas day this year and it will be taken in with me.

Pipe

Pipe by the incredibly talented DDK was next on my list to try mostly because it looks quite a lot less fearsome than most of the others I received. This was partially true.

It is obvious where the name comes from and the aim is also obviously to remove the long shuttle. 

I always take a photo of the instruction sheet giving the setup position to aid my memory and also because it has the "idealised" position of the various components (the picture I took does look slightly different to the printed sheet). 

Having been encouraged with my early success with Pocket watch and Xmas tree, I immediately thought that this would actually be a nice (maybe arduous) N-ary puzzle and would be fun but easy. I genuinely thought I was being very clever doing this puzzle next and that there would be an easy blog post for me. I was wrong about the easy bit - maybe I should have paid attention to the Level 10+?

Initially, I thought that the left side of the puzzle (bowl of the pipe) must be the exit and started moving the shuttle through the centre of the puzzle towards it. I quickly found that this led to a dead end - I could work my way out that end but immediately any further moves are blocked by the rings. Like an eejit, I tried this same thing multiple times before coming to the correct conclusion and abandoning that approach. I went back to the picture and with the idealised positioning, I think that most of you should be able to see what looks like an obvious exit point for the shuttle. This should lead to you being able to formulate an initial plan to begin manoeuvring towards that exit. Unfortunately, within a few minutes I made the horrible realisation that the shuttle is actually inside the centre of this new exit point and it was definitely not going to be an easy task to get there. I was stuck for a while. As the week went by, I got a bit desperate and even brought it into the living room during our evening TV watching. Mrs S gave me a telling off again but she must be mellowing a bit because she did it with a smile. Not even a mention of a Whack! Ouch!

I was stuck at this point for a couple of days as I struggled to see how I could aim for that exit point without the shuttle being caught in the middle of it. It is important to notice that several of the rings are large and several are too small to pass the shuttle through. his is an important feature which helps but also confuses. I tried something completely new and suddenly I had made progress - I was not sure whether it was correct but I carried on. At one point I performed multiple moves and.... I was back at the beginning! How the?? I had no idea how I managed to undo things without realising it and took a deep breath before starting again and this time I got a bit further (I thought so, but it is quite difficult to remember every position that you have been in). I continued along what seemed like a promising path and occasionally reached a blockage which needed a little thought©. After a few days, the shuttle came out with me having only a slight idea of how I had achieved it:

That was fun and much tougher than expected

I left it like this for a day or so and then bit the bullet and started the reassembly. Oh boy! This really made it clear that I had not fully understood my sequence. I was able to get the process started but, as I progressed, my hopes kept getting dashed when suddenly and unexpectedly, the shuttle came back out again. This happened several times! Time to think© properly!

Here I realised that I needed to look at the diagram and work out a specific approach to traveling a particularly problematic ring which kept turning me around back to the exit. Having thunk© and arranged my puzzle like the picture, I tried again and finally after a whole week of play on this one I had my success.

The Pipe is a genius design which looks much easier than it actually is. It has some N-ary portions to the sequence but is not truly an N-ary puzzle. I would liken it more to the tree puzzle that I reviewed at the early on in this PuzzleMad odyssey but a lot more confusing.

Thank you DDK, for the challenge and thank you Aaron, for the opportunity.