Is There No End To His Talents?

Dovetail Bar by Richard Williams

The various members of the MPP brigade seem to have a variety of skillz which we have revealed to the puzzling world either deliberately or inadvertently over the last 14 odd years - at the last MPP Ali was reminiscing about how long ago the whole thing was started and who was there. I think I joined at MPP 4 or 5.

I, of course, have revealed to the world that I like to write drivel and unfortunately have also shown the world that I am rubbish at puzzles in the process of writing said drivel. Louis has shown us all that he is a puzzle solving machine and that there seems to be nothing that he cannot figure out (although I've never seen him do a twisty). Allard has revealed that he has impeccable taste in puzzles but needs the assistance of Louis to actually solve the bloody things. Big Steve brings chaos and destruction wherever he goes and usually leaves a trail of puzzles in pieces or incorrectly assembled with other pieces hidden inside (I'm never bringing my happiness cubes anywhere near him ever again!) and his partner in crime/puzzles, Ali seems to be able to solve pretty much anything put in front of him. There puzzle design creativity has a whole store now and has received me of a decent amount of cash. Of course, we cannot forget Shane as you can hear him several miles before you can see him - his skill with locks is amazing! 

Over the last few years, Richard Williams has joined the group and we all seem to know him as an incredible burr talent. He seems to be able to do the impossible by assembling burrs from just a pile of pieces (only the late and dearly missed Laurie had anywhere near that talent). Since his purchase of a 3D printer he has begun to design puzzles at an alarming rate. Today I am going to focus on 3 that I obtained at the last MPP (number LCIIIIX - looking that Roman numeral up in Google reveals it to be a nonsense number so I must have imagined the gathering.

The Dovetail Bar was one that I purchased knowing almost nothing about it apart from the fact that Ali was sitting next to me with a few pieces of it in his hands and marvelling at the mechanism. If Ali is enthusiastic then that's enough for me! A few of the UK's finest plastic banknotes were exchanged and I received the Dovetail Bar as well as the Basket burr (see later in the post).

I didn't attempt the puzzle until a day or so after I got back from the party. I had to hide most of my acquisitions from the present Mrs S for fear of reprisals (Whack! Ouch! sorry dear). 

This delightful challenge consists of a small red plastic rectangle 60 x 40 x 15mm in size which is split into a top ¼ and a bottom ¾ held together by a dovetail joint and with a black bolt screwed into the larger part. It rattles enticingly and the top part wiggles a couple of mm each way but no further - this is the case no matter which way the puzzle is held. After trying this there is not much else to do other than unscrew the bolts. As each one is unscrewed there is a little catching of something inside but nothing new is possible and once that catch is overcome, there is a little noise as something moves. Removing first one bolt doesn't let the dovetail slide and then unscrewing the other one similarly makes noises but doesn't help with movement either. At this point, with not many options, the bolts go back in and are made to achieve something inside. This was not entirely unexpected as I had already begun to create an internal image of what was in there. Once a couple of internal interactions had been achieved, the dovetail was able to slide partially open and revealed what I had been expecting inside.

A small Aha! but not going any further than that

Having made the puzzle slide this far open, I had a few ideas as to what might be needed next. Now I am sure that almost all of you are screaming at me through your screens that I needed to spin it to align the interior pins properly. That approach has been tried before by very famous puzzle designers but remember the instructions above

"No tapping, no banging, no spinning"

My ideas, at this point,  ran out! I removed the bolts and another tool that I had and slid it back together but at no point would the doevetail ever slide any further than that. depending on the orientation it would move either a few mm or about 15mm (but only inn one direction). Time for a little think©ing. Oddly, the two bolts are slightly different lengths and maybe that is important?

Ali had really been enthusiastic about the mechanism so there must be something quite special inside. I put it back together and left it for the evening and came back to it the following evening after a day's work and thinking. There seemed to be nothing for it other than do do something dangerous and hope it didn't backfire on me. I tried that and that didn't help  but there were other alternatives which needed a little more thought to make possible. After another few minutes of fiddling I separated the two pieces and could see the locking mechanism.

Solved! No spoilers here.

What I couldn't tell was how the damned thing worked! I had a few pieces now and the reason why it would wiggle a bit and then move 15mm only was obvious and ingenious but it was not clear what I had done to actually make it slide apart this time. With the innards visible, it was possible to play with the various pieces to see what was going on inside and the mechanism is really quite clever. I don't think I've seen it done before.

Resetting it takes a bit more thought and it is still a bit of a challenge to open again. We all think of Rich as a "burr meister" but here he has revealed that he is that and a whole lot more! If you get a chance to buy a copy or even just play with it for half an hour then you should definitely go for it. It's not too difficult but the Aha! moment is wonderful - I now understand Ali's delight.

The Tetrahedral burr

This made an appearance at the previous MPP and I had a little fiddle then but did not dismantle it. The copy above is the original which Rich gave to me because he had made another copy with some improvements that were able to get rid of the slight gaps visible above. It looks like an assembly puzzle with shapes that need to be stacked onto each other to make a multi-coloured tetrahedron. It certainly could be an assembly puzzle but its classification is actually different. It is, in reality, a "standard" 6-piece burr!

Its "just" a Ghost 4x4
A standard cube made much more confusing

Yes, Rich has taken a standard burr (I don't actually know whether it is one of the well known ones) and used the 3D printing software to add extensions to the burr sticks so that they form a different end shape. The process has been made even more challenging by reading the extensions in such a way that the orientation of the interior burr is now off centre. This process is well known in the twisty puzzle world as "ghosting" - it takes a standard shape, rotates layers and then adds pieces to make the rotated puzzle back into the cube shape.

So we have a shape with odd pieces that do move linearly but not along any of the axes of the tetrahedron and they interact with each other just as many burr puzzles do but in a much more confusing manner! Because it's a 6-piece burr, there aren't actually many false passages but I found it very hard to keep track of what was moving where and did very much need to rely on my back and forth approach. At some point it splits apart and I decided that I would make a video for myself and a sequence of still photos to ensure that I didn't get stuck with a pile of pieces. Having done that, I carried on and disassembled the 2 halves and took my photo:

OMG it looks so innocuous 
You can see the burr shape inside

I scrambled the pieces and left them for a while. I don't think that this can be modelled in Burrtools as a tetrahedron - of course, the internal burr can but that won't help me solve the puzzle. The reassembly took me over an hour! Had I not known the rough arrangements of the two halves, there would be no way that I could solve it but with the little knowledge I had and a very slight recollection of the moves needed, I could reassemble. The process is huge fun! Another one for all of you to try - even those of you who aren't in to burrs will find this one different enough to interest you.

Basket burr

Another of Rich's designs which was shown off at two successive MPPs. The basket burr is reminiscent of the Akaki's Basket packing puzzles (I only have the wooden ones from Cubic Dissection but wish I had the whole set). This is another "standard" 6-piece burr in a frame which forms the bottom part of a basket. I have adored, framed or caged burrs for many years and have so many that I can't even estimate how many. Some of the 12 piece caged burrs are incredibly difficult and §i haven't solved them all but the 6 piece ones are fascinating and usually more achievable. To my shame, I have never managed to disassemble the Congestion burr. 

Rich's Basket burr is very achievable as a disassembly puzzle being level 21 (12.1.1.1.4.2) and the assembly would be impossible for me without having some idea of the process of disassembly first. Of course, Burrtools is a help and an essential part of any burr for me and I was very surprised to find that there were 64 different solutions but the colour scheme chosen by Rich ensures that the most difficult one is the one to aim for. I now need to work on finding some other assemblies - this could take me quite some time!

Very clever discovery by Rich

There seems to be absolutely no end to his talents! I cannot wait to see what he comes up with next. Thanks mate, for a really fun week of puzzling!

I Need To Learn To Count!

Also I Properly Prove Primacy!

Freeze 14 from Yuu Asaka

At the end of last week's blog post the intrepid puzzler had tracked through a puzzle lock and opened it and closed it. He then boasted about it and posted photos of said lock on his website and some social media. Needless to say he felt very smug! That is until the creator of the challenge pointed out that he had not seen a picture of the ant that had to be hunted. Ah! Maybe the puzzler is less bright than he thought he was? He should have realised he wasn't very bright - if he had read his own website, it would have told him in no uncertain terms how dense he really is. Doh! 

I actually thought that one of the tiny metal pieces that had been retrieved during the solution was the ant. I showed Boaz the photo of all the pieces and what I thought was the ant and was disabused of the idea very quickly! Time to go back to the drawing board and solve it again and search for the ant. Oddly doing it this time showed me that I hadn't fully understood the opening mechanism because despite having opened it 5 or 6 times before writing about it, I couldn't repeat it. after another 3 or 4 hours, I opened it and noticed something new and realised I had manipulated it entirely by accident the first time and then not reset it properly. This meant that my subsequent solves were accidental. I went on my extended ant hunt and found the sneaky creature that Boaz had left for me to find. Phew! Finally completed.

Next I had to work out exactly how to fully reset the puzzle every time. I had managed it once by accident and also failed several times. This time I had it properly done. OMG! There is a lot more to this puzzle than I had initially thought - go and buy it - you won't regret it:

PuzzleMaster Link or PuzzLocks direct link.

Having finally completed that puzzle, I needed another quick success because I knew that I had a busy week coming up and the MPP (yesterday). So what did I do? I went back yet again to another masterpiece from the great Yuu Asaka. I had bought the Freeze 14 from Mine along with a bunch of his own creations back in January (most of which I have failed to solve) but it is available from many other stores (PuzzleMaster has them here, Brits can get them here or here, Europeans from here or here and from Yuu-san himself here.

Freeze 14 by Yuu Asaka

There are 3  each of a small square piece and a circle as well as 8 wedges that have cutouts for the squares and circles (one of which is oddly combined as well as 2 semicircles o=attached to the wedges. All of these pieces need to be packed inside of the octagonal shaped tray. Should be simple? Yeah! Right! It might be simple for you lot but for me I have spent 5 months proving that either it's not simple or I'm thick! Mrs S frequently tells me one of those and she tends towards the "thick" decision!

I have spent quite a long time trying to put the wedges together approximating the two halves of the cutout holes to make space for the 6 shapes to be inserted. With the positions of the cutouts, there really aren't very many options for positioning the wedges. I confidently placed them and also ensured that the semicircles were also contained in a hole only to find that there was alsways one (or more pieces that I was unable to place).

Close? Definitely not close enough!

I tried multiple variants of this over the months. I did it in the evenings, I did it at work and always failed much to the amusement of my colleagues. They used to think I was a genius but I have definitely proved to them that "thick" is a better word to describe me. 😱

At one point (or even several points, to my shame) I even attempted a higgledy piggledy assembly of the wedges in the hope that alternating the orientation of them might make more spaces to place the small pieces. It didn't take me long to give up on that idea - I am think but not that thick! I put it away for a while.

A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a surgeon close a wound and listening to the scrub nurse count the needles, blades and instruments and checking against the list from the start. This made me think©... maybe I needed to count as well? Not because I might have lost anything, but because it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't have enough holes for the number of pieces and semicircles I had.

This momentary lapse into genius proved a turning point to me. I counted the halves, I counted the holes (or wholes) and counted the pieces and semicircles and got hopelessly lost making it to 6 or 7. Scrub nurses only count to 5 and occasionally 10 (rarely they go higher if they take their shoes and socks off) but it's almost always a nice round number. Counting in halves to 7 is very confusing but no matter how many times I tried, the number wasn't right. Aargh! Time to think© - yet again! After a little think©ing got me nowhere, I slept on it and had an epiphany. I need to make more holes. But how? This time I had something to try and went for it.

I will not be showing you the solution but that Yuu-san is a very very devious man! I really should have seen the answer much earlier - in fact the box states that the puzzle should take just 40 minutes and has a difficulty level of 3½ out of 5 (PuzzleMaster make it a Level 8 on their 5-10 scale). It certainly took me a LOT longer than that but Mrs S has stated the truth - I am thick - so 40 minutes for a normal puzzler equals 4 months for me! OMG Blush! Such shame!

At the MPP yesterday I received/purchaased a few new toys and expect that they will take me several years.

I didn't recall what this STC puzzle is called but I don't have enough hands to assemble it:

I don't remember what it is

This won't go in without coordinate motion

Mrs S has made several useful suggestions but not actually offered any hands in assistance!

Can You Prove That You Are A Primate?

Ant Hunt by Boaz Feldman comes with a "primat"ive narrative

Having bought and even solved a whole bunch of the Feldman family creations over the years, starting with the incredible DanLock from Dan Feldman way back in 2011 (currently only available from PuzzleMaster) and moving through a whole bunch of increasingly amazing creations from Boaz, I couldn't resist the latest one, Ant Hunt (which is on sale just now direct from Boaz or available from PuzzleMaster here).

It arrived at PuzzleMad HQ back at the beginning of November last year and I was pleased to see that the instructions were simple:

"Open the lock and find the ant!"

As usual there is the admonishment not to use excessive force or use and external tools. Oddly, the back of the instruction card mentioned using tools to go bug hunting and how chimps did it. This had to be a big clue and I had to prove that I was at least as good as a chimp! Having said that, if I was a chimp relying on my abilities here to feed myself, I would have starved to death a long time ago!

Beautifully presented!

All of these locks are beautifully presented in a bag with the card. I dutifully now check the bag very carefully for hidden tools having been caught out for a long time with a previous puzzle. This puzzle accompanied me to work for several months with me getting absolutely nowhere before I transferred it to my pile of puzzles to solve at home. Oddly, the velour bag kept turning itself inside out every time I went to pick it up. I would return it to the correct orientation each time only to find it inside out again within a few days. This was very confusing to the male primate of the house (I actually began to question my sanity yet again) until one day I caught the female chimp in the HQ turning the bag inside out. I found out that Mrs S couldn't stand the fact that the bag picks up fluff and stour from my work bag which offends her deeply! Once I had taken a lint cleaner to it, she allowed it to stay the correct way around! Phew! I'm not bonkers!

I have sort of been on a lock roll recently - I managed to solve the Who Dares Wins and the MWPuzzles Keyring within a week or so and thinking this might bode well for other similar types of puzzles, I went back to Ant Hunt again and tried to utilise a little Think©ing. That will be an Ouch! without the Whack!

The keyring comes apart in the usual fashion and the key goes in the keyway in the usual way. It even turns 90º giving a very false hope. The key turns and the lock fails to open! Yes, what did any of you expect? Time for a closer look...there is hole in the front of the lock which you can see right through  and also a hole in each side which don't seem to show anything significant. if you feel the urge to emulate the picture at the top of the blog post you can poke your undone keyring into any of those holes and achieve pretty much nothing:

Look at me! I'm a chimp!
If you do this on the front it will go right through

None of this poking is terribly helpful and so it's time to look elsewhere. Interestingly, the shackle of the lock has quite a lot of play in it with movement of about 6-8mm. Except sometimes there is minimal movement possible (only a couple of mm) and oddly this minimal movement can occur at an extended position or a retracted position. It doesn't take long to work out what is going on to be able to make the shackle abilities change to whichever state you want it to be in - apart from open! This was where I was stuck for several months.

I played with this state of affairs for a while before I discovered something else that I should have found a long time before - Boaz had used a fairly standard trick but because I had been kept occupied by holes and a moving shackle, I had not looked further. Having made this important discovery, I now had more "primat"ive things to try and a new ability was found. Even with this nice new ability, I was unable to go any further until I thought© to combine one or two abilities into a chain (this really marks me as one of the higher primates or maybe a crow) and suddenly I had found the resident ant in the puzzle. Incredibly well hidden and not going to be found by accident without doing the right sequence of moves. After that, opening the lock was a lovely next step and the reason it all worked was revealed with a gasp of delight:

Incredible puzzle manufacturing skills

Resetting the lock is a relatively easy sequence as long as you know what you had done to get it open and doing it again is a pleasant bit of fun. I will be showing this off to my long-suffering anaesthesia assistants to show the engineering possibilities of a lock.

This is an amazing feat of puzzle engineering using a standard Nabob padlock. Yet again, I'm blown away by what is possible. Basically, I will have to buy everything that Boaz makes - I am not very good at lock puzzles (or any puzzles for that matter!) and they do keep me occupied for a very long time which proves very good value and ends with a phenomenal (slightly desperate) Aha! moment. You should get one whilst you can (either from Boaz direct or from PuzzleMaster) - you won't be disappointed.

Great Puzzling Comes in Twelves!

Time For More From Pelikan

Minima puzzles no 5 to 12

Number 1 to 4

It was only a month ago that I wrote about the last release from Jakub, Jaroslav and team's Pelikan puzzles. At that time they had beautifully reproduced the first 4 in the Minima series designed by the incredible Frederic Boucher. This time the next 8 are here in yet another gorgeous selection of woods and you really need to add them to your collection. The four from the last release that I have written about are still available as individual puzzles or a set of four. There is a Minima 13 but only so far only released by Frederic himself and Tye Stahly) it is possible that will also become available in the future as well.

From Nothingyetdesigns

Original from Frederic XIII

If they are going to be released like the last set then they should be in sets of four as well as single puzzles. The wood choices are perfect:

Minima 5 - Limba and Bubinga

Minima 6 - Ash and Ovangkol

Minima 7 - Wenge and Maple

Minima 8 - Ovangkol and Zebrano

Minima 9 - Acacia, Padauk and Wenge

Minima 10 - Zebrano, Purpleheart and Maple

Minima 11 - Merbau and Padauk

Minima 12 - Bubinga and Acacia

Obviously, like the rest of the Minima puzzles, the aim is to pack the pieces into the box and leave it so that no gaps are visible through either the large holes, small finger holes or slots that facilitate rotational moves (if the number of voxels is less than the 12 that would completely fill the box). Continuing with the pathway that the first four took, these get progressively more difficult but are always very fun to solve. The rotations are beautifully facilitated by the various holes and slots cut into the box and no force is needed. Some of the rotations are really quite tricky to work out and in several puzzles there are multiple rotations for one piece. As before, the wooden box makes the challenge much more difficult as you cannot see what is happening inside once a piece or two have been placed. I had not managed to solve Minima 8 in the acrylic box version despite months of trying after receiving them in September last year. Minima 8 doesn't look like too much of a challenge with 3 simple L-shaped tri-ominos and a single 3 voxel straight stick but there I had huge problems with it and was gratified when a couple of correspondents agreed that it was a really difficult puzzle.

Minima 9 and 10 are slightly different having pieces of 2 colours and whilst packing is the aim, the difference is that with Minima 9 the puzzler has to place them so that only one of the colours is visible through the holes in the box (for that one there are 2 solutions - one for each colour). Interestingly, I found one colour quite a bit harder than the other. Minima 10 has only one solution and needs to have only the vibrant Purpleheart visible from outside of the box. Minima 11 and 12 are very deceptive having relatively simple pieces and quite a lot of large holes in the box but they are also a huge challenge - almost as difficult as number 8. They both took me 2 or 3 days to solve but at least not the several months of the former. 

These puzzles are so much fun and this explains why I have a HUGE collection of these Minima puzzles of varying types and from various designers. Basically I will purchase any of them when released to add to my collection. I would say that these are ESSENTIAL purchases for anyone seriously into packing puzzles - they are stunningly beautiful and a fabulous challenge and the Pelikan team have made them so well!

---

Empire

Empire by Jorgos Anastasou

Bottom view

The other puzzle being released by Pelikan alongside the 8 Minimas is the Empire burr by Jorgos Anastasou. This beautiful and complex 11 piece burr is presented as a rather dense block structure with a sort of dome on the top as would be seen on an emperor's palace. It has been made with a lovely set of woods (Padauk, Wenge, Acacia, Purpleheart and Maple for the vertical sticks forming the dome and a very warm Cherry for the walls). The first move is very well hidden partly because the pieces are quite snug and it required a good bit of pushing, prodding and pulling to find what could move. Once you have found the first move then it is quite quick to remove the first piece (there are just 5 moves required to separate it from the puzzle) but removing the next piece will prove a considerable challenge. It is only another 7 moves but finding the correct ones was very difficult for me. I went round and around in circles for a long time failing to find a critical move until I found it quite by accident. Unfortunately I did not notice what I had done until I realised that new positions were available to me and I was completely unable to backtrack! After a good half-hour of trying to return to the start, I gave up and continued with the disassembly which was great fun as it remains pretty stable right to the end. The final disassembly level is 5.7.1.2.3.2.2.2.1.2 which doesn't look terribly challenging but for me it is just right!

Reassembly required me to have a lot of fun with Burrtools but I think that those of you who remembered your pathway might manage without it and the genii amongst you might just manage to put it together from scratch. 

Jorgos is really designing some fantastic puzzles and I am so pleased that Jakub is agreeing to make them available to us in such fancy woods. This one will look stunning on display in your collection.

Don't Be A Coward!

If You Dare - You Will Probably Win!

Who Dares Wins aka Haleslock 6
A fabulous design by Shane Hales in collaboration with the Two Brass Monkeys

Today is a day for locking metal stuff or unlocking it.

The first thing I should tell you all is that Big Steve and Ali (the Two Brass Monkeys) have released their latest creation, the Bag O'Tangles and you should all go there and buy it/them. I saw the pre-production version at the last MPP and immediately decided that I needed to buy a copy when I saw it there - it has just gone up for sale and I have placed the order to pick it up at the next MPP at the end of the month. If you aren't sure then read Allard's review to be convinced. Apparently they can all be nested together for a final master challenge - if nothing else convinces you, then that certain should!

In August last year, I purchased the 6th in Shane's series of lock puzzles. When you have all the others it would be rude not to continue collecting and Mrs S definitely agreed with that. Whack! Ouch! or maybe not! 😱 

The Who Dares Wins puzzle is still available from the Two Brass Monkeys site and you definitely should get one whilst they are still available. I had no idea what a rim cylinder lock was until I got this. I had always called the classic door lock on a British front door a "Yale" lock but that is apparently a trade name for the type of lock I grew up with on my front door and certainly in retrospect, from the top this thing would not be out of place embedded in a door. Shane had created a prototype puzzle from one of these and showed it to the monkey boys and they all colluded to create something that did not require a puzzler to carry a door around with them (Mrs S would definitely have disapproved quite strongly had I brought in an extra door!). As soon as they were available to purchase one arrived and I took me customary photos. It is nicely shiny in brass and some anodised aluminium with a key on a keyring and a helpful tag with the instructions - open the lock and find the golden padlock. It is all delivered in a Jute bag. This thing is pretty weighty at 380g with dimensions of 36mm diameter and 88m long.

I'm glad this one was so attractive as it stayed on display in my pile o' puzzles to solve for many many months! I played and played and played with it daily, then weekly then monthly since August last year and got absolutely nowhere! At some point during the 9 month wait I even retrieved the jute bag and turned it inside out searching for hidden tools in the sewn edges. I've been caught by that sort of thing before and refuse to be caught again - at least until the next time!

Looking at it, there is not much to really see that gives any immediate clues. Putting the key in the lock and trying to turn does the usual nothing at all - it won't turn but at least the key comes out again. Fiddling with the brass collars gives a teeny hint that they might be involved at some point as there is a fraction of a mm movement in one of the three but no rotation. After discovering that, there is nothing else to be found for a VERY long time. I am sure that all of us do the usual of trying to insert the key to varying depths and attempting to turn it - no, that doesn't work either. Then it's time to attempt it with the puzzle in a whole lot of different positions. I am getting a bit too old to be doing handstands with a puzzle but at least I didn't hurt myself.

Looking very closely at the puzzle does give a small hint at one of the things that Shane has done to the insides of this thing to convert a standard lock into something that won't open with a key but seeing it doesn't really help. At least it didn't help me! Remember, I am not terribly bright.

Right from the very beginning there was something that I wanted to do but didn't have what was required to do it and with these you are not allowed to use anything that you haven't been given. This was one of the reasons I went to the jute bag at least 3 or 4 times to see whether I had missed anything. I really wanted to do one particular thing but never had the courage to do it. This was a deliberate part of Shane's devious design! He knew that no puzzler would be happy doing what he knew was necessary, hence the name of the puzzle - if you were going to win with this one then you had to be daring and try something special. I was a coward! Month after month I didn't dare to try it until in desperation I did the unthinkable. 

AHA!

OMG! I cannot believe that he did that! All of a sudden after 9 months of cowardice, I was daring for the first time and I managed my first step. Now it was time to explore further. Don't solve this puzzle anywhere where you might lose small pieces because after a further 10 or 15 minutes you will find some "stuff" dropping out (in my case into my lap and into the grooves of the sofa cushions). 

Solved the bloody thing - I had my golden padlock!

Once the lock is open you can see how simple and yet ingenious the design is. Shane is relying on people not having the courage to do what is necessary and, from what I can gather talking to other puzzlers, he is absolutely right - not many of us are willing to be daring. at least not until we get absolutely desperate. That man is a genius! I texted Shane when I had finally solved the bloody thing and he actually wrote:

"I wanted to psychologically f..k people over      I guess it worked perfectly!"

 It certainly did! B.st..d! But finally after all this time I can place it on display in the lock section of my display cabinets, much to the pleasure of Mrs S.

---

MW Puzzles keyring

I had missed out on the whole of Matthew Williams' puzzle designs as they seemed to go viral via the Mechanical puzzle discord and I just don't have time to get involved in that. I saw a few of his incredible creations at the MPP and they all looked fabulous but I resigned myself to only getting to look at them at puzzle parties. I even missed out on the second run of Pinball Wizard puzzles because they went up for sale whilst I was anaesthetising a weekend trauma list and they sold out in about 5 minutes - I was 2 hours late! 😭. 

Get that key out

My only experience of MW puzzles' creations was the Keyring 1 (I have heard that a Keyring 2 might be released sometime soon). I managed to acquire this at a Midlands puzzle party and I think I received it as a gift from Matthew (thanks mate!) This lovely little thing is made of steel, brass ands a few acrylic bits as well. It has been in my work bag for over a year! The aim is to remove the key from the lock and then put it back and trap it again.

The key is inserted in the keyway at one end and doesn't move much at all. There is a very small amount of wiggle room but it certainly won't turn or pull out. Looking at it you cannot see what mechanism inside might be preventing the movement.

The only thing that you can do is move the brass collar - it can rotate and it can be pulled a few mm towards the far end to pushed back. At some point during the movement of the collar you can see a red something inside.

Red insert inside?

There appears to be a pin

Fiddling with this collar eventually reveals a pin and it feels like that pin can be moved but when the collar is rotated back to the start position the pin is always back in place. It feels like that pin needs to be extracted outwards into the brass collar to release something inside.

I spent over a year trying to get that damn pin to do something and failed. Now, with many puzzles there are lots of things to try and you keep attempting different combinations of various things until you get enough information to progress to the next step. Both of today's delights have none of this progression - there is absolutely nothing new to try and only one or two tiny little movements which don't get you anywhere. I sometimes think that these puzzle designers are out to drive me crazy......crazier than I am already!

After a year of fiddling and doing the same 1 or 2 things over and over and over again, I noticed that something had changed. It would appear that Einstein was wrong - sometimes doing the same thing again and again for a very long time does actually make something happen on one occasion. Or maybe it happened every time but I failed to notice it.

That was rather interesting; if only I actually knew what was the cause. Determined to put another puzzle away, I continued with my repetition and before I knew it, there was a major change inside. More repetition was required until I had yet another of those

AHA!

moments!

I had no idea how this was working but I finally had my key:

At last! Another puzzle I can put on display.

Could I put it back to the start? Yes I could. It's very clever and I am slightly ashamed of myself that it took me so long to work out what was required. Thank you Matthew for keeping me occupied for a year! I need some easier puzzles for a while!

Good Puzzling Comes in Three's?

Three Pieces? Or Three Puzzles?

TripTIC

NeuroTIC

You cannot have too many Turning Interlocking Cubes! Especially made by Brian Menold or designed by the "Master of the TIC" - Andrew Crowell. Brian's last update had 4 TICs in it and I picked these 2 because I already had copies of the other two (SkepTIC previously from Brian and remaining unsolved as well as XiTIC from Bernhard:

XiTIC pieces

XiTIC assembled

I really need to find my copy of SkepTIC and solve the damn thing - I seem to remember that I bought it in March last year and could not assemble it and have put it down somewhere - who knows where!

SkepTIC pieces still to be assembled

When Brian offered these puzzles that I did not have in my collection, I could not resist. Well, you all know that I struggle to resist many puzzles that are put on sale and have really annoyed Mrs S by continuously increasing the size of my collection and failing to put them away. She was distinctly unimpressed when they arrived. I had been hoping to intercept their arrival without her noticing whilst I have had a few days of annual leave over the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately, she had me doing DIY and gardening for much of the time off and I couldn't get to the door in time to intercept before she got there. I was wiring in replacement smoke and fire detectors and up a ladder when the package arrived! I nearly fell off the ladder in my haste to get to the door first but she's too damn quick! 

In the evenings after finishing my enforced chores and (for once) not electrocuting myself, I set to playing with these fascinating TICs. The fun thing about both of the new arrivals is that they have only three pieces in each:

TripTIC made from Paduak, Canarywood and Angelique wood

NeuroTIC from mixed woods

I started with the "easy" one, TripTIC, as it only had 2 rotations and 11 moves. and quickly found the end positions for each of the pieces and individually found the rotations but when trying to put all three pieces together the pieces interfered with each other's moves. until I found a very nice little position for one that opened up a hole for the introduction of the other and after about 15 minutes I had a lovely little cube:

See! I can solve the odd puzzle occasionally!

Time to move onto the harder one...NeuroTIC also has 3 pieces but despite having only 2 rotations, it has a higher level of 13.3 and as Brian puts it: "some interesting moves". I definitely struggled on this one. I quickly determined the final resting positions but putting any third piece into the mix quickly blocked me. I couldn't seem to work out which piece to use first and I ended up having to solve this over 2 days. Yes, I forced Mrs S to allow me a little puzzling time during my time off. Whack! Ouch! Sorry dear. As Brian said, there are some really clever moves involved here and the final rotation that allows the rest of the puzzle to slide together is absolutely delightful. 

Absolutely wonderful assembly process

Disassembling the puzzle caused me a little trouble. I got all caught up and had a piece trapped and unable to release it despite working out the correct rotation first. This could easily also be a disassembly puzzle. 

I really never know how to store these puzzles - should I keep them disassembled? Or should I keep them as lovely looking cubes to be taken apart - this would help with storage but decrease the repeatability of the puzzles.

Of course, I couldn't buy just 2 TICs from Brian. I had to make the postage worthwhile - I also couldn't resist a third one being released by him from the amazing Haym Hirsh, the Green T-Box:

Green T-Box

I had already bought the original T-Box by Haym back in December 2021 and thoroughly enjoyed the sole process of packing 6 T-shaped bars into a beautifully designed box so how could I possibly resist a reworking of the original idea with another 6 T's of different dimensions and a different set of obstructions in the box? Again, it was beautifully embellished.

After spending a few minutes trying to rearrange the pieces in vertical positions from the placements they arrive in, I quickly realised that vertical placement was definitely not going to cut it! This one is damned fiddly - the tolerances of the woodwork is astonishing! Even a tiny amount of tilt to a piece will get it wedged in amongst the other pieces and require a frenzied shaking and tapping of the box on your palm to free them up. After ½ an hour of repeated attempts in the box, I had to start to think© outside the box and realised that it was not quite a case of simply shoving the pieces inside in the correct order and orientation. The pieces needed to be placed and some of them slid into position inside. It's a very satisfying feeling when the final piece drops in and the lid fits on top snugly.

Trust me, all the T's are inside

What is next for Brian and Haym? Will we have Black T-Box? Oolong T-box? Who knows! Whatever it is, I will not be able to resist. 

Thank you, Brian for a week of delightful puzzling to take my mind of the DIY and gardening. In fact, I have had quite the roll this last couple of weeks - I look forward to showing the completed puzzles off to you over the next couple of weeks.