Infesting In Puzzles – Parasitic Version

I have a lot of burr puzzles and they seem to be accumulating at an alarming rate.  This seems to be my retirement strategy.  Collect as many wood burrs as possible for the day I can’t afford the heating bill.  Or maybe they’re just fuel for the soul.  

I particularly love 6 piece burrs.  And 6 piece burrs with 9 pieces are even better!  This seems to be the result of an ever increasing tendency to stuff things in burrs.

Parasitic Version is a 6 + 3 piece burr designed by László Molnár.  It was made by Pelikan Puzzles and used by Gergely Prémecz as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  The 6 main burr pieces consist of 2 pairs each of Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart. and the parasites are made from Maple and Bubinga.

You know from the start that getting parasites into the burr will not be easy since Wenge, Acacia, and Purpleheart are naturally pest resistant hardwoods.

I believe that the puzzle came with the 6 piece burr assembled with the parasitic pieces outside.  However, it was such a long time ago from when I originally received it and made a pile of pieces that I really can’t remember how it arrived.  I really don’t know why I keep acquiring new puzzles when I could just redo the same ones over and over again for the first time.  Yes, I do – and you do too!

I started the solving process by assuming that the 6 large burr pieces were actually paired by wood type.  Wouldn’t you?  It doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, but typically if there are 3 types of wood used, the pieces are paired,  This gives you a boost in the solving process since you don’t have to worry about all those other combinations.  Of course it’s also sometimes used to force a single or more difficult configuration.  So using the logic of purposeful intent, I went with the paired approach and started to look at possible configurations.

For each possible configuration of 6 burr pieces, the next step is to determine whether the parasites can be packed within the central envelope.  After a couple rounds of that, the process changed to one of looking to generate specific configurations that will accommodate the parasites instead of testing randomly generated candidates.

And then the fun really starts when you have to insert the parasites.  Of course, you can’t just let them dig their way in.  That would be boring!  You must go through all the proper channels and find the correct way to get them all nestled in their new home.  After spending some time with these buggers, you begin to get a feel for what will pack and what won’t that you can then narrow down to the winning configuration.  Even then, you have to still get it together, which I found an interesting juggling act with 9 pieces and 2 hands.

When everything is said and done, you are rewarded with a 6 piece burr that looks exactly like it did when you started.  But you know the difference because now, you’re infested in the process.