Going Solo on the Stairs?

Solo in basket by Koichi Miura
Beautifully made by Mine

I had not expected to have two weeks of tributes to Koichi-san but it worked out that 4 of the 5 puzzles that I purchased from Mine's store were designs by him and they turned out to be just what I needed in times of stress and burnout. For some reason I seem to be working pretty much 6 days a week for a 3 month period and this is having a bit of a toll on my general energy levels and my puzzle solving abilities. I am just too damned tired to solve much! I know, I am the one that writes the rotas at work and should be more in control but I work one weekend day in trauma and another writing rotas and another in a non-NHS hospital and the diary fills up very quickly without realising what I have done. 

Luckily for me the puzzles from Mine are just perfect for an overworked bloke! The next challenge I picked up after the delights from last week was the Solo in basket. The reason for the name is pretty obvious from the photo and I thought that this has only 4 nice simple tetrominoes and can't possibly be terribly difficult to fit them into the 3x3x2 basket - there will obviously be 2 empty voxels somewhere inside. The entry to the basket is divided into thirds by the handle which will obviously severely limit the positioning. The bottom of that handle is elevated by a couple of mm which is absolutely critical for the solution even if I did not realise that at first.

Picking up the pieces and experimenting with the different way to create the final shape reveals that the options are very limited. There are, in fact, 11 ways to fit the pieces in that shape but the vast majority of them can be discounted due to the fact that more than one of them are oriented flat or perpendicular to the entry slots and that achieving that is impossible. I played for a while and realised that this was not as straightforward as I had initially thought. I should have realised it would be a decent challenge because Mine never chooses puzzles that are simple. He is a master of seeing the wonder in something special. Believe me...this is special!

I spent about 45 minutes failing to assemble any of the shapes I had found inside the basket and had to think© which in my weakened state was not easy. I eventually realised that a special sequence of moves might be needed and attempted it with several of the pieces and it seemed to be blocked. That is, until I tried something rather non-intuitive. I had the most beautiful Aha! moment at this point and got to understand the incredible design and the beautiful precision of the manufacture. If the shapes of the pieces or basket were even a mm out then this would not be possible but it's perfect and beautiful:

No spoilers here - Solo is now packed

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Stairs Posting - also by Koichi-san

I cannot show the complete puzzle here for fear of allowing people to make a copy without permission. The 4th puzzle in my delivery was Stair posting - it also has 4 planar pieces to be fitted inside a 3x3x2 box but this time with no spare empty voxels. The pieces need to be posted through the entry slot like a letter through a postbox. The puzzle is named because all of the pieces look like stairs if placed on their edge. Imagine all the different ways you could make stairs using a triomino, tetromino, pentomino and a hexomino and hence posting of stairs.

It arrives with one piece poking out the letterbox and an invitation to rethink it. I found this one just lovely. It is not difficult and the design has been perfectly created to allow manipulation of the pieces through the entry hole and the convenient hole in the top and once finished there are no gaps. It took me only 10 minutes to work it out but has been much more challenging for work colleagues who are not used to this type of thinking. It is perfect for the newbie or your friends.

The stairs have all been posted!

Thank you Koichi-san and Mine-san - you have really helped me keep my sanity during the last 2 weeks of overwork.