New Puzzle Comes Out – Smelling Of Roses

I’m lucky to have many friends like myself in the warped-mind community.  In an effort to appear as regular people, some have attempted to come close by becoming regular tetrahedron people.  This has resulted in several tetrahedron puzzle designs popping up of late and this is the story of one such great pyramid puzzle.

Smelling Of Roses was developed by that famous guy from Two Brass Monkeys, Steve Nicholls.  Not to be confused with that other famous guy from Two Brass Monkeys that designed Rock-It Burr that we gushed over in a previous post (Drill Baby Drill! – Rock-it Burr).  Smelling Of Roses is made using …  well that depends on what you use to make it.  Steve made the design available on Maker World for anyone to download and make their own copy.  My version is 3D printed using a single color of PLA.  Not for any aesthetic reason but simply because I was too lazy to change the filament for additional colors.

Smelling of Roses takes a typical 6 piece burr and transmogrifies it using tetrahedronagonyal geometry.  This is basically a process of weaponizing the pieces by providing many pointy bits.  It also has the advantage of making the pieces difficult to grip since they are no longer rectangular and squeezing them tighter just launches them from you fingers instead of securing them.

Thorny Problem!

You would think that having 4 obvious corners would make the piece placement a no-brainer. However, there were several times I was considering putting those obvious corners in some not so obvious places.  Although, I didn’t think it possible, the pieces support going together in many unhelpful ways.  It took me several tries to find the correct assembly and when I finally had it, it was an effort to figure out how to move the pieces to get them all in place without loosing track of the assembly.  All this while juggling the pieces and attempting not to launch them.

Steve did an excellent job in picking a 6-piece burr that requires multiple moves before any pieces can be removed.  No key piece requiring a single move here!  In fact the movements are nicely executed in the tetrahedral space that the pieces were developed in.  I have to give Steve a lot of credit for using the BurrTools tetrahedral-octahedral space grid.  I find it very unintuitive to use.

The copy of Smelling Of Roses that I printed is a bit tight (the description uses the friendlier term - snug).  When all the pieces are coming together, they have to be cajoled into position.  It also adds a level of difficulty during disassembly since the moves are not obvious and nothing moves with casual prodding.  You have to prod with intent.  And multi-piece movements require more intent than single piece movements.

This is an awesome take on the 6-piece burr puzzle and kudos to Steve for making it freely available to the community on Maker World!  So download Smelling Of Roses and give it a try.  But whatever you do, don’t leave this caltrop of a puzzle sitting on a chair!  Assuming that you can put it together of course.

Playing – Ketchup

Haym Hirsh has been a prolific designer of 2D packing puzzles of late.  I suspect that he has 57 varieties by now.  I missed out on one of his recent puzzle designs when it first came out but I managed to snag a copy from Puzzle Paradise.  Now I’m playing Ketchup.  I wasn’t sure how well it would go in my collection but people tell me it goes with everything.

Ketchup is a 2D packing puzzle designed by Haym Hirsh and made by Nothing Yet Designs (NYD).  It consists of a red bottle-shaped tray with black highlights and 4 sets of white pieces consisting of a 5 and a 7.  The tray has a dedicated space to store one pair of 5 and 7s when not in the solved configuration.  The goal it to pack all 4 sets of pieces in the square section of the tray.

I anticipated solving this one quickly, but it made me wait until I fully explored it.  You notice early on that the square packing area seems one unit shy of making things easy, forcing you to attempt different ways of packing those 5s and 7s.  Although the 5s seem harder to pack, it’s always a 7 that you’re looking to place at the end.  In fact, it’s not all that difficult to pack everything except for a single 7.

And then to my horror, I saw it!  No, not the solution.  The fact that this is just another S&L puzzle!  (Nothing Yet Designs Release: 20 March 2025, 12:00 PM EDT)  Aghhhh!!!  Haym is just sneaking that S in as a 5 and the L in as a 7.  Will this turn out to be another crisis?

Crisis?

No.  No crisis here.  'Cause these are the good old days.  Where all the doubters are wrong, all the solvers are hard-working, and all the puzzles are above average.

It may have taken me a little bit of time but I managed to slip that last 7 into the tray.  All 4 sets of pieces where now nestled in the square area.  It was worth the wait.

And speaking of ketchup, the April release from NYD was yesterday with a couple of new designs and few restocks.  As mentioned in the last release post (Nothing Yet Designs Release: 20 March 2025, 12:00 PM EDT), this release was significantly scaled back as day-job requirements reduced production capacity at NYD.  However, NYD has just acquired another laser-cutter to widen the production pipeline a bit for future releases.

One Tɍough – Ditch

Ditch was designed by Alexander Magyarics and entered in the Nob Yoshigahara puzzle design competition at the 41st International Puzzle Party (IPP).  Although it did not win a prize, it looked like an interesting concept worthy of spending time on.  And spend time on it I did!

Ditch consists of 12 bi-color pentomino pieces where each piece is comprised of a tetromino of one color and a monomino of a different color.  The goal is to make a 4x4 square outline with the 12 monominoes.  The problem is that all those tetromino bits get in the way of accomplishing this.

The first Aha comes early on to get you started followed by a long period of learning how the pieces can interact with each other.  Some off these relationships will help form the solution while others will lead you astray.  There were some relationships that I was unwilling to ditch that kept me from finding the solution for quite a while.  I found myself reluctant to divorce myself from these poisonous relationships and I found myself in rut with Ditch.

I eventually gained the willpower to break off some of those relationships, giving me the freedom to engage in some new, healthier relationships.  With something old and something new, I successfully managed to extract the solution from the Ditch.

There were many times where I had one piece leftover that would not fit in the available space. The natural reaction is to start moving pieces around to see if you can change the space to something more receptive.  I can certainly attest to that.  However, if you end up with the same troublesome pieces multiple times, it's worth taking some time to find them a good match and treat them as a couple.

Much nicer versions of Ditch in a selection of exotic woods are available at Wood Wonders if you would like to acquire your own copy.

It’s Simple Karma – Bram’s Hinged Cube

A long time ago in a land far away, an emerging puzzle designer attended an International Puzzle Party (IPP) with a collection of new puzzle designs.  Ensconced in a nook of the hotel lobby, this puzzle master wannabe commandeered a table to artfully arrange his new creations for attendees to play with - much to their delight. At one point, someone asked if a puzzle was difficult and after no considerable reflection whatsoever, the hapless designer pronounced that the puzzle was easy.  This seemingly innocuous response would come to haunt this young ignorant but well-intentioned individual for many years.  Watching that unsuspecting victim struggle over an extended period of time to save face made a lasting impression.  However, it was a lesson well-learned.  Puzzles are not easy or hard but one may be easier than another.  A puzzle that may be easy for one puzzler may be difficult for another.  Everyone gets inexplicably bogged down on an occasional puzzle.  There are many different types of puzzles and some puzzlers are naturally better at some types than others.

Fast forward to now where I am delighted to find myself struggling on a puzzle that others on the Mechanical Puzzle Discord (MPD) have declared SIMPLE!  This puzzle is Bram's Hinged Cube - not to be confused with the Hinged Cube designed by James Storer that made the rounds at last year’s IPP.

Nope!

Bram's Hinged Cube was designed by ... wait for it ... BRAM!!!  Bram Cohen that is.  It consists of 8 cubes that are connected with hinges so that they can be folded into a single 2x2x2 cube.  Bram said the solution is hard but various MPD members have countered that it is easy.  Personally, although it looks like it should be easy, I found it quite a challenge.

I solved James Storer's cube at IPP last year and found it a very enjoyable challenge.  And I jumped at the chance to try Bram's Hinged Cube when it became available this year.  After having solved both, I would consider Bram' s version more difficult although both are excellent.

With Bram's Hinged Cube, there was an easier solution but it was rendered invalid with the addition of faux hinges that attempt to occupy the same space in the easier assembly.  This leaves only the more difficult configuration as the only solution.  To be honest, it took me quite a while to determine how the connected cubes could occupy the 2x2x2 space in any configuration much less a second more obscure one.

Hot Off The Press!

After finding the faux solution multiple times, I finally manged to figure out where the cubes had to go.  Then I finally manged to find a folding sequence where it was not necessary to strain the hinges providing me with the solved 2x2x2 cube.  Then I finally managed to unfold it back to the starting position.  You would think that this last bit is a no-brainer shake-the-cube-back-out process but it’s not.  Of course, I even found myself forgetting where the cubes had to go in the middle of the folding process and had to start back at the beginning again.

Bram has generously made the puzzle available on Printables for anyone who would like to 3D printed copy of their own.  The stl file was created by Brian Pletcher as a print-in-place model.  One MPD member recommended using tree supports with the angle threshold set to 20 degrees and I found this to work amazingly well.  Print-in-place models still seem like magic!  You can download the stl file here - Bram' s Hinged Cube.