Answers From The Void – Sixmetry

There is something appealing about a packing puzzle with identical pieces.  I think it has to do with the initial assessment done by the subconscious mind where it realizes that it has less shapes to deal with and throws a couple of dopamine chits your way.  And yes, fewer shapes does equate to less complexity, which in many cases results in easier.

Sixmetry is a 3D packing puzzle designed by David Goodman and made by Vinco.  It was used by Patrick Major at the 41st International Puzzle Party as his exchange puzzle.  The puzzle consists of 6 identical wood pieces that need to be packed in a 4x4x4 wooden box.  Each piece consists of a 2x2x1 board attached to a 2x3x1 board.   The pieces consisting of 10 voxels each only use 60 voxels of the 64 voxel box leaving 4 of them unoccupied.

Even without the clue in the name, I would have guessed that the solution would be a symmetric shape.  In fact with 4 empty voxels in a 4x4x4 box, I assumed we had a Slothouber–Graatsma situation brewing here.  Don’t google that if you want to avoid spoilers.

There are a lot of puzzles that fall into this category.  A lot.  So many!  And after so many, when you are presented with one of these, you basically know where the empty voxels are located, which simplifies determining the solution.  And this allowed me to solve Sixmetry in about 5 minutes.  I’m sure it would have taken a lot longer if I hadn’t know the positions of the empty voxels.

And extra points for Vinco for providing the non-solution packing configuration on the instruction sheet.