Mrs S Meets Frau L.

Upcoming puzzles from Pelikan

Last week I reviewed the "easier" of the puzzles from the upcoming release from Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan puzzles. That was despite one of Lucie's puzzles being anything but easy! Today I focus on a week of fiddling with the results of Dr Volker Latussek's warped mind. These are really not easy!

Frau L.

Frau L. arrives with all but one piece in the hinged box

This incredible puzzle is yet another follow up to Hajime Katsumoto's Penta in a box. In the summer Volker continued Hajime-san's amazing thoughts about packing pieces into a hinged box by making the pieces 3D and a subset of the Fatomino group with his very fun puzzle that he named Fatomino. It was a hugely fun puzzle and really makes you think about what adding a rotational entry into a 3x3x3 box does. I loved it!

5 rather large pieces to be placed

Of course, Volker cannot leave a good thought alone and always explores any of his ideas until he reaches a limit of puzzling possibility. This time he decided that ALL of the pieces need to be 3D and none of them planar. This particular puzzle is absolutely gorgeous with a Mahogany box and each of the pieces made from multiple different wood cubes (Acacia, Garapa, Maple, Padauk and Purpleheart). It must have been a real pain for the Pelikan team to manufacture these but the end result is very worthwhile. Volker said this about the design process:

When I first tried to fit five FATS into a box with a hinged lid and briefly thought, ‘That’s impossible’, only to then use FATOMINO to demonstrate the wonderful properties the FATS display when combined with the hinged-lid box, I had discovered something astonishing for myself, without being able to put it to use for FATOMINO.

So I had to say goodbye to the FATS and instead fill the 3x3x3 box with any polycubes. I hadn't imagined quite how much of the familiar would remain in the end. For me, it was an exciting journey through the world of polycubes, only to end up packing five pieces back into the box, with a unique solution and a surprisingly low fill rate of less than ninety per cent.

Mrs L. often watched me as I moved the little blocks back and forth on the screen, and on more than one occasion, years later, she opened the corresponding parcel from Pelikan and saw the results. She always shares my delight when something intangible turns into something tangible.

With FATOMINO, it was the box with the hinged lid that she kept opening and closing. Perhaps it was the memory of her childhood jewellery box that made her so happy. It certainly wasn’t the FATS. For FRAU L., I’d only asked her briefly what sort of wood a jewellery box ought to be made of. Mahogany, obviously. With the polycubes for FRAU L., Pelikan had enquired whether the individual voxels really did need to be made from different types of wood. Yes, absolutely. Perhaps the colourful pieces in FRAU L. will help her get over the fact that, apart from LE COLLIER DE TANTE LIESEL and her wedding ring, no jewellery could have filled a jewellery box.

I dedicate FRAU L. to my wife Magdalene, whom I have called Mrs Latussek for almost four decades now, because she finds the name so ugly. It’s lovely that she has stayed with me all the same, and I so very much hope that the name Latussek sounds at least a little pleasant in the world of puzzles.

With FRAU L., I wish all members of the puzzle community a supportive companion for their passion. In particular, from Mrs S..

When I mentioned to Mrs S that this puzzle had been named after Mrs (Frau) L, she thoroughly approved and was amazed that anyone from the community would know enough about her to mention her. Needless to say, Mrs S never ever reads my blog and has absolutely no idea how much she appears in it (if she did there  would be a lot more than a Whack! Ouch!) Mrs S does admire the beauty of the wooden ones but has never had any urge to play with them which is a shame.

The Frau L. puzzle has 24 voxels to fit inside a 27 voxel cube. I initially thought that this might make the puzzle easier with having extra space but in reality this is not the case. The absence of a planar piece really adds to the complexity. I tried creating cubes and then looking at how to recreate the hinge movement that is so delightful with the Fatomino puzzle. There is a requirement to partially fill the main body of the box and leave enough space in the middle layer to allow the top parts to rotate down. The 3Dness of all the pieces caused me a lot of difficulty. I found a couple of nice cube assemblies and looked at all the possible orientations of them to see how they could be dissected into a top and bottom half. Every single one of them either had spaces that were blocked by cubies in front or the front lip of the box. In desperation, I went to Burrtools and realised that this was going to be much more difficult than I thought - there are 26 possible cubic assemblies! OMG!

I spent a whole week exploring them systematically and was getting nowhere at all. In the end I found myself sliding back and forth on the screen amongst the 26 solutions when I noticed a gap adjacent to a piece that I had not been really concentrating on. It was a gap in a very peculiar direction and in retrospect I should have realised that this would be something that Volker's warped mind would seize upon. I duly assembled the cube out of the pieces and explored what movements the special gap might allow - the Aha! moment was amazing! This assembly is similar to the assembly in the Fatomino puzzle but MUCH more! When you see it, you will know what I mean.

This is a glorious puzzle and a very fine extension to the Penta in a box line. Being named after Frau L herself is very fitting - she should be very proud.

Albert

Albert arrives with one piece outside the box

I vividly remember the incredible challenge that was Petit Albert from this time last year! I received a fair bit of correspondence about it. It was an amazing challenge to fit. That puzzle had an L shaped hole in the side of a 3x3x2 box and a bunch of Tetrominos to fit inside. The catch was that rotations were going to be required and the only way to facilitate them was to have curved edges along one side on each of them. Just like the Penta in a box, Volker is unable to let something go - he always explores the very limits of what is possible with any idea that he has - he always wants to make it better or more difficult. He did it this time by increasing the size of the box to a 4x4x2 cavity but having the same L shaped hole on one edge and lengthened most of the tetrominos into pentominos whilst continuing to have the single very tactile curve along the edges. My initial response was horror - I remembered just how tough the precedent puzzle had been and was frightened that this might prove impossible.

Just like the Petit Albert, this puzzle is beautifully made from Oak and Wenge. They will look great on display together. As with most of Volker's creations there is a very particular transport assembly which leaves one piece outside the box. I actually struggled to get the pieces out of the box as they started to rotate and slide about. On top of that there is very little room to get your finger in to direct them. I eventually had the pieces ready for the obligatory photo: 

A triomino, tetromino, 4 pentominos and a hexomino

Looking at the pieces, there appears to be 3 identical shapes and 4 others. The design philosophy behind it was described by Volker:

Some time ago, a sculpture by the Spanish artist Carlos Albert reminded me of a distorted Tetracube. Perhaps that’s not so surprising, considering that Carlos Albert forges his sculptures from solid square steel. I had set myself the task for PETIT ALBERT of integrating as many rotations as possible into a 3x3x2 box - when playing with the distorted Tetracubes, it quickly becomes clear that the absence of some edges enables new rotations - the challenge with ALBERT was to combine the opening of PETIT ALBERT with the 4x4x2 box from my TWISTED-TETRA. I’m always delighted when something new emerges from the interplay of the familiar and new observations, but I’m especially happy when you, like me, discover and enjoy the sometimes-wondrous properties of the pieces as you play with ALBERT - perhaps PETIT ALBERT’s big brother. Of course, using some of my new favourite Pentacubes: The Fats.

As always, the trick is to assemble the packing shape outside the box and see how easy it is to remove the pieces through the required hole. I quickly found a couple of assemblies - the cavity is 32 voxels in volume and there are 32 voxels in the pieces. This is very important as it means that the first pieces to be removed will need to be direct with no rotations. My first shape had no way to remove any pieces at all direct and I quickly moved onto searching for another. It didn't take long - the pieces are all a really nice size and are lovely to play with on a table. I was very encouraged to see that my second shape had the ability to slide 2 pieces straight out through the hole:

Two pieces will come out but so near and yet so far!

Having done this, I looked for the next moves and found that nothing was possible. It was stuck! I was slightly concerned that if there was going to be a huge number of possible assemblies, I might struggle to remember what I had tried. A third assembly allowed the removal of another piece after the first 2 but again I got stuck. I went back to Burrtools to check on how many possible assemblies there might be and was very reassured to see only 7. Time to be systematic...

I quickly found an assembly that would allow me to easily remove 4 pieces and then a fifth with some relatively simple rotations. After that, there were only 2 pieces left to play with - this MUST be the correct assembly so it was time to try it in the box. Oh boy! Working out how to rotate these first 2 pieces into position was a massive challenge. One piece in particular was a huge problem - controlling the movements was very difficult but eventually I managed it with a rather clever and unexpected rotational move. I have never seen a move quite like that one in one of these packing puzzles - very very clever. I finally had my pieces inside and a feeling of huge achievement.

How does this compare with its' little brother? Interestingly, with this one having larger pieces and a larger cavity, the puzzle is more constrained which actually makes it easier to solve but also a LOT more interesting and fun. It is very clever and more accessible than Petit Albert which was extremely tough. If you have the original then you must get this. If you want to try a rotational packing puzzle then this is one of the best of them. Absolutely superb.

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Safe 2 coming soon

I mentioned last week that Safe 2 was going to be released soon - it is a sequential discovery puzzle which should interest many of you. The original Safe 1 is still available from Pelikan here and my review is here. You can pre-order the Safe 2 by contacting Jakub by email at info@pelikanpuzzles.eu or using the Contact page on their site

There's A Loach In The Upcoming Release!

New Releases Coming From Jakub and Jaroslav's Pelikan Puzzles

I have had a little annual leave recently and had to use a lot of it for stuff around the house but was very delighted to receive a new big box o' puzzles from Jakub containing 6 new beauties. I even had some time to start proper work on them. 

We have:

Loach Bed by Osanori Yamamoto (Top 10 Vote getter in the 2026 IPP design competition)

Mirror Tetra X2 by Oasnori Yamamoto

Window 444 by Lucie Pauwels 

Family Puzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Albert by Dr Volker Latussek

Frau L. by Dr Volker Latussek

This week I have solved the first 4 and will be writing about them.

Loach Bed

Loach Bed by Osanori Yamamoto

This wonderful diminutive puzzle was a Top Ten Vote getter in the IPP design competition for a very very good reason. In fact, it was one of the puzzles I voted for myself. A supposedly simple packing puzzle with a limited entry (single voxel) made from leopard wood and 3 bright yellow pieces made from Movingui (it will also be available made from Acacia and Walnut). There are 2 simple rods and an S-shaped piece to be fitted inside the 2x2x3 box so that the entry is left filled.

I remember playing with this in Italy. I remember the beauty, the perfect logic and the marvellous Aha! moment. I then also remember the Oh $3*t moment when I realised that it needed to be solved outside the box in your head first and then the sequence produced from memory completely blind. This makes this puzzle ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! The first challenge outside the box is to work out how the S-shaped piece can be inserted and then where the two rods can be placed alongside it and still allow some movement. Then work out a sequence that can allow removal of the pieces. Great! You know what is needed. That took me about 10-15 minutes (I am not terribly bright - I am sure that you will be quicker than that). Then once you know this then insert the pieces inside in the correct order and within a single move of inserting the third piece nothing more can be seen and the rest is done from memory and blind. At this point the careful sequence that you have worked out becomes less obvious and finally you will realise that you need to use gravity for the moves. So rotating the whole puzzle up and down backwards and forwards suddenly makes you question whether you a. can remember where everything is and b. what direction things need to move when the orientation is different to the one that you worked out the sequence.

This picture is not helpful!

The feeling of success is fabulous. Enjoy it...then leave the puzzle for about an hour or so and then with what you know in your head and no real muscle memory left, try and take the pieces out. This again needs to be done blind and can lead to some heart-stopping moments when you have turned it over and about and hoped the required moves have happened but find that a crucial move now won't happen. At this point you need to backtrack without knowing the state of the pieces inside. At one point I got rather badly lost and had to put it down for a bit in a panic. The disassembly is just as challenging as the assembly - there's a reason it won a prize - BRILLIANT!

I would suggest that you do not give this to newbie puzzlers without keeping a close eye on what they do. You could end up with a locked puzzle because you can't see what's going on inside.

Mirror Tetra X2

Mirror Tetra X2 by Osanori-san

This delightful challenge made from Acacia and Padauk arrives as a loosely assembled brick. The aim is to assemble all the attractively symmetrical pieces into a solid 4x4x4 cube with the extra constraint that the cube is formed from 2 mirror coloured halves. 

The puzzle is not hugely difficult but is very compelling to play with. The pieces mostly have tongues or grooves in them (or both) as well as a single 1x2x4 plate and a 2x2x2 cube. Making space for these is both helpful and a hindrance. The most confusing part is the inclusion of two pieces that have a side length of 3 voxels which, for me, made them quite hard to place. Burrtools tells me that there is only one assembly and knowing this, the colour requirement is actually a nice clue as to what you can and cannot do.

It's definitely not a trivial puzzle and actually took me the best part of an hour to assemble it. This is perfect for all levels of puzzler.

Window 444

Window 444 by Lucie Pauwels

Lucie Pauwels always comes up with very interesting challenges and this is no exception. It's a sort of framed jigsaw/packing puzzle made from a whole bunch of gorgeous woods. It arrived like this with all but 2 long pieces in the tray. Once you have tipped all the pieces out you realise that there are 3 different size groups to be inserted - 4 long ones at 5x1 units in size, 4 medium ones at 3x1 units in size and then also four 1x1 pieces. In terms of voxels, with the protrusions and cavities the pieces are considerably more complex and if you were going to put this into Burrtools then you would need a 18x18 voxel grid to do it. But I would advise you - DON'T use Burrtools! There is absolutely no need to do so. This puzzle is wonderfully logical and needs only a little exploration to notice a few critical features which will make you think©. Once you have thunk then the solution needs only a little trial and error and progression happens very quickly. It is very satisfying when you find where pieces need to go. If you make a mistake, it takes a bit of doing to remove the incorrect pieces as they fit together so perfectly (as you'd expect from the Pelikan team) - a small suction cup tool would be very helpful.

This lovely puzzle is another that is perfect for all levels of puzzler - It encourages thought and planning rather than too much trial and error.

Family Puzzle 

Family Puzzle by Lucie Pauwels

Here we have a rather beautiful and very very challenging tray packing puzzle by Lucie Pauwels. It looks much easier than the Window 444 but is a much more difficult puzzle. We have a nice small tray with a cavity measuring 8 voxels high and 15 across. There are 8 rectangular pieces of varying sizes to be placed in the tray and each of them has a single voxel notch punched out of one edge. All the pieces are made from a different rather lovely wood making this a very attractive puzzle to play with. So far so easy - place all these pieces in the tray. There should be plenty of space. 

However, the puzzle is not going to be that easy - Lucie would never let you be that easily successful! On top of the larger pieces there are four 1x2 voxel pieces (mine are a rather lovely Zebrano) which also need to be inserted into the space alongside the bigger pieces. Once all the pieces are in, there will be no holes left. It seemed to me that the obvious thing to do was to insert the bigger pieces and pair up the notches is 4 of them to make space for the small rods. easier said than done. After an hour or so of attempting that, I gave up and just fell back to trying to insert all of the large pieces and ignoring the rods. Even doing that is a challenge as they always seem to fit easily up to the last one:

Not even close on the simple challenge!

After a lot of trial and error I had a crucial Aha! moment which I am sure would occur to you much earlier. After that I was able to get all the large pieces inside but I was a very long way off from getting all the notches lined up. I found quite a lot of possible simpler packings but none allowed me to place all of the rods. I did make a BT file and found that there are 96,608 possible ways to place the large pieces. Time for more thought and more trial and error. I have so far been unable to solve this one so far. BT tells me that there is just a single solution and I have no idea how to go about finding it. 

I think that the better puzzlers out there amongst you will be able to logically approach this and find the solution. Good luck - it's a massive challenge.

Also Coming Very Soon...

Safe 2 by Pelikan Design

Jakub has informed me that he will also be releasing the Safe 2 puzzle soon - I reviewed the Safe 1 here and adored it. This new version is also a sequential discovery puzzle designed by Jakub and team. It is apparently very difficult - Ivan has been working on it for a while and the "Master of puzzle boxes", Peter Hajek, has rated the puzzle box as "good" which is very high praise from him.

There will be 2 versions. The standard version will be €420 and a special version made from Fossil oak (5 copies only) will be €600. If you wish to pre-order then this can be done right now by emailing Jakub and paying a deposit. 

Contact him at https://www.pelikanpuzzles.eu/contact/ or email info@pelikanpuzzles.eu

An Incredibly Satisfying Twisty Variant

Pretzel by "AndEleven puzzles" aka Kiernan Anderson

I had not seen anything like this until I saw the Pretzel puzzle at the IPP design competition table and everyone around the tables seemed to be fascinated by it. The interesting thing was that even people who would normally shy well away from twisty type puzzles would still pick this up and fiddle with it. Yes, very few of them would go on to solve it and, in fact, most would just fiddle, chortle to themselves and put it down. The tactile nature of it was something that everyone was delighted by. I myself spent a fair bit of time at the table trying to solve it but whilst I made progress, I couldn't manage it in the time that I had. However, it was something that I had said to myself that if I could find a way to buy then I would definitely spend some money and add a copy to my collection and spend more time on. Luckily Hendrik had a whole bunch for sale at his IPP table and also a few other designs which had not appeared in the competition.

Orb-it

Hungarian Rings

Those of you who frequent the Twistypuzzles forum will have seen Kiernan introduce a bunch of these fancy new bead puzzles over the last year. They seem to have been very well received and many people have played and solved them. I personally have had an on off fascination/relationship with bead type puzzles ever since my dear departed friend Felix encouraged me to attempt the original Orb-it puzzle. After my success with the Orb-it, Felix encouraged me to other bead puzzles like the Hungarian rings which I reviewed in the same post.

Interestingly, I had found these very challenging despite their apparent simplicity and had very much enjoyed them. For people who can't work out their own solution the amazing Jaap still has his website up giving solutions to lots of these combinatoric type puzzles. The Orb-it is here. and the Hungarian rings is here.

After those, I eventually moved on to more and more complex twisty puzzles and was entirely unaware of new bead puzzles until the IPP. Having bought a couple of these from Hendrik, I brought them home and immediately got too frightened to scramble them. I was very frightened that there would be absolutely no way that I would ever be able to solve them. I experimented and took some photos to show the moves:

1 rotation

1 rotation and a slide

There is something wonderful about fiddling with these. The beads move smoothly around the track which includes an "underground" section and the spinner section is aligned using magnets so it clicks into place so nicely. Anyone picking this up will just fiddle with it for the sheer tactile delight of it. I watched lots of people do that very thing at the IPP. Eventually, having fiddled with it for a few days I got up the courage to scramble it. 

What have I done?

There is only so much that you can do with this. Move the balls around the full track or twist the spinner to isolate 18 of them in 2 long and 2 short tracks. The easy thing to do is build up sets of three and then sets of six and store them in the isolated sections until you need to use them. It's not actually difficult to get to an almost there point until you suddenly discover that all the balls are grouped together but they are just one or two positions out of the alignment that you need. I was stuck with an almost there position for quite a long time until I suddenly saw a way to shift them along one step at a time. Aha! I am now able to save this one very time I play with it.

On Kiernan's Etsy product page about this puzzle he states that this is difficulty level 5 out of 10 and I personally would say that it should be a 3 or 4 compared to most other twisty type puzzles. He says:

Rubik’s Cube enthusiasts with algorithmic experience typically solve it within a few hours and afterward consider it a modest challenge. Focused adults or teens with general puzzle experience—but no cube-solving background—should find it quite challenging, but solvable.

If you’re brand new to puzzles or aren't used to logical / sequential challenges, consider one of my easier alternatives.

Looking at his store front, the puzzles that are lower difficulty level look horrifyingly difficult to me but you should take his word for it - he should know.

I did also purchase from Hendrik the Delta puzzle (3 colour version) which Kiernan has assigned a difficulty level of 7/10 and I have not had the courage yet to scramble it. Every time I play with it, I get the shudders and the urge to put it down quickly before I do something I can't undo!

The Delta (3 colour)

one loop and one ∞

This can have all of the beads on a single trefoil track or by turning the spinner (as usual with a very satisfying magnetic alignment) it can be split into 1 ring alongside an infinity shaped track opposite. What could possibly go wrong?

Kiernan's own description rates this as a level 7 or 8 and says this about it:

The 3-Color Delta is special — it's my favorite design so far and my personal go-to puzzle. It’s a serious challenge, yet still highly intuitive to explore. As you experiment, you gradually begin to feel the kinds of moves the puzzle wants, developing an understanding of its mechanics through intuition as much as logic. Because you can separate it into two tracks and cycle only some of the beads, it feels more intuitive than the Infinity with 3 colors.

But with three colors to solve simultaneously, planning ahead is still quite complex. Even experienced twisty puzzle enthusiasts and seasoned Rubik's Cube solvers should expect a substantial challenge.

The claim of being highly intuitive really does mean that I should just go for it. Gulp!

If you are interested in these bead puzzles then you really must go to Kiernan's Etsy store - I probably should add a few more to my collection!

Finally, I did purchase another puzzle that I did not expect to. I love twisty puzzles but haven't actually played with any for over a year due to lack of time and being distracted by other stuff. But almost as soon as I entered the IPP puzzle party room I was confronted by Diogo Souza and some of his absolutely incredible 3D printed twisty puzzles. My previous experience of 3D printed twisty puzzles has been very variable. The original Shapeays twisty puzzles always dropped black powder all over the place (Puzzle Maestro's 3x5x7 cuboid was one of the first). But then later home printing improved things a lot until TwistyTex's version of the same cuboid was so much more usable that I should have started buying more of this type of puzzle. I had fallen out of the scene a little and was staggered to be confronted with Diogo's amazing designs. I spent a god 20-30 minutes chatting to him before going agains what I had originally thought because I couldn't resist buying a copy of his Sprout cube which is a combination of an edge turner and corner turner.

Sprout cube by Diogo Souza

This also frightens me to death because the pieces interchange/jumble. The movement is so smooth that it is wonderfully tactile to fiddle with. The discussion of the solving process on the TP forum is just a little frightening!

What should I do? Scramble the Delta or the Sprout Cube? Hmmmm! 

Diogo's puzzles are for sale via his Instagram page - I probably should buy some more. Shouldn't I?

Very Nearly An Idiot!

PIL Box

PIL Box by Richard Williams

I very nearly didn't have anything for you today. I have had a rather busy week and am actually going to be working as this posts. I have furiously been trying to solve something all week and until about 2 hours ago had nothing to write about. I went back to another of the IPP exchange puzzles that I have been trying to work out off and on since I got it in June.

I had been encouraged by the fact that Fraser had assured everyone that even an "idiot can solve it". I suspect he is doing himself a disservice - he seems to be pretty good at solving puzzles - especially compared to me - but then you all know that I am not terribly bright. 

Pack 3 pieces

This creation from Richard Williams was his exchange puzzle at the IPP which he was kind enough to give to me despite me not being an exchanger. It promptly went into the pile to be solved (which is currently GIGANTIC) and due to the easy idea of packing 3 pieces through a limited entry hole into a box kept me coming back. Easy idea maybe but easy to do? Nope! But if the "idiot" can solve it then I didn't want to show myself to be worse than that (moron?)

It's very nice and tactile. The  pieces have to be placed through a hole at one corner that it eccentric and has an odd chamfer to one edge. The I and L shapes are easy to insert but the C shape has to be inserted with a fun rotational move which can only happen in one direction. Working out which order to place them is the start - it turns out that they get blocked up really fast! Other rotational moves once a piece is inside is very limited due to a single blocked voxel inside the box. 

I had been stuck for weeks. I kept going with my Einsteinian approach of trying the same thing and variants of it again and again! As usual this did not have the desired effect and I was forced to think©. Fraser said it was sneaky so I did one of my moves a few more times in the hope that it would be sneaky if I did it again. Nope! Eventually I tried something which shouldn't have worked and it didn't because I did it wrong but then thunk about how else I could do it. Aha! Damn, why didn't I think of that before? I'm not terribly bright. I finally had my pieces packed inside the box and felt very foolish. He's a sneaky bugger that Rich. Very fun puzzle to play with and great to show non-puzzlers. They will be very annoyed at you when you show them the secret. Thanks mate.

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I have to blame Allard for this. I read his review and put myself on the waiting list for a few weeks when it suddenly came up for sale again. It's rather large and Mrs S was most unimpressed at the space it takes up. She was even less impressed at the enormous customs bill I had to pay!

Yes, it is the ECD-trilogy (Entity Containment Device Trilogy) puzzle set from Nothing puzzles in Australia. It is beautifully made, significantly heavy and looks like it might well be another puzzle I cannot solve (based on watching Rich and Dan fail to complete it at MPP). Lot's of fun coming up!

A Fun Week Of Torturing

Ice Cream SandWitch

Having had a bad week last week, I was really motivated to get back into it for this post. I took the three TICs that Allard gave me to work and tortured a couple of lovely girls who surprised me with their tenacity.

Georgia - my ODP

Even the radiographer!

Caduceus pieces

I had worked on Caduceus first after writing my post last week. It looks the easiest of them having only 2 pieces to fit inside. The fun thing about it is that both pieces have circular rods in them which implies that they will both need to undergo rotations to get them placed.

The first thing to do is go through some thinking© to work out which direction each of them need to be placed across the cubic frame. I was gratified to see that both girls who tried this puzzle did exactly the same thing before attempting the insertion. It's nice to see that thought is universal with puzzles. 

Having established the direction of travel we experimented to see how the individual pieces could be moved into place and then see whether the second one could be manipulated around the first. Oh boy! They really get in the way of each other. There are a LOT of moves and they dance around each other a huge amount. There are so many rotational and sliding moves that for me it is impossible to keep track of them. I managed to assemble it last Sunday evening and then couldn't take it apart again for a very long time.

Damn! That was tough

Eventually I separated the pieces and watched in fascination as Georgia and one of the other theatre staff worked on it and was very gratified to see that they had the exact same experience. Both really enjoyed it and were keen to try the others. I love infecting others with the excitement of puzzling! Especially girls - we need more girl puzzlers.

The next 2 of the TICs from Alan Lunsford were Cobra and Hydra:

Cobra has only one rotational piece

Hydra has 2 rotating pieces

Cobra has the advantage that the two frame pieces are just like simple interlocking cube puzzles and relatively easy to work out where they go together but then whilst it is simple to see where the rotating piece has to go, it is actually a huge challenge to insert it into position. With everything you try the piece almost arrives but not quite. Many possible moves leads to the thing falling apart. None of the girls managed to get past this point and it was with some trepidation that I attempted it myself. It is damned tough. There is a very very nice sequence to get the thing assembled. Luckily with this one, once you have done it then the disassembly is not going to be hard to manage. It is really clever and perfect to get someone hooked - the ability to get so close and yet so far away is wonderful for the experienced as well as the newbie puzzler.

Hydra has 2 rotational pieces and it doesn't take long to work out where they have to go. Like the Caduceus, there is a whole lot of dancing with some rather extreme moves before it eventually slides together. Disassembly is also a challenge. It took me a good hour before I could say that I really understood the puzzle. I will be taking it to work to torture people for a few weeks.

Cobra assembled

Hydra assembled

If you have a 3D printer (Sob! Never me!) then I suggest you go to Alan's Printables page and download the files for these and make yourself some TICs - they are simply fabulous!

Next up, I tortured myself with George Bell and Nan Ma's Dodecahedron assembly kit. I spent quite a lot of time in the IPP design competition room in Italy attempting several of the challenges set out with these and completely failed. I came to the conclusion that my hands are too small or the pieces were too perfectly made with not enough gaps to help me. But, I am a sucker for a puzzle kit and the five challenges sung to me. I started with the easiest of them (rated medium) and after nearly an hour yesterday, I finally managed an assembly. Hooray!

Dear Lord! That was tough and it was the easiest!

I spent another couple of hours trying various of the other challenges and got absolutely nowhere apart from to teach the cats some swear words and to piss off Mrs S with all the muttering under my breath. The pieces can be assembled gradually by gently pulling apart and adding extras. This continues until there's no space for any more and then as long as the assembly is correct there's a space for the final piece but no way to insert it. Time to take a few out and place them in a different order. Finally you have to pull it apart to the almost falling to bits position and try and manoeuvre the last piece or pieces and let it collapse together into shape. Unfortunately, I have been completely unable to manage it - I pull it apart to the almost falling to bits and then as I wiggle, it just "falls to bit" - Aargh! I'll keep at it for a while longer but I'm losing hope. I saw a friend at the MPP manage them all but I have no idea how.

Finally I have to show off the Ice Cream SandWitch puzzle which I also solved this week.

Ice Cream SandWitch by Alexander Dangl
I never noticed the mis-spelling until now!

This puzzle was also an entry into the Design competition this year where it won a Jury Honourable Mention Award. I actually didn't play with it myself at the IPP because I had immediately decided that I wanted to buy a copy having seen p[eople enjoying it and with lots of shouts of delight as they solved it. The following day at the main puzzle party, I quickly found it for sale and got hold of a copy. Let me say straight up - it's a lovely thing and great fun to solve with plenty of Aha! moments.

It is available in 3 ice cream flavours (pistachio, vanilla and the strawberry that I have). The aim is to work your way through finding and using tools to get yourself the coin to allow you to buy more ice cream. At the moment it is available from PuzzleMaster and sold out at Tye and Amanda's Nothing Yet Designs (they may well get more n stock in time).

Initially, the only obvious tool is a bolt that slides part way out when you tilt the puzzle downwards. The first thing to do is work out how to release the bolt and then see where it can be used to make other things happen. The first couple of moves are quite easy to find and will lull you into a false sense of security. I managed those first couple of steps very fast and then got stuck for a while. I had a bolt, a magnet and that was it. There are lots of magnetic areas inside the puzzle but I was unable to manipulate them. I had to put it down for a while due to demands by the present wife that I do some stuff for her. Later on, I returned to the puzzle and noticed something really quite subtle. Aha! I now had...another magnet and nothing to do with it.

I'll not tell you what I did next as I don't want to spoil it for any of you but I have to say that you need to use physics to solve this one and after another few moves you have your coin to allow the purchase of more ice cream. It's wonderful and certainly a candidate for my top ten(ish) of 2026. I will be bringing this to work to torture people as well. My work bag is always shoulder bruisingly heavy because I bring so many great puzzles with me. Torturing people is fun!

A 3D Printer Is NOT Allowed

Thank Goodness I Have Puzzle Friends!

Dodecahedron Assembly Kit by George Bell
Printed by Allard (thanks mate)

I am absolutely amazed - my post views have passed the 7 million since I started writing in March of 2011. Thank you for reading my crap!

 

After the last 2 weeks of desperately trying to solve the upcoming Pelikan puzzles as quickly as I possibly can, I have been rather fatigued and not actually done any puzzling at all this week. So I don't have anything to really review today. I did attend the MPP number IIXIIXIIXIIXIIXII yesterday (yes that does seem to be a Roman numeral! Allard needs to remember the number L for simplicity.) and one of my favourite things when I go there is to pick up a bunch of plastic freebies that Allard and other friends have produced for visitors to take home.

I have a rather big birthday coming up soon and I had hoped that maybe a Prusa or Bamboo toy-maker with all the multi-colour trimmings might be a possible gift from she who frightens the Gods - I even suggested it to her (Whack! Ouch!) However, the present Mrs S is very frightening. She has said on numerous occasions when I mention a possible purchase, that the arrival of a 3D printer in her house (NOT mine) is definitely grounds for divorce and I really cannot afford a divorce! This means that it's absolutely NOT happening, no matter how nicely I ask. No, she is not worried about noise or electricity usage. Her primary reason for the absolute moratorium on this wonderful technology is that she is aware that the profusion of wood and metal "stuff" that keeps arriving and cluttering the house will rapidly be supplemented by a huge bunch of "ugly plastic crap". Modern 3D printers produce stuff that is much less ugly now but she does not want yet more puzzles arriving courtesy of the printer. Sob! Luckily, I have wonderful friends like Allard, Rich and Dan who can make 3D printed puzzles which I can smuggle in without risking life, limb and sanity. Oops! Sanity went a very long time ago.

One puzzle set that arrived yesterday courtesy of Allard was George Bell's incredible entry into the Assisi IPP design competition. Whilst it didn't win an award, it was a fabulous challenge which I spent quite a lot of time on. Interestingly, I had almost no success. It is a series of coordinate motion challenges and I left Italy rather frustrated thinking that it was impossible for someone with relatively small hands. I do tend to pride myself on having fairly decent hand control and dexterity (on Wednesday I had to put a cannula in a vein on the front of a patient's shin under ultrasound guidance!) but I really struggled with it. At the MPP the puzzle was attempted by a few people and even the most difficult combination was assembled successfully. I now have the option to try them myself in the privacy of Puzzlemad HQ without anyone laughing at me with every failure.

Another advantage of a 3D printer is that all the wonderful new TICs that get designed can be quickly added to a collection without having to wait for a craftsman to make them in wood. I adore TICs and interlocking puzzles. Allard had 3 new TICs from Alan Lunsford sitting to be taken home. They were smuggled into the house with my MPP box and secreted quietly where she can't see.

Caduceus

Cobra

Hydra

I can't wait to work on these. 

So, in the absence of my own 3D printer I will be "forced" to attend MPPs so that I can endure being made fun of but still manage to pick up plastic toys without being told off. See you all at the next one.