Frustrating Puzzlers – Cattle Frustration

You will immediately notice that today’s blog is not about a cast puzzle, it’s a frust puzzle.  So anywhere you would be tempted to use cast, it has been replaced with frust.

Cattle Frustration was designed by William Ja and Scarlet Park and used by William as his exchange puzzle for International Puzzle Party (IPP) 41.  The puzzle consists of a laser-cut body along with 3D printed parts for the head, hooves, and tail with some help from some string.  The top of the body is clear acrylic allowing you to peer in and see the bull’s innards including 2 sizable steel ball bearings.  One of the hooves on the bottom also appears to be attached to the internal pieces with a square opening large enough for something to pass through.  If I was going to be anal about describing all the features, I’d also mention there is a circular opening on the bottom between the hind hooves that looks like it could pass the ball bearings.  

Tipping Allowed

Your mission is to frustigate the bull, until it drops its balls so that you can remove them.  And then take a picture of your conquest and post it in a blog (I mean really, who would do that?).

I was a little slow in solving this one.  It’s possible that deep down, I was reluctant to remove the Bull’s balls.  Being a Taurus myself, I’m a bit sensitive to the theme of this puzzle.

I blew past the first step so fast I didn’t realize that it was a step until I had solved the puzzle.  I even mistook it as being something more involved and spent a bit of time trying to get more out of it.  While frusting about for the next step, there was at least one other questionable thing that I was trying to accomplish as I navigated the steel balls through the body, but it didn’t yield anything.  At this point it was just a matter of who was going to get frustrated first.

Senior Frustrato

Eventually, I exited the china shop with 2 balls in hand. When I was done, I was more than happy to return Signore Frustrato to his original state.

Although the puzzle is sturdy, it does tend to invite some abuse.  I’ve heard that someone has already broken the tail, which I can understand.  If I were lending it to someone, I’d definitely provide it with a couple of warnings.  Firstly, don’t abuse the tail.  I mean really, how safe do you think it is to yank on a bull’s tail.  Secondly, don’t try to decapitate the bull.  It’s bad enough that you’re trying to remove its balls.

 

THE END