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.