A Very Attractive Puzzle – Tetracore

Sometimes you find yourself drawn towards a very attractive puzzle (I confess that I sometimes confuse sometimes with often).  Tetracore is one of those very attractive puzzles.  It consists of a stellar core surrounded by 14 heavenly satellites that have been captured in orbit.  In fact, the orbital shell is completely full and there is no room for additional satellites.  And as attractive as this puzzle is, needless to say, the satellites find each other repelling.

Tetracore was designed by Jared McComb and made by Brian Menold at Wood Wonders.  It includes a 2x2x2 core with 4 magnets on each of the 6 faces.  The satellites are the 7 exotic planer tetracubes, T, O, I, L, and Z, and the mirror images of L and Z.  There are 2 of each and the top face of each has 4 magnets except for I, which has 2 since the outer cubes can never be in contact with the core.  76 magnets in all!

With all those magnets, Tetracore begs to be played with.  Whether you solve it or not, it’s meditative to just sit and snap the pieces to the core.  You can even push them from one state to another.

During the solve, I was surprised at the number of times I was left with a tetracube void that didn’t match the last tetracube in hand.  Sometimes they were the mirror of each other.  I also ended up in situations where the core was completely covered with no external magnets to capture remaining satellites.

Sadly, I eventually ended up with a celestial body in equilibrium.  But wait, looking back at the description on Wood Wonders’ site, there are 5 symmetrical solutions in addition to non-symmetrical ones and mine lacked celestial harmony.  Yay!  More fiddling time on the event horizon.

Celestial Tetracube Being

 

Nothing Yet Designs Release: 13 January 2025, 12:00 PM EST

The first puzzle release of the year from Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) will be this coming Monday, 13 January 2025 at 12:00 PM EST.  Don’t forget to put it on your calendar and set your alarm.

Recently, I received a box full of puzzle goodness from NYD with the puzzles for the upcoming release.  They all came nicely wrapped with NYD’s signature packaging that is now easily recognized in the puzzle community.  The release consists of a variety of puzzle types that I’ve had the pleasure to play with for several days.  And now it’s time to share these puzzles with you

Artefacts – Frederic Boucher

It all started a decade ago.  A puzzle designer named Frederic Boucher submitted a puzzle called Artefacts to the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 35th International Puzzle Party (IPP) where it won ... nothing!  However, a clever craftsman with a keen eye for great puzzle designs by the name of Eric Fuller (Cubic Dissection) recognized the brilliance of this puzzle and made a run of less than 50 the following year.  You can find the blog on it here – Digging Through Puzzles – Artefacts.  Cubic Dissection (CD) was planning to make another run in 2020 but it never came to pass.

The CD version had a single frame with 4 challenges – pack the pieces in the frame with the peg lying on its side (3 solutions) and pack the pieces in the frame with the peg standing up in the round recess at the bottom of the frame (unique solution).

Frederic Boucher modified the design for his exchange puzzle at IPP39 by flattening the pieces and making the packing frame double-sided.  The first side supported the original packing problem with the standing peg changed to a fixed disk mounted in the frame.  Since the pieces were flattened and the disk permanently attached, the other 3 packing problems were lost.  However, the reverse side had a different frame where the objective is to pack four of the pieces flat in the frame and you had to determine which piece needed to be left out.  

Fast forward to now when NYD is bringing Artefacts back in all it’s glory.  It has a double sided frame with the original 4 challenges on one side and the additional challenge on the other.  The double sided frame is made from acrylic with a nice matte finish with the name of the puzzle and the logos for NYD and Frederic Boucher debossed on one side.  The 5 pieces are nicely made from exotic hardwoods.  And the peg is no longer just a peg but a totem peg.  It looks awesome with a different face on each hemisphere depending on your mood.

There is a lot of puzzling packed in Artefacts with 5 challenges.  The pieces fit nicely in the frame within the frame and are nice and snug for the challenge where the totem peg is standing since the frame is specifically sized for this packing challenge.  Although the pieces are not loose in this solved configuration, you’re not permitted to tilt the totem piece in its resting place.  I’m soooo tempted to give you a hint.  Just a wee tiny piece of advice.  But nope, can’t do it.  Good luck!

Comparing all versions, it’s apparent that it’s all about the peg.  Frederic squashed it, CD weaponized it, and NYD made it art.  Those artistic touches are what I really like about NYD’s puzzles.  The decision to make a totem out of the peg to align with the theme of the puzzle is awesome.  And they made it out of 3D printed it out of Rosewood wood filament to keep the aesthetic.

Minima XIII – Frederic Boucher

Who knew that a 2x2x3 packing format could be so fruitful?  The Minima series of puzzles by Frederic Boucher and other guest contributors has put any doubt to rest.  This series continues to supply many awesome puzzles with no end in sight.

NYD has produced many puzzles of the Minima series and is now making lucky number XIII available.  The first thing you notice about Minima XIII is that it’s 3D printed.  The second thing you notice is the reason for the first thing.  Not all of the cubes are cubic.  3 of the 4 pieces have a cube with an angled cut.  And to continue the discovery process, you will notice that the Z piece has a dot on one end to match the box.

Minima XIII was designed by Frederic Boucher and made with a sparkly dark gray box and red pieces.  It should be noted that the box is very nicely made and printed as a single piece.  To complete the color scheme, the name of the puzzle is highlighted in red on the box and the dot on the Z piece uses the sparkly dark gray.  The pieces move very nicely within the box even though you may be tempted to wonder if a little force is warranted.  It’s not.  Don’t be tempted.

The object of Minima XIII is to pack the 4 pieces in the box.  Oh, and you have to ensure that the little dot on the Z piece is not visible in the packed configuration.  This helps you know where that particular piece needs to be placed.  It can be viewed as either a gimme or more appropriately as a gotcha since packing the pieces with the dot showing is trivial.  You can even store the pieces that way when you are done.

Since this particular Minima puzzle had a 4-cube piece, I placed it in the box first and started to work out ways that the other pieces could be added.  And then I remembered that 3 of the pieces had malformed cubes that must serve some kind of purpose.  Thought I had it – nope.  Thought I had it again – nope.  This is the time where you need to refrain from the temptation to force a move and rethink.  During one of these sessions where I was doubting my underlying assumptions, I discovered that one of those assumptions was indeed wrong and that the misshapen cubes had opened up another path.  Once that hurdle was cleared, the function of all the misshapen cubes eventually (note I didn’t say immediately) became apparent and with some fiddling, Minima XIII was packed.  Awesome!

Frederic Boucher is puzzle wizard being able to create so many of these amazing packing puzzles.  If you enjoy 3D packing challenges, don’t miss getting this one.  And if you’ve been collecting the Minima Series puzzles, you certainly won’t want to skip this one.

Ace of Diamonds – László Molnár

In 2020 László Molnár entered a 2D packing puzzle called 10 of Diamonds in the 2020 IPP Nob Yoshigahara Design Competition where it was in the top-10 in voting for the Puzzlers' Award.  It was also used by Gergő Prémecz as his exchange puzzle at IPP40.  The goal was to pack 10 diamonds, 5 pairs of 2 conjoined diamonds into one of the 2D frames on each side of the puzzle.  Although the original competition copies where made in wood, later copies utilized more colorful acrylic with a white frame and red diamonds.

László’s new puzzle, Ace of Diamonds, follows suit with another diamond level challenge.  It ups the ante by being a restricted 2D packing puzzle with the goal to make a red diamond on a white background.  Not only do you have to find a configuration for the pieces to fit in the tray, but you need to determine how to add them through the restricted opening.  And with 68 possible piece configurations, you not only have an issue finding one but finding THE one and recognizing that it is THE one is a bit more of a challenge.  That’s what makes the puzzle interesting.  I don’t recommend that you try to find solve this puzzle by finding and trying all 68 possible configurations.

Ace of Diamonds is made from laser-cut acrylic.  The frame is white with a clear acrylic top providing visibility as pieces are moved inside.  The name of the puzzle, designer, and NYD logo are provided around the border in red on the underside of the clear top, which really stands out especially after the puzzle is solved and there is a nice red diamond in the center.  Of course that red diamond is composed of 7 red pieces that need to enter the restricted opening in the top and moved into their correct position.  Initially, I thought that they pieces were made from triangles but silly me, they’re diamonds and half diamonds.  

As with many puzzles, Ace of Diamonds looks daunting upon initial inspection.  This initial phase is when your brain is trying to find a handhold to start the climb to the solution.  I’m here to confirm that such handholds exist and there is a route to ace this challenge. I found that applying a little thought morphed the solving process from an endless lets try every combination process to more of a where does the next piece go approach.  This approach starts with identifying the location of a couple of key pieces and the rest start to fall into place from there.  Finding and exploiting those opportunities are what makes puzzling fun and interesting.

I usually work on these types of puzzles with the pieces outside and when I think I have a solution, test it with the frame using the sequence of insert, rotate, move, tilt operations to get everything in place.  Everything worked great with Ace of Diamonds without any binding of pieces but if you find yourself in trouble, you can always remove the fasteners and take the top off.  Just make sure you don’t loose the spacers between the top and the rest of the frame that permit the pieces to move freely.

I really enjoyed solving Ace of Diamonds and found 2 solutions.  So there’s a double challenge for you.  I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in the cards for the future!

Blast-Hedron 4 & Blast-Hedron 6 – Nan Ma

These puzzles are a blast, figuratively, no literally, maybe a bit of both.  These are both a take-apart and a put-together challenge.  The AHA moment for solving this puzzle is awesome – if you know, you know, if you don’t, you don’t but you’ll love it when you do.  If you’re not in the know, you’re pretty much obligated to get at least one of these to join the knowers.  I used the term solving casually above since you’re only half-way there after you take it apart.  The second AHA (pronounced Uh-Oh this time) moment comes in play when you realize that you have to reassemble it.

I originally thought that the numbers in the names were associated with their placement in a series but quickly realized that it identifies the number of pieces in each puzzle.  BH4 is a regular octahedron, although it is rather special here, consisting of 4 pieces and BH6 is a truncated octahedron consisting of 6 pieces.  The pieces within each set are identical and remind me of flowers.  My wife said that it’s OK to leave those pieces laying on the living room table.  That’s one way to solve the reassembly problem.

Of course the elegant disassembly process does not require any external tools and I was specifically warned that this included fingernails.  So I dutifully cut my nails before taking these apart the correct way, AHA!

Assembly takes a little dexterity, but I didn’t really have an issue with either although BH4 is a little easier with only 4 pieces.  Both puzzles are 3D printed and operate exceptionally well.  Between the design and the implementation, I was impressed how impossible it seems to take them apart.  I believe that one of the contributing factors to how well it operates and feels is the addition of the extra inner shell.  And it certainly adds to the how nice the pieces look.  For the versions that I received, BM4 uses vibrant contrasting colors and BM6 uses color changing filament.  I think they both look fantastic and I still can’t decide which one I like best.

Even if you know you know, you may want to consider picking these up.  They’re really good!

2025 Puzzle – George Sicherman

I always start the year with a George Sicherman puzzle.  George has provided a New Year Puzzle since 2017.  This year’s New Year’s challenge utilizes 4 pentominoes to make a rectangle.  The pentominoes are P,L,T, and Y and together they provide PLenTY of challenges – 4 to be exact.  Each challenge is to build a rectangle with a specific number of holes in the interior of the rectangle.  0 holes, 1 hole, 2 holes, and 3 holes.  The holes can be any shape and separate holes may have touching corners.  And yes, you can turn the P, L, and Y pieces over to use their mirrored forms.  You can think of them as being 2-PLY.

Although not difficult, this puzzle provided a nice warm-up to a year full of puzzling.  It’s amazing how 4 simple pieces can be so engaging.  What surprised me most is that I solved them in order, 0 to 3 holes.  I assumed that after the solid rectangle, I would stumble on the others randomly but that was not the case.  It makes a nice to carry around in your pocket for challenging others.

New Tiles –  Frederic Boucher

There’s no getting around it.  New Tiles is a scary looking 2D packing puzzle.  Simple looking frame, simple looking pieces, exudes a sense of easy victory – all signs of a great challenge to a veteran puzzler, especially from a designer like Frederic Boucher.

Frederic Boucher originally designed New Tiles in 2016 but ramped up the difficulty for NYD’s release in 2021.  Comments from solvers on the MPD indicated that Frederic had successfully increased the challenge.  NYD is now releasing another run for those who may have missed out on the first one.

New Tiles has a classy look with it’s black and white motif.  It is made with laser cut acrylic with white pieces on a black tray with matte finish.  The name and logos debossed on the tray are highlighted in white to match the pieces.  The 9 pieces are rectangles of various sizes with 2 opposing corners chipped off to make the packing easier – Bwahahaha!

I was able to spend a little time working on New Tiles but can’t tell you how I solved it since I haven’t.  I can attest to the fact that Frederic has certainly made it challenging.  I’m looking forward to solving this one and will let you know when that happens.

Muñiz Bundle – Alexandre Muñiz

It’s simple math: 2, 2D packing trays + 4 sets of piece = 10 challenges.  How are they? –  They’re great!  How are they to solve? – Haven’t solved a single one.  Zip.  Well mostly zip.  I did get one of the warm-ups before the challenges.  Maybe it was a mistake to save these for last.

The Muñiz Bundle is made from laser-cut acrylic.  Each of the two 2D packing trays are white and support 2 different sets of pieces with the debossed names on the tray color-coordinated with with the pieces.  The smaller tray fits nicely in the larger one and each set of pieces comes in it’s own bag.  Each set of pieces also has an instruction card with the directions for the challenges.  The 4 sets are:

• Slash Mob
• Little Pypsum
• Big Pypsum
• Symmetrominoes

Slash Mob

Slash Mob consists of 8 red pieces that need to be packed in the smaller tray.  These 8 pieces are divided in half to provide 4 unmarked larger pieces and 4 smaller pieces marked with daggers.  All the pieces have angled cutouts in them that are addressed in the challenges.  They are also all cut off at an angle on one end through the cutout leaving one half of the cutout where the cut is.  For all the challenges the daggers must be face up.  The direction that they point in is not important.

Each of the challenges requires the configuration of the pieces within the frame to meet a symmetry constraint.  They are 1 – reflection symmetry along the vertical axis, 2 – reflection symmetry along a diagonal, 3 – 180 degree rotational symmetry.

 

Little Pypsum

Little Pypsum uses the same tray as Slash Mob.  You just need to rotate it 180 degrees.  It consists of 6 purple pieces divided into 4 L triominoes and 2 dominoes.  Each square of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  There are 2 challenges: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 3 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 3 pips.  Of course successfully completing the second challenge also completes the first.

 

Big Pypsum

Big Pypsum is the big brother of Little Pypsum and uses the larger tray.  It consists of 9 dark blue pieces with 4 L triominoes, 4 straights, and a single square.  Each cube of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  It works exactly like Little Pypsum except everything has to sum to 5.  So the challenges are now: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 5 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 5 pips.  And again, successfully completing the second challenge, completes the first.

Symmetrominoes

Symmetrominoes uses the same frame as Big Pypsum.  It consists of 12 pieces in 3 different colors with 4 pieces each, which are made from blue, green, and orange transparent acrylic.  Each set has 2 L and 2 Straight pieces.  No wait, The orange set is malconfigured with 3 L’s and 1 Straight.  Each piece also has laser-cut markings that are used to support the challenges.  These markings restrict how you can place a piece in the tray by requiring that all pieces of the same color have all their markings in the same orientation.  The markings are configured such that blue pieces can be rotated 180 degrees, green pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 180 degrees to align the markings, and orange pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 90 degrees to align the markings.

Symmetrominoes comes with a warm-up in addition to 3 challenges.  Normally I scoff at warm-ups but decided to try it anyway.  The warm-up was to simply pack the pieces in the frame ignoring colors and markings.  Did I mentioned that there was a malformed set resulting in an odd number of L’s and Straights.  After several minutes of being scoffed at by this warm-up, I finally had them all in the frame.  Whew!  At the conclusion of this grand success I was out of time and had to start thinking about putting out a blog.

The 3 main challenges for Symmetrominoes are: 1 –  Place all the pieces in the tray with the markings of the pieces of each set in the same orientation, 2 – Same as 1 with the pieces of each set forming a connected group, and 3 – Same as 1 with no 2 pieces of a set touching along an edge.

Although I didn’t get very far in solving the Muñiz Bundle challenges, I definitely think that they are well thought out and made.  There is a lot of value in this 10 challenge bundle and I’m looking forward to a deeper dive after this blog goes out.  These seem like they will be serious challenges.

A Great Start To A New Year – Nothing Yet Designs Collaboration

And now for something completely different.  This year, Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) has decided to provide copies of puzzles to ZenPuzzler for review prior to their release.  This is to inform puzzlers about the puzzles that will be available and continues the trend of NYD’s commitment to serve the puzzle community.  This blog introduces this new approach to be followed closely by the review of the puzzles that are planned for NYD’s first release of 2025 on 13 January.  Of course since these are reviews, you’ll be getting my extraordinarily perceptive and sage perspective on each puzzle.

Tye and Amanda have been busy over at NYD HQ this past year and recently posted some year-end statistics for 2024.  During the year, they grew the number of contributing designers and partners to bring 157 designs to the puzzle community.  This number does not include the International Puzzle Party (IPP) puzzles that they provided for exchangers or other one-off projects.  122 of these designs were made in-house by NYD and the remaining 35 were designed and produced by NYD’s expanding network of partners.

As part of this new collaboration, NYD has also provided ZenPuzzler with an affiliate link that followers can use to support the blog.  Whenever purchasing puzzles from NYD, using this link to go to the website will credit ZenPuzzler for use in acquiring additional blog subjects.  Of course, this will not cost you anything and will not taint my extremely unbiased, above reproach, and beyond understanding puzzle reviews.  The link is: https://www.nothingyetdesigns.com/?ref=ZenPuzzler

NYD’s first release for 2025 will be at 12:00 PM EST on 13 January 2025 to kick off the new year.  Mark your calendar.  The release consists of good mix of different puzzle types including 2D and 3D packing, tray packing, interlocking coordinate motion puzzles, and others from designers that you may recognize like Frederic Boucher, László Molnár, and George Sicherman, as well as designers that you may not be as familiar with such as Nan Ma and Alexandre Muñiz.  The release will include the following puzzles:

• 2025 Puzzle by George Sicherman
• Ace of Diamonds by László Molnár
• Artefacts by Frederic Boucher
• Blast-Hedron 4 by Nan Ma
• Blast-Hedron 6 by Nan Ma
• Minima XIII  by Frederic Boucher
• Muñiz Bundle by Alexandre Muñiz
• New Tiles by Frederic Boucher

Since the puzzles for the first release have just recently arrived, the review will be completed and posted this weekend.

A Set of Blocks For Adults – Houston, We Have a Puzzle

When I was younger, every kid had to have a set of blocks.  My set was made from 2x4 lumber and my younger brother’s set was smaller and made with smoothly finished hardwood.  Together, these sets were used to make many amazing 2D and 3D structures.  And at the end of the day, they needed to be packed back into a box and stored under the bed.  So even at a tender age, I was being trained to pack blocks into boxes.

Houston, We Have a Puzzle was designed by Oleg Smolyakov and used by Daniel Bain as his exchange puzzle at last year’s International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The puzzle was manufactured by Vinco and consists of 7 rectangular parallelepipeds that need to be packed in a wooden box.  Of immediate note, the box is unrestricted so every configuration would also be a solution.  However, after spending a couple of minutes attempting to figure out how to pack the pieces within the box, you’re quickly left with the feeling that there is a single configuration.

Each of the 7 pieces are a different size and made from a different type of hardwood.  When you spill them out of the box from their non-solution packing configuration, it doesn’t really look that difficult.  And in fact, it’s not really that difficult.  You just need to think about it.  Of course if you are like me, you’ll dicker around with it for a while before resorting to that dreaded thought process.

When you stop to really examine it closely, there is a logical progression.  And the progression is what you would naturally gravitate towards.  Each piece can be added one by one with confidence that it is in the correct position.

The puzzle comes with an instruction sheet with the solution on the inside.  Not that anyone would ever look at a solution sheet.  Extra points for providing the non-solution packing configuration on the back of the sheet.  Although pieces can slide around in this position, they won’t spill out of the box when in the packaging.

Houston, We Have a Puzzle is currently available on Vinco's website.

Not a Little Challenge – Monster

What a cute little puzzle!  It only has 3 little pieces that you have to put in a frame.  Bwahahahaha!

So how do you define a Monster puzzle?  81 moves to put the last piece in?  A total of 105 moves to solve with 81 moves to put the last piece in?  Over 1000 moves to solve a 105 move puzzle with 81 moves to put the last piece in?  Over 6 hours to perform over 1000 moves to solve a 105 move puzzle with 81 moves to put the last piece in?

Monster was designed by Girish Sharma and made by Tom Lensch using Mahogany and Maple.  The pieces are constructed with doweled joints to strengthen them although you really shouldn’t need to test their durability.  The tolerances are perfect and if you’re using force, you’re doing something wrong.  I also appreciate that the puzzle arrived unassembled so that I could enjoy the full solving experience.

Although I really didn’t have any time to allocate for working on the puzzle when it arrived, I got sucked in and spent 1-2 hours fiddling with it after I took it out of the box.  2 days later, I had a couple of spare minutes and sat down work on it for a bit.  Once again I disappeared into the puzzle zone to finally reappear 5 hours later with a solved puzzle.  Yes, this is a real thing.  During a good solve, you slip out of normal space-time into the mind-bending puzzle continuum where all your senses are laser-focused on a single objective.  I once had someone apologize a couple of hours after putting a puzzle in my hand.  Too bad I couldn’t hear him.

This puzzle may only require 105 moves but I’m sure that it took me over 1000 moves to solve.  Maybe 2000.  I have to say that for a 3 piece framed puzzle, it was a challenge to solve.  However, I already knew that Girish's goal was to exceed the movement count of Climburr (50+ moves for the first piece).  It took me thousands of moves so I can't attest if the 81.19.5 level is accurate or not, but it looks about right.  As tough as it was, I enjoyed working on it.  It's not as hopelessly impossible as it first appears.  I pretty much knew what I had to accomplish at each step even though accomplishing each step was not easy.

I 4 1 thought Monster is a tough but fair puzzle.  The big unknown for me was the order of introducing the pieces to the cage.  I was fortunate in that my educated guess worked out.  However, I can't be sure that other orders wouldn't work just as well.  All the rotations that I made were well behaved, but there was one that was more than a simple rotate to add some spice in the solving process.

The first step in tackling this Monster is to determine the final configuration of the pieces within the frame.  This was not difficult and was greatly appreciated.  For each of the 3 pieces, you pretty much know where they go and how they are oriented within the frame.  You only need to determine how to move them around to get them in place.  During this process, I found that all 3 pieces are (mostly – hahaha) in 1 of 2 orientations, rotated and unrotated.  And you will be going back and forth between them, more than once, many times, so many times.

Having solved this Monster, the puzzle fibers that comprise my body were definitely sated.  I even thought my 6-7 hour solve time was quite respectable until I found out that someone else had solved it in a few hours while watching TV.  Sigh.

Nary a Problem – RecTangle - A Ternary Teaser

Nary an indecision, Nary a misstep, Nary a Problem.  The way is clear, the light is good, I have no fear, nor no one should.  

RecTangle - A Ternary Teaser was designed by Goh Pit Khiam and used by Lee Yee Dian as an exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  It is a 2D sliding puzzle made from laser-cut acrylic in USA IPP appropriate colors: red, white, and blue.  The frame consists of 2 layers of white acrylic and the sliding pieces are made from blue and red acrylic.  There is also a clear acrylic panel that sits on top to hold the pieces in the frame when it is in its wrapper.  Of course, since it’s a sliding puzzle, it slides into the packaging.  

The objective is to move all 4 of the red pieces vertically from the bottom of their columns to the top.  The left three columns of the puzzle are ternary (i.e., the red piece can be in one of 3 positions), and the rightmost column is binary (2 areas for the red piece).  Advancing the red pieces vertically requires moving the blue pieces horizontally back and forth.  The 12 blue pieces could have been made using only 6 pieces but my guess is that it is more efficient to cut rectangular pieces in lieu of oddly shaped pieces and it obviously fits the theme better.

When I took the puzzle out, there appeared to be a few pieces that can be moved but the first move is obvious if you are even only a little familiar with these types of puzzles.  However, when I went to make that move, it failed to work.  Turns out that the puzzle comes with a clear acrylic spacer to keep the rightmost red piece from moving in the package.  Once it was removed, I was on my way.  With N-ary puzzles, it’s OK to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.  And repeat I did.  And repeat I did.  Thankfully, RecTangle only has 4 columns to demonstrate the concept without becoming tedious.

This is not a difficult puzzle and only takes a couple of minutes to solve, but it is an excellent introduction to how a ternary puzzle works.  The pieces move easily within the frame and there isn’t much danger of losing track of which direction you are moving.  In fact, there is only one path and you are either moving toward or away from the solved state.  And the best part is that you can perform the reset by simply picking up the red pieces and putting them back at the starting point – or any other point that you desire.

 

Puzzle Within A Puzzle – Lone Star Burr

Steve Nicholls’ exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP) was a plastic sphere.  After careful inspection, the sphere was determined to be comprised of 2 hemispheres, one red and the other transparent.  Further inspection revealed other clues such as a dimple in the middle of each hemisphere and some cryptic symbology on the transparent hemisphere.  After referencing my vast collection of books on hieroglyphics, I determined that it was safe to store food in this puzzle in the UK and EU - a good indication that there might by some candy inside as a reward for solving the puzzle.  The dimples turned out to be red herrings.

Having experience in opening many of these types of puzzles acquired from numerous gumball machines over the years, I quickly solved this puzzle and separated the 2 hemispheres from each other.  Secreted betwixt them were a makeup applicator and a card displaying 2 puzzle hamsters with guns drawn ablazin’.  The back of the card indicated that the 2 cuddly gun-totin’ hamsters prefer to be referred to as brass monkeys.  Although there is no indication of pronoun preferences, I can attest that at IPP41, it was required to address Steve as Your Majesty.  And yes, kneeling and groveling was encouraged.

Just when I thought that was it, I noticed that a single hunk of plastic had fallen out of the sphere as well.  For the most part, this starry object was red, white, and blue with some yellowing at the edges.  It looked a bit puzzly, so I decided to give it a whirl.  When this lone star burrst, I ended up with a small collection of colorful little pieces, kinda like caltrops but unexplainably juicy looking.

Lone Star Burr was designed and made by Steve Nicholls and used as his exchange puzzle for IPP41.  The burr consists of 5 pieces and has a red, white, and blue Texas star on each side.  Each piece is a multicolor 3D print.  It may be all gussied up with colorful starry bits but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a regular dodecahedron.

When viewed assembled, the burr appears intimidating.  However, when viewing the disassembled pieces, it definitely comes across as more tractable.  Spurred on by the opportunity of an easy victory, I tackled the challenge. Indeed, some trial and error, balancing pieces, a little swearing, getting things lined up exactly where they need to be, some more swearing, starting over when subassemblies fell apart, stuffing the makeup applicator in the mouth to stymie even more swearing, and then simply sliding things back in place, produces the original shape.  I was surprised about how the final glide path doesn’t look like it would work, but everything slides smoothly together in the end.  Of course, if you don’t have everything exactly lined up, it won’t go together and you may end up with some more swearing.

Lone Star Burr can be purchased on the Two Brass Monkeys website.