Think Where You Want To Be...

A Lesson For Life As Well As Puzzling

Python designed by DDK

It's been a tough week with long working days and yet another Saturday working too (rota writing this time). I sometimes think I am getting too old for all this. I had saved the Python puzzle bought from Aaron Wang until fairly late. I had heard that it was relatively easy to solve despite the level 10 assigned to it. I figured that when I reach a time where I have only a few hours to play, solve and write about something then I will be able to use this one.

I was sort of correct but also did not figure in a bit of a hiccough in the path. This puzzle teaches a good lesson to plan ahead and think about the direction you want to travel in. My! That's very deep for me...I am usually a pretty shallow person.

The first thing that threw me when I picked this puzzle up was that my copy had been sent to me with an incorrect start position. Compare the picture at the top with the diagram to the left. The shuttle is in the wrong place. Will this make it easier or harder?

I suspected that the puzzle had not been solved all the way back to the start position and that it would have a lower number of steps to separate the shuttle than it should. An alternative horrible thought did occur to me that to save time the maker had assembled the shuttle from open wire into the start position and had done it in the wrong place. If this was the case, had he placed it in an unsolvable position? Only time would tell. I set to work this morning.

This is clearly going to be an N-ary type puzzle but made interesting by the maze pathway to be navigated. This requires the choices of direction for the shuttle to be placed through the rings to be chosen carefully. At each point the ring can be fed through from either direction and only one is the correct one. Needless to say, I got lost a few times and ended up having to backtrack to where I made the mistake. After doing this a few times, I realised that trial and error was time consuming and less than fun. Time to think© yet again. I fed through a few times and watched the response as it moved and finally managed to see how the shuttle and ring interacted in a predictable way. At last I could choose my path deliberately and know where I was going. All I needed to do was decide which way through the maze. After about 20 minutes I had the shuttle:

First part of the solve

Having taken my photo, it was time to reassemble it and to aim for the correct start position. Easier said than done. I had no idea how that final stage of the reassembly was done because I had never navigated it. I would have to work out where I wanted to be and work out a way through the last part of the maze. It looks like a simple maze but is quite well blocked by this 3 rings on the left hand side. I managed to get almost there quite easily:

Close, but no cigar!

Getting that last step proved quite a challenge. I tried something and found myself inadvertently heading back to the beginning and then had to backtrack and think© yet again. Twice in one day for me gives me a bit of a headache! Eventually I managed it and we have a correctly assembled puzzle.

Got there in the end

This is a really delightful puzzle, it is N-ary but unlike the simple Chinese ring style, there are numerous decisions to make and positive choices are essential to simultaneously navigate the maze to where you need to be. My personal journey was actually made better by having to solve it differently as an assembly than as a disassembly. I would suggest that something like this might be a good step up after a beginner has solved the Chinese ring puzzle. If you live in North America then you should have a look at Aaron's other challenges currently available in PuzzleMaster. They may end up stocking some of these in the future as well.

Thank you Aaron and DDK.