Looks Easy, There’s Just One – Hitch

Every once in a while, you run across an enticing puzzle while surfing the internet.  Ok,  maybe a little more often than every once in a while.  Maybe once a week – that I don’t run into an enticing puzzle.

This is the story of one particular puzzle called Hitch designed by Émil Áskerli.  I spied this one on the Pelikan Puzzles website and alas dear readers, it is no longer available.  It was a lovely looking puzzle in an interesting compact form.  I’m sure that you can tell from my choices of filament that the version made by Pelikan used Purpleheart and Zebrano.  

Having printed it myself, I obviously solved it as an assembly puzzle.  The pieces didn’t look that complicated and they were obviously divided by color into 2 sets of 4 pieces.  The tan pieces are identical and the purple pieces are 2 pairs of pieces that are mirror images of each other.

I expected the solution to be easy and I was moving along just fine when I developed a hitch in my gitty up.  I couldn’t see the magic.  I say magic because even when I accomplished it, I didn’t see the magic, it just happened - magically of course.  I find that as I get older, it becomes more difficult to see further down the path and I just hope that any unnoticed gaping holes in front of my feet lead to the destination.

Early on in the solving process, I figured out where all the pieces HAD to go, which is always a bittersweet moment because it is usually followed by a long tortuous period of time that is terminated with the realization that the pieces don’t really go that way.

It’s not that difficult to get 7 pieces where they need to go, but getting that last piece in eluded me for a long time.  Being noticeably more afflicted by nearsightedness as I age, I kept changing the orientation of the pieces, trying to get a configuration that could be morphed into an assembly that would accept that last piece.  And of course that last piece was not the piece that I expected.

After some time, I gave up trying to figure out how it would happen and just decided to move forward without expectations and low and behold, the path opened up and swallowed that last piece.  Whereupon, I quickly closed it up and claimed victory.  

It may be small but Hitch has nice moves and solving it is very satisfying.  Or would have been satisfying if I were able to project hypothetical movements better, or recurse multiple solution path branches faster, or maybe just simply curse better with more gusto.  Then again, maybe the pieces that I printed were just a little too tight.  Yeah that ‘s it.  The pieces were malformed, not my brain.  That’s the story that I’ll be sticking to!  

Hitch is a great puzzle.  Just make sure you get a good copy!

Panefull Puzzle – Window Packing

You will go through great panes to solve this puzzle.  Four of them to be exact.

Window Packing was designed by Koichi Miura and exchanged in this year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP) by Meiko Kimura.  The puzzle is made from laser-cut acrylic and consists of a window frame and 4 blue tetromino pieces (1-I, 1-Z, 2-L) that need to be packed into the frame.  The 2 outer layers of the frame are made with gray frosted acrylic and have 4 large openings that come in handy to manipulate the pieces within the frame.  The center layer is clear and made from 2 pieces, but I have to confess that I don’t know why it isn’t a single piece.  

You will immediately notice that the O-penings on the front of the puzzle are not the same shape as the pieces to be packed inside.  Hint -  One corner of the middle layer has a single voxel opening (2 sides) to allow the pieces to be inserted within the frame.

This puzzle is not difficult, but it’s not trivial either.  It does require the rotation of pieces within the frame.  However, it should be obvious which piece needs to go in last and that doesn’t leave too many assemblies to check.  The rotations required to get the pieces in position are not difficult and the large openings help accomplish this.
 
I found packing this window frame much more enjoyable than packing the window frame in my old storm door for the winter.  Window Packing is a good entry puzzle for 2D packing.

Octadecahedron by Another Name – Pinwheel Crystal

What was the last octadecahedron puzzle you played with?  I thought so.  You’ve never heard of one.  That’s because of the lack of publicity that octadecahedron receives.  Now if I asked you about a truncated rhombic dodecahedron puzzle, you’d all be jumping up and down shouting that you have one in your collection.  Maybe even the Pinwheel Crystal made by Dave Rossetti.  It’s all in the naming.

I’ve always wanted a puzzle made by Dave Rossetti and I finally got my wish at this year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP).  Dave’s entry in the IPP Puzzle Exchange was Pinwheel Crystal designed by Stewart Coffin.  This is a geometric shaped puzzle in the form of a rhombic dodecahedron with truncated tips.  And the interior is hollow in the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron.

The puzzle is made from Granadillo and Maple and gets its name from the nice pattern made by the contrasting colors of the woods.  The puzzle consists of 6 pieces that are used to construct the truncated rhombic dodecahedron (just roles off the tongue, not like octadecahedron at all).

I’m always amazed at the complexity of these types of geometric pieces.  My woodworking skills top out at cubic dissection constructions.  The jigs and setup up required to make the angled cuts for geometric puzzles like Pinwheel Crystal is a whole other game.

So Dave used his amazing geometrical angly cutting skills to make 24 identical pieces (12 each of Granadillo and Maple) which he separated into 6 piles of 4, sprinkled them with glue, and shook them in a bag until he had the 6 puzzly pieces with a nice finish.  A little more shaking and he had the assembled Pinwheel Crystal.  Repeat 99 times and you’re ready for the puzzle exchange.  Sounds like magic, but everything seems like magic until you know how to do it.

Pinwheel isn’t a difficult puzzle to solve but it is a very attractive puzzle and beautifully made by Dave.

 

Screwing Around With Flowers – Tulip Twist

What do you give a wife who doesn’t like flowers or puzzles for her birthday.  A flower puzzle of course!

Tulip Twist is a flower themed puzzle with a lot of eye appeal developed by GlennovitS 3D on Printables.  For anyone who would like to print their own copy, the stl files can be downloaded from the Tulip Twist Puzzle Printables webpage.

The puzzle has 2 tulips, a planter box, and 3 layers of soil for the planter box to plant the tulips in.  Each tulip consists of a root, a stem, and a flower.  The flower and stem are the same for each but the roots are different.  Each of the 3 layers of soil has pathways for the roots of each tulip and each layer is different. The goal is to determine how the layers of soil need to be placed in the planter box to allow the tulips to be planted so that the roots are no longer visible.

From a puzzle perspective, Tulip Twist is very simple.  It’s really more about the eye appeal than the complexity of the solving process.  It may not be the most complex puzzle on your shelf, but it will certainly do a good job of drawing attention.

The design of the pieces is very well done.  The 3 parts of the tulips screw together very nicely, but note that they are reverse threaded, which feels somewhat awkward.  This is an attempt to keep them from unscrewing when you’re screwing around with them.  However, they are nice and tight and the rest of the puzzle tolerances are so well done, they don’t seem to be at risk of coming apart.

I was very impressed with this freely downloadable puzzle from Printables and my wife loved it.  It makes a great gift for that special budding puzzler in your life.

Time to Smother – The Blue Bird of Happiness

With a name like The Blue Bird of Happiness, you would expect this puzzle to have an upbeat theme.  However, the goal is to have the other jealous (or if you’re Mr. Mark - envious) birds, Miserable, Wretched, Gloomy, Woeful, and Mournful, smother Happy until it can’t see the light of day.  Yes, it’s time for Happy to have a case of the blues.

The Blue Bird of Happiness was designed by George Sicherman and used by Nigel Croot as his exchange puzzle at the 41st International Puzzle Party.  The puzzle consists of 6 pieces, with IPP41 debossed on each piece.  The pieces are 3D printed with each having a different color representing their personality.  Be careful not to confuse them!

As mentioned above, the goal is to place the blue piece on a flat surface and completely hide it using the other pieces.  Given the nature of the bird-like shapes, it’s not too difficult to discern the orientation of the blue bird required for the bottom of the pile.  One by one, you heap the Miserable, Wretched, Gloomy, Woeful, and Mournful birds on top until The Blue Bird of Happiness has vanished.

I didn’t find it very difficult to smother The Blue Bird of Happiness and I felt kind of sorry for him.  However, I needn’t have worried.  There were plenty of cracks for Happiness to seep through and like the phoenix, The Blue Bird of Happiness rose again to taunt the next puzzler.

C’est Ludique – Minima Ludique

 

J’aime la série de puzzles Minima.  Chaque casse-tête est un petit défi et ludique, surtout le puzzle du jour – Minima Ludique.

Minima Ludique was designed by Frederic Boucher and made by Nothing Yet Designs.  The puzzle consists of 4 Wenge and Mahogany V shaped pieces that have to be packed within a holey frosted acrylic box.  The packaging for the puzzle is well-thought out and holds the box with 3 pieces trivially packed inside with enough space leftover to place the 4th piece on top of the box.

Apparently you don’t have to worry about the apparentness of this puzzle.  It goes without saying that this puzzle is an apparent rectangular parallelepiped since the 4 pieces are comprised of 12 cubes that have to be packed into a 12 voxel space.  This lets you know that the last piece will simply slide in through the only 2 voxel opening in 1 move.  All you have to do is find out how to pack the other 3 Vs in preparation.

And therein lies the dilemma.  Getting those first 3 pieces into position takes a bit of thinking.  There are 2 tricky moves involved.  The first wants to happen and will pull you along with it.  The second will be less obvious and will attempt to resist you.  However, once you’ve accomplished it, it’s all over.

A few weeks after solving it, I looked at it and decided to put it back in an unsolved state.  Unfortunately, after the first piece dropped out, I couldn’t immediately determine how to release the other 3.  It’s not as if there are a lot of moves that you can make.  And then I saw it.  As during the initial solve, the key move doesn’t lend itself to being easily discovered.

Minima Ludique is a fun puzzle with some replayability for guys like me with no memory capacity.  Maybe I should design a Minima puzzle with lots of holes in the box – Minima Cerveau anyone?

Corner Table – End Table

International Puzzle Party (IPP) Exchange Puzzles come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes (and colors and materials and textures and …).  Although End Table is larger than you would expect and smaller than the name would imply, the name refers to the shape/location of the red square piece in the tray and not its size.

End Table wa designed by Goh Pit Khiam and was Khuong An Nguyen’s IPP41 exchange puzzle.  It’s 3D printed with a marble PLA tray and 6 translucent PLA pieces.  I didn’t want to risk breaking the puzzle by undoing the clips that hold the top in place but it looks like a nice mechanism.  They clips appear to be hinged on the top but I don’t believe in unnecessary violence to puzzles (except for the ones that I make – in fact abusing them is a necessary part of the design/manufacturing process and therapeutic to boot).  The translucent PLA used for the pieces allows you to see the infill pattern.  

It’s immediately obvious that this is a multi-color, apparent-rectangle, restricted-opening, 2D tray-packing puzzle.  The 5x4 tray has a 2 voxel opening in the side.  The objective is to place all the pieces in the tray through the opening with the red piece in the upper left corner (assuming that the opening is in the bottom left corner).  Never fear, there is a red square printed in the tray where the red square piece needs to go.  The pieces consist of 2 blue Is, 2 green Vs, 1 purple N, and 1 red O.

Windows for manipulating the pieces are very large.  The size of the puzzle is much larger than you would expect for this type of puzzle.  It makes handling the pieces easy.  I also found solving the puzzle to be easy as well although sometimes you just get lucky.  Placement of the pieces seemed logical with the red square restricted to the designated corner.

Just for fun, I tried packing the pieces with the red square in the other 3 corners without issue.  None were difficult.  However, after looking at the solutions that I came up with for the other 3 corners, I decided that maybe I did get lucky on the official objective since that solution had a property that the other 3 didn’t.