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Coming back from a short vacation, a parcel from Alfons waited for me for pick-up. And it is world record time! Jack has done it again and designed a standard 18 pieces burr with the highest level known so far, congratulations to Jack! After Supernova at level 166, there is now a standard 18 pieces burr with a whopping level 188, a total of 22 moves more for the first piece, and 11 years after Supernova. Not sure why all these numbers contain double digits, but maybe that is a hint for how a future record may look like, if one will ever be found? The record puzzle is named Twinkle, and another astronomy themed puzzle. After solving the mysteries of the Supernova years ago, we can now watch the sky of 18 pieces burrs again, and maybe hum: "Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are!"
On this group page you can now locate this "star": 18 pieces burrs group. There are two more additions to this page, and the first one seems to be related to the record puzzle, even though the level is much lower: Troulle and Helicon. |
The good news don't end here yet, as this update also brings a jubilee and anniversary update of the Burr Zoo. 10 years ago, I started this page, and recently at GCD I gave a talk about this part of my collection to celebrate, and had 49 entries to show. Today, we are adding another one for a nice round number of puzzles, and puzzle 50 is a 12 pieces burr, in a frame, and with a wooden spider trapped inside: Black Widdow, and if you take a look at the page, you will see that the zoo contains a whole family of spiders now.
The last one of the beautiful wooden puzzles also adds to a part of my collection which started with the school bus puzzle many years ago, then saw some shape variants, a Grey Hound themed bus puzzle, and now finally an old Double Decker, like it used to be on the streets of Berlin nearly a century ago. And it even features some advertisements on the side to make it more realistic, but aside from that it is just a framed burr. I have not added the overall level of the puzzles arriving today, but it would surely be a large sum, hinting the huge endeavour to solve them all. Looking forward to this, and to see how it goes, and of course adding a little "Wink" to this solving experience. |
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Yesterday DCD42 happened (Dutch Cube Day 42, in the Netherlands), and this leads to a somewhat special update today. As in the past, many old and new puzzle friends were there with many nice converations, and also interesting and beautiful puzzles. From Oskar, I bought a non-puzzle item that is shown in the picture in the left. It is a dual counter with a crank that allows you to count through some binary numbers by rotating the crank on top. The upper number is simply the usual binary representation that is used in computers as well, in this case for a 5-bit number. The lower one is more interesting which makes it actually a Gray Code Counter: It will count through the reflected binary Gray Code, and this is of course linked with binary puzzles. If you roll it forward to 11111 , it will show you a step by step solution of a 5 ring Chinese Rings puzzle. Each digit stands for a certain ring, and a 1 means that the ring sits on the long bar, and a 0 denotes a ring off the bar. Cranking backwards, it will show you all the steps until 00000 where the handlebar of the rings puzzle is freed from all rings. I have tried it, and it actually works! Of course you can crank the other way from 00000 to 11111 for the sequence to re-assemble the Chinese Rings puzzle again. All this using some gear mechanics, that is fascinating!
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The other reason why this update is a bit special is the high number of group pages which are updated in this update: Compendium and n-ary puzzle group, Burr Zoo, and 18 pieces burrs group. Right at the entrance of the DCD venue, it started with a brand new and flat n-ary puzzle that does not even have any sort of frame: Zigguflat, a flat variation of the Ziggurat puzzle with a lot of zick-zack action going on during the solve, and multiple challenges. From Steve I received another giveaway for a puzzle party I have never been to, the Northern Puzzle Party in the UK: NPP Puzzle. This consists of 3 flat pieces held together with a special clamp that then need to be assembled into a 3D burr shape, similar to a coordinate axis quadrant. Amongst many other puzzles, also two new helical burr variants were available, and they come in a cute size while still moving perfectly: Tweedle 11 and Tweedle 14. Oskar had one of his recent difficult co-operations with Volker for me, which go quite beyond the usual Soma cube or packing puzzles: Soma Ultimate. Of course, all the pieces should go inside, not like the configuration shown in the picture. This was Oskar's IPP exchange, while Frans went for the more traditional beautiful wooden interlocking puzzles as his Exchange (the 25th in a row): Rivieara. Jack had prepared a smaller version of Christoph's favorite puzzle in the intended and really beautiful colour scheme: Bouquet (small). Seems this is the designer's favorite puzzle so far, and I remember that it had a nice solution as well. Hypno Balls was an entry into last year's IPP Design Competition, and I had played with it at last year's DCD already, and it does not only consist of 3D printed parts, but also heavy steel balls. Maybe that should not be solved in a quiet room, and it will require some careful manipulation of the balls to get it apart. Another IPP40 Exchange was picked up, a co-operation of Andreas and Andrew: SwapTIC. It comes in 4 separate pieces that need to be assembled using sliding and rotating moves, and after having achieved that, it seems that this may even have been easier than taking it apart again! The next puzzle was one of those rare vintage puzzles one sometimes finds at DCD, a Closterman Cube, smaller than the one I already have: Cage #1-125-10. Being already 23 years old, it still works flawlessly and the pieces slide nicely without locking up tightly. Of course, I also paid Alfons an extensive visit to acquire some of this beautiful high level interlocking puzzles, to be solved until the next DCD (while I still have some unsolved from the last DCD and before!). The first one is not only an n-ary puzzle, but also contains another puzzle: Sensi Box with this a Sensi Puzzle. This is basically based on the B-Box and Reactor puzzle from years ago, but with more moves. Then some brand new puzzles going right into the Zoo with some insects in them, in particular: Blue Beetle and Blue Beetle 2. While the names are nearly identical, one has an 18 pieces burr as a shell and the other has 12 pieces only, with more room inside. Looks like there is more to the Blue Beetle theme than just an insect, according to what some WWW search brought up. This also brought us into the range of 18 pieces burrs, and there are more of them: Buzzard is an older design with a very interesting level. A level over 100 is complicated enough already, but look at the details for the other pieces! 2-digit numbers for four more pieces. Wobbe seems to be on the easier side again, and comes with some wider sticks as well. A lower number of wider sticks is found in The Kick, but at a high level of slightly below 100, and with 3 more non-trivial pieces in the solution. The Spy Hole makes use of wider sticks again, and the name is very fitting: You can actually look through the centre of this puzzle in one orientation, and see what is happening on the other side! The next one reminds me a bit of the School Bus puzzles, but with an open top (convertible school bus), but the name seems to hint something else: Courage. Will this be a difficult one that you need a lot of courage to attack and solve? Today's update ends with a small puzzle named after small people, the Hobbit. That should be some easier entertainment when all those difficult puzzles resist solving! Many thanks to my friends for the puzzle presents I received, and also the great time! We all had a great weekend yesterday, and I am looking forward to future ones. |
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Today's update features two puzzles, and they are both related to the 2021 Nob Yoshigahara Design Competition. The first one is Coherent Convoys is a puzzle from the n-ary puzzle group and compendium, and I am happy that an n-ary puzzle won a prize at this competition (again after 2017, 2005, 2004 and 2003). The second puzzle for today is the trophy of this competition, beautifully made from wood and with a nice stand: Cryptos. I had to wait a while for the Coherent Convoys to arrive to be added to my collection, and it was worth all the waiting. It is the third copy and a lot of work to create, and the first two copies went to the design competition to remain with the jury. This puzzle is made in Namick's typical style and in very high quality, beautiful to look at and fun to play with, and there are some small details that actually have a meaning for the puzzle solution. |
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Sliding the ships around is a lot of fun, and it has been quite a while since I last supported Namick on this design, so I could enjoy the puzzle from the beginning again: It is an n-ary puzzle with a regular sequence and after a while you work out how the ships move from chanel to the lock chamber, back to the blue channel, or further to the red channel. The sequence continues nice and regularly and after a while you will find yourself going in circles and the whole lock demonstrating some form of rush hour deadlock. This is where the fun starts: Pick the right moment in the sequence to move a ship in the other direction than usual, and not run into a dead end again. An n-ary puzzle with a modified sequence, even better than an n-ary only puzzle! Some more details in the compendium entry. |
After a couple years without larger puzzle meetings for me, yesterday it was time for a GCD (German Cube Day) in Düsseldorf again, to meet many old and new friends, and also try and buy some puzzles. The first one I received there was the giveaway puzzle, and I had nearly forgotton that I was involved into arranging this for the giveaway: Senemmetry. I have seen some examples that some participants have found the correct solution, which is good. Beside the activities already mentioned, I was giving a talk which I had prepared for GCD 2020 two years ago, about my journey and extensive report solving a certain puzzle, including some historical overview. You can download the slides of a talk about a complicated twisty puzzle, but that will not give you the full solution, but maybe an idea why it was so very interesting to me.
After my talk while listening to two nice talks including some explosions and puzzle family discussions, I spotted a two puzzle mugs sitting in front of me on Joop's table. One was a tire company (including Michelin) themed mug, and Joop could quickly help Roman to close a gap in his Michelin themed puzzle family he told us about in the talk just minutes earlier. The other was quickly bought, for the theme and because I do not have any mug puzzles yet: Sliders Mug Star Trek TNG Romulan. Earlier that day, I found some fascinating new puzzles for sale on some overflowing tables (a view I have missed for more than 2 years!). First some variations of the classic Rubik's clock puzzles I had seen on pictures earlier this year: Magic Clock 3 Levels and Magic Clock 5 Levels. I wonder if they are more difficult or easier to solve than the original, and how the solving method transfers to these. In any case, they seem to be high quality with smooth mechanisms inside. From twisting puzzles to turning puzzzles, on the same table I was able to find some original TICs (3D printed by the designer himself) which I did not yet have (yes, I had to use this web site to check!): GalacTIC a puzzle with many rotations and many moves for the last piece to come out, and GeneTIC which seems to spread the rotations over different pieces in the solution. The next table(s) was/were stacked with those typical crates (so many of you know whose that was) and there I picked up puzzles from different categories and timeframes: Ton's Ring Puzzel from 1983 and improved in 2006, and there seems to be a lot of material considering you only need to remove that ring. Aus dem EFFEFF? was advertised to be interesting, contains two puzzles (one each side) and employs some new production techniques: The magnets are not part of the solution, but for easier production, to keep the two layers together. Earlier this year, I received a calendar packing puzzle with month and day of month to be arranged, and I have since been solving this as a daily challenge. This one offers 365 challenges (valid challenges this year) at a nice and moderate difficulty level. Now there is another new one that has some additional tricks: Happy Birthday!. The pieces are also including some larger ones, now you have month, day, and weekday to arrange, where each month name takes two adjacent spaces. A bonus question for this one: Couting the total square fields in this is easy, but how does this match what we have to denote the various days/months/weekdays, and how was this done? I also received an interesting "Oskar goodie" Crescents Coaster, which was the DCD giveaway I had missed, and had played with a bit before. From a puzzle friend, I recieved some more of Oskar's screw related puzzles: Nut Stack has already been assembled. 9 to 5 needs to be set up first to solve this challenge, moving the inner part through a maze so that the clock hand will end up at the 5 pm mark. The Screw Fit is obviously in a disassembled state and there are left and right hand threads involved, making it more of a challenge, and like for the last one, these versions don't contain the colours Oskar used in his, so no hints from there: Screw Pack is a "Screw Mess" right now, but hopefully a screw pack soon. While I was away, a package with a monster puzzle assembly kit challenge arrived from a Kickstarter campaign, and even with all my previous experieces on those plywood kits earlier on, this will take a while. The manual looks like a book for this time, and has some aspects I have not seen before in it. Time will tell when (/if?) that project is finished, but I am looking forward to it.
What a day yesterday! And an excellent one, thanks to all!
A special update today for people who like numbers. The puzzle I received today is Ternary Pin Burr from Aleksandr Leontev, and it is an n-ary puzzle, and those puzzles are mainly popular because of their number of moves. However, this puzzle is also related to another number, it is number 3000 in my collection. The puzzle looks a bit like a frosted little cake, so maybe put some candles on top to celebrate the numbers? It is nicely 3D printed in two colours and has some metal pins leading to the name of the puzzle, and additionally to an n-ary puzzle it is also a burr, with 35 pieces and level 162. Such a burr would be very difficult to disassemble, let alone assemble, but the ternary sequence makes disassembly a feasible task and within minutes, the first pieces come out. It is nice to play with and fun to solve, and I have now taken it apart completely, planning to get it back together without help. Let's see how that works out! Of course, this puzzle has received a spot in the two pages related to n-ary puzzles: n-ary puzzle group and compendium |
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Update: Solved! It was a nice and interesting solving experience and a trick seems to be required for the solution.
Just noticing that the names of the Karakuri x-mas presents have been published, these have now been added to this site and one of them also went into compendium and n-ary puzzle group.
Usually once every year since 1978 the biggest puzzle related event takes place: the IPP (International Puzzle Party). I have just come back from this amazing event where I met many old and new puzzle friends and brought back some nice puzzles. About 100 puzzles are from the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange, where you bring about 100 copies of a new puzzle and exchange with 100 other puzzlers. Please see the special page for these puzzles. My puzzle in the Exchange was the Bastille EscapeRing, combining the two concepts sliding piece puzzle and ring maze into a new one. |
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Beside the great haul of Exchange puzzles, I also took some more with me, some of them being presented to me, others bought directly from the designers, and then some more. From the IPP team, I received The Paris IPP Cube, which consists of several pieces of pre-cut and pre-folded paper and which can be folded into three dimensional pieces for an assembly puzzle.
The Framed Burr Box was the biggest puzzle I got at IPP. After seeing it on-line in Juno's Pluredro shop website, I thought about getting it some time. Meeting the designer and seeing one standing on his table at IPP made it clear to me that I really wanted this box. Meanwhile, I have solved it and it is an excellent puzzle for both puzzle box enthousiasts as well as puzzlers interested in high level framed burrs. The inventor of the original framed 6 piece burr has combined these two puzzle concepts, leading to a very interesting experience when solving the burr part. It is the first framed burr I know that will open up the frame more and more during solving. From the IPP Design Competition, I received the Jury Honorary Mention prized Burrnova, a beautiful puzzle with a surprise in it, which seems to have developed from Jerry's earlier concepts with pins and magnets. The new semi-automatic move sequence of 11 moves will hit you by surprise and you have to be careful not to drop this nice puzzle then. The No Full Pirouette! is unmistakenly Namick's usual style, but this time the n-ary elements appear in a somewhat randomized and decorated fashion. For each of the modules you have to determine the arity, and then also the sequence to solve the whole puzzle. Not the everyday n-ary puzzle, but a very interesting one, which probably also lead to the well deserved Jury award of a first prize! The second n-ary entry is the MiSenary Puzzlebox, a puzzle box that works differently than initially expected. Only if you find out that n-ary nature and the right sequence, you will be able to open this box. I am happy that I could play with a prototype earlier this year and provide the designer some advice for improvement which has found its way into the final version. Those two puzzles can of course be found in n-ary puzzle group and compendium. The Unlawful Assembly is another competition entry, nicely made and easily explained. Just put the four identical pieces and the cross into the tray. Shortly before IPP, I received word about a new puzzle from Australia and after the initial surprise, I had to reserve myself a The Louvre of course. Makes up for a trip to the real museum, I think!? After the Exchange had shown an unusually high number of trick locks, there were also more to be found in the puzzle party: Tibetian Puzzle Lock and Popplock T3 by specialists in this area. From Iwahiro, I could catch up with some of his unusual works still missing in my collection: 5 Yen in a Jam is another Jam puzzle, while the Zipper demonstrates another unusual application of everyday objects. Scott had some of his 3D printed puzzles for offer, Halve a Heart completing the series, the Peppermint from a previous exchange, and the Deux Nuts being an improvement of an earlier screw puzzle, and being an impossible object in several ways. This IPP I had the pleasure to meet Stephan Baumegger and he had many of his puzzles for offer, including the Maahes made by him and designed by Terry. This one has a really nice look! Some other items to pick up were: Varikon, Helix+ (TIC or not TIC? both!), Honey Copter, and Magic Wire. Thank you for all these nice puzzles and entertaining conversations! With so many puzzles to solve, I am just starting to solve and will replace the pictures with solved versions once I have solved the corresponding puzzles. This may well take some year or more. I noticed that I already have 14 puzzles of this year's Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in my collection, among them 4 prize winners. Can you spot them and name them all? |
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Today a small package with a big puzzle set arrived. A wooden Christmas tree model? Merry Christmas? No! Merry-go-round! This is the latest development in variable stage mixed base n-ary puzzles. The puzzle is based on the Power Tower and while my copy of the Power Tower has 5-ary pieces, this one includes two 6-ary pieces! After successfully solving the maximal configuration of that Power Tower earlier this week, with a total of more than 15600 moves, I now felt ready for this new challenge. First surprise: There was only one type of pieces of each arity, unlike the mirror-symmetric pairs in the Power Tower. For the puzzle to work, the pieces have to be put into the slim tower in a helical pattern, and there is the first puzzle: Which way round? Both are initially possible, but only one orientation will work. Luckily, you have a good visibility of the pieces during solving, and many spare pieces to look at the details and determine how the pieces interact. That sounds like a systematic and easy approach, but in reality (late Friday evening), this puzzle lead to some confusion and I was sometimes going back and forth not completely understanding all moves. Compared to other n-ary puzzles, there are also many small dead ends in the move sequences and you have to take care not to end up in them. They will lock the puzzle with various pieces locking each other until you get back out of them again. First, they look like shortcuts, but they are far from that. After a while, I got used to the usual sequences in this implementation, a very nice n-ary puzzle! More pictures and some technical details can be found on the puzzle's compendium entry. |
Of course the puzzle can be found here, too: n-ary puzzle group and compendium |
In the picture to the right you see G.I. Joe and King Tut. Sounds familiar? Maybe you don't remember any sliding pieces puzzles with that name, but more something wooden, with big locks and wooden chains?
You remember right! Below I announced Gi Joe locked King Tut in a Tomb!, and now I have managed to solve it (after asking for a hint on a trick in the box!), and I finally had a look at G.I. Joe and King Tut. I expected King Tut to be in the tomb in some wooden form, but instead I found both those guys. They must have had a fight in there, both icons completely scrambled, not in their original state, and in need to get all their pieces rearranged.... After solving those two nice vintage sliding piece puzzles I now know how the American super hero and the Egypt pharao look like! Before that, I had to solve those four locks, unlock them, and then find and perform several steps of the puzzle box. First, it seemed to me, that one lock was not working as reliably as the first time I opened it, but then Tracy told me that there is actually a trap in it, on purpose! Hidden locking mechanism, a dial to turn, a trap — does that sound familiar? It does, and that concept is also part of another puzzle I have just solved (with a few peeks into the first part of the solution): SMS Box — an excellent puzzle! Now back to topic: Having solved that complicated box, I have managed the four locks and box, and indeed, there are some nice tricks built in. Different locks for different difficulty challenges. A nice feature is that resetting the open locks for the next puzzler does not require all the way back (only if you like to), but there is also an intended shortcut. Overall, I have to reclass this puzzle now as: Puzzle lock(s), Puzzle box, Sequential Discovery, Hidden maze, Sliding Pieces. I will keep this big and fascinating puzzle in its main category in my gallery. It is obviously a box after all, and a very nice and fun one, too! Still love those wooden chains giving the puzzle a unique look! |
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Today a big puzzle from the US arrived, which had its first appearance at the Rochester Puzzle Picknick this year. There are massive wooden locks, four of them, and each a bit bigger than the SMS box (in case you would like to get an idea about the size). These four locks are part of the puzzle Gi Joe locked King Tut in a Tomb!, which is a combination of several puzzle types: Sequential Discovery, Puzzle Locks, Puzzle Box. Before you can try to open the lid of the tomb, you have to solve the locks (or at least most of them if you really are in a hurry!). They lock the lid in place using nicely crafted wooden chains. A beautiful and lovely puzzle! However, I have some concerns about the name: Tracy always like to put something into the box to discover. From the title, it might as well be an egyptian mummy. Let's see what surprise I will find in there! Of course the locks are non-trivial and all different, as you can already see from the different configurations of buttons and dials on them. So far I do not own a solution of the puzzle, but that makes it all more interesting, doesn't it? I am looking forward to attacking this beast — alone or with a group of puzzlers. This is a big advantage: you can actually puzzle with several people on it at the same time. Time for a puzzle party! |
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Today I received a puzzle directly from the IPP36 Design Competition. It is Digits' Compressor, the latest creation of Namick Salakhov. It is a very unusual looking puzzle and it also takes some moments to understand what to do with it. The goal is to compress the stack of discs (AKA digits) as much as possibe (and not by force, but the right sequential move sequence!) and that at the end each of the red lines on the discs aligns with one of the four red marks in the top/bottom parts. Actually, this will give a nice spiral pattern from bottom via the red marks to the top, too — when solved. The construction is nice to play with and well made, and the design is excellent! As with most of Namick's works the sequences you have to find relate to reflected Gray codes, which puts the puzzle straight into the n-ary puzzle group and compendium. However, it is not as easy as that: While the gray discs form a binary reflected Gray code (which is why I called them "gray" and not "silver"), there are also those black doing some other moves. There are several compressed / minimal height configurations, but in those the red markers do not line up and you have to go on compressing and uncompressing. There are also some dead ends of different length and when exploring the puzzle for the first time, I am sure, I also found these dead ends. After some time playing you will most certainly see some recursive structure in the move sequences and sooner or later you will recognize the binary Gray code in it. I like this unusual design and how Namick managed to create this implementation of the reflected binary Gray code. |
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The first puzzle arriving this year was built also by Tracy Clemons. After finishing the Game Craze, she started producing a small series of identical puzzle boxes, and I was lucky enough to be able to acquire one: A man's got to go. The box looks like a trunk with handles on each side and some beautiful decorations applied, and it has a lock in the front. The lock looks unlike anything I have ever seen. I have some clear ideas how to open the lock, which is good for a start! I am assuming that there is more to it after opening the lid. I already had a little peek into the box (as much the lock would allow) and it is not empty. In fact, it seems packed with more puzzling mechanisms. I like what I have seen so far and I am curious to explore this fascinating puzzle box. Thanks Tracy, for building and offering this nice little box. *)little only compared to the other one :) |
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Today a huge package arrived after a fast journey from the USA. In it was one puzzle consisting of five boxes created by the creative Tracy Clemons. Very well crafted, beautiful and much more. A fantastic puzzle to be explored. Of course, there is the usual puzzle page (Game Craze), but I also set up a special feature page with an initial description, where I will add more and more after I have played with the puzzle and discovered everyting. Please click on the following link to the Game Craze Feature Page. |
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Maybe you remember the DITWIBIN by Namick Salakhov? A nice puzzle in the n-ary puzzle group and therefore also in the compendium. That puzzle has a clever mechanism and is fun to play with, and is a simpler relative of what arrived today: The MixTer-MaxTer. It was an entry in this years IPP Design Competition, and I think it is a brilliant design! You "just" have to guide the little red sliders from the outer disk with two slots and collect them in the other outer disc with many slots. My discovery of that puzzle went through three main stages:
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Today I received a special puzzle, which was designed for me by Christoph Lohe. In the correct German spelling, my name is spelled: Götz. Now take a look at the pictures of the puzzle to the left, you will recognize the scheme! The GÖTZ puzzle is built around my name, and luckily there are only 4 letters in it. Thanks to Chris and also to Claus who supported me with 3D-printing this nice puzzle! And beside bearing my name, it is also a nice and nontrivial interlocking puzzle! |
The second package is from the U.S. and it is fitting that it contains item 1776 in my collection, but then it should have arrived yesterday already! Some of the latest works by Eric Fuller, designed by two U.S. designers well known for years (or even decades): Helix the Burr, Think outside the box, and Inner Cube. After struggling with the half notches in the Visible Burr the Helix the Burr now offers third notches!
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Today I picked up a late christmas present at customs, which had travelled for the last 1.5 months — maybe carrier and customs did try to figure out what it was and to solve it? It was well worth waiting for and is the latest design in compendium and n-ary puzzle group page by profilic designer Namick Salakhov, and revealed to the public here for the first time. The puzzle is the DITWIBIN, a beautiful puzzle excellently crafted and with beautiful looks — I especially like the two color acrylic frame! The name might seem to have some system behind it and it fact there is: It denotes this puzzle as one with two twisting discs with a binary gray code implemented. Can you guess which part of the name stands for what? This also hints that this is a typical representative of n-ary puzzle: While this puzzle has been created in September 2014, various higher order versions were designed already in August. This makes it a typical family of n-ary puzzles: different number of sliders, different arities of these sliders, and then additionally also different number of discs. Quite fascinating concept! Coming back to this one, it is fun to play with and the moves are nice and easy. You can see a vital part of the mechanics for the interaction between the pieces on the top demonstrating how this puzzle might work. However, there is more to it hidden from view. A clever design! Thank you, Namick! |
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Look! I received a friend for my koala to play with! Today the long awaited Katie Koala and her joey Verne limited edition puzzle arrived. It is the 20th anniversary limited edition by Brian Young and a really beautiful and heavy wooden Koala. A lot of stuff must be inside considering the weight. Will take some time before I will be able to solve it, I guess — lots of puzzling fun! The other koala is sitting on another special puzzle which arrived today: a 3D printed reproduction of the Stickman Box number 5, sometimes called "Borg Box". Another Brian made this possible: Brian Pletcher modelled, prepared, and assembled it. Two truely interesting puzzles! |
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away ... These puzzles remind me of something I have seen in cinema before. You may have recognized that the new Typhyter standing next to the Droid is not just another 18 pieces burr, but also a beautiful piece of art. This puzzle arrived today in a package from Stephan Baumegger with two other gorgeous novelties: Troika has only three pieces, but looking at the level you see it is pretty hard. From "pretty hard" to "pretty heart": Caught Heart is a beautiful interlocking puzzle touching the borders of the puzzle box category: the heart piece is the only piece that can be removed, and for the others several tilting moves are required. I am sure it will be officially published on the Puzzleisure page soon, and sorry for the bad pun! |
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Usually once every year since 1978 the biggest puzzle related event takes place: the IPP (International Puzzle Party). I have just come back from this amazing event where I met many old and new puzzle friends and brought back some nice puzzles. You can see my "haul" in the picture on the left. About 100 puzzles are from the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange, where you bring about 100 copies of a new puzzle and exchange with 100 other puzzlers. Please see the special page for these puzzles. My puzzle in the Exchange was the Cross + Crown 2013, which is based on a design patented in 1913, 100 years ago. It is an n-ary puzzle. To my big surprise, I received a bigger version of it from my Exchange assistant Kevin Sadler: Cross + Crown 7 This is also n-ary and has an amazing 4802 moves to solve! Thank you! |
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At IPP, I received a London Lines Puzz-eLLe as a gift from the organizers, and a little IPP34 Necklace Burr from Brian Young. Thank you! The IPP also features the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. Beside some puzzles which are also in the Exchange, I managed to get some rare n-ary puzzles from the Design Competition: Complementary P-arity and Num Lock. I also bought a smaller version of the Naked Secret Box Red. At the Puzzleparty, I bought various nice puzzles: Frame+Loop Septet is a n-ary puzzle I was missing in the set, and probably no others will be produced of this kind. From Kirill, I got a Valentine's puzzle as a swap. Tom Lensch and Frans de Vreugd sold me some old but nice of Frans' designs: Quantum Entanglement Exchange and Extreme Boxed Burr. Just a day before IPP, the new Doors and Drawers was ready, and I just had to buy this puzzle. It is a puzzle box/sequential discovery/interlocking/packing puzzle — very nice! I got a Sandfield's Banded Dovetails, which is the predecessor of the version I already have and then I found a Rhombic Maze Burr " many puzzles in one, with up to a several hundereds of moves. This one comes with a whole book of challenges! From Otis I received a Secret Box as a swap for one of my nice Acrobat puzzles. The haul is concluded with a new Indian Trick Lock. With so many puzzles to solve, I am just starting to solve and will replace the pictures with solved versions once I have solved the corresponding puzzles. This may well take some year or more. Update: The compendium has been updated and in total 10 new n-ary puzzles from IPP found their way in. |
The first one is a big burr. And when I mean big, I am talking about a configuration of 12x15x16. That is 43 pieces in total! However, it is not a puzzle that eats up all your remaining shelf space, as it has been created in nice 8mm sticks, an excellent choice also for playing. You may have guessed already, it's the C2-1. It was designed by C K Leung and built by Stephan Baumegger. Only 5 of them were built (and licensed) and Yvon from Canada was also involved in this project. My first impression is "Wow!" and I am curious if I will be able to disassemble (and reassemble) it without help.
The second one is not another easter egg, but Wil Strijbos' newest project, the: EGG. The puzzle looks fantastic and like the high quality work we know from Wil's puzzles. It also feels nicely solid and heavy, as usual for these puzzles. This is all I can tell about the puzzle at the moment. No idea what is going on inside and how to open it. But that is the idea behind it, isn't it? Looking forward to see how this puzzle works and opens, but that may take quite some time.
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This puzzle update is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time. Is this beautiful red and shiny box a burr, is it an n-ary puzzle? Well, it seems it is both. It clearly has some Gray code moves in it and then also some burr-like moves that are not following Gray codes at all. The name Bicomplementary formation b/b:1/2 tries to summarize that there are two groups of pieces (bars and sticks), which both follow a binary GC move pattern at first and are interlocked. Then some nice half notches based moves appear that are usually only found in burrs by Bill Cutler and Jerry McFarland. Some solving experiences: After finding out about the binary GC first, the first group of moves becomes pretty evident. However, at a later point this sequence ends abruptly. Now you are on your own, like with high level burrs: searching for possible moves without being able to look into the box. After a while a pattern becomes clear and then the first piece comes out. Fascinating puzzle! It is a worthy new addition to the compendium and n-ary puzzle group page. Clever design, Namick! |
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This puzzle update is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time. It is a nice sliding pieces puzzle, which is ternary, but needs less pieces than other puzzles of that type. While the Tern Key puzzle employs two switches between each two sliders, this puzzle only has one switch between each two sliders. Let's see if you can figure out where the name Railing with Draining ternary comes from. I find it quite obvious if you have a look at how the puzzle looks like and how it works. Please click on the thumbnails to get a better view of the detail pictures. |
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The second puzzle is something special because it is presented to the public for the first time on this web page (and also in the compendium). It is also special because of the nice technical look, that underlines the name GC machine ternary and also special because of the nice new mechanism. There are five sliders and four wheels in this mechanism, and a control knob. The control knob ensures that exactly one slider may move at a time (indicated by the numbers on it), while the weels link the sliders together to a ternary mechanism. The sliders of course have three positions and the last picture shows the goal configuration with all five sliders pulled out as far as possible. A unique and very nice concept, and also fun to play with, believe me! It is contained in the compendium, as it is a ternary puzzle — hence the name, while the "GC" in the name stands for "Gray Code", of course.Please click on the thumbnails to get a better view of the detail pictures. |
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My puzzle friend Wil sent me a very nice surprise package which arrived this weekend. Only when I opened it, I knew what it was -- and I recognized the mechanism and was completey perplexed. The brand new Generation Lock is a much bigger version of the Lock 250+. The latter one has 4 sliding rivets, with arity 6, i.e. each (but the lowest) has 6 positions, and requires 310 moves to open. The new one has 8 sliding rivets, with arity 15, setting a new overall record in the n-ary Puzzle Group. Question is how many moves to open? After my first approximation, the name of the lock made sense to me, but I will not tell you right now, as I am making it a little quiz. How many moves to open? Can you guess or even better calculate? |
(Comparison of the two generations of Fidgety Rabbits puzzles. Click for large picture) |
What happens if you keep rabbits for some time? Right -- they start multiplying! I received some very fidgety rabbits for my collection (post below), and also these rabbits started multiplying and today a stable box with the next generation of fidgety rabbits arrived. These ternary Fidgety Rabbits are bigger than the "old" generation to accomodate more states. There are only six rabbits, but each has now three different states (instead of two), which makes them a perfect addition to the n-ary puzzles family. This new puzzle has been created for the first time, by its designer Namick Salakhovand based on his (copyrighted) design. It is a very clever design I must say -- I see that it scales not only to ternary, but also to higher order, like Namick has told me before. Please see some detail pictures of this puzzle to the right. Thank you, Namick, for this exceptional puzzle! |
Now that I have been back from IPP for some time, I have found the time to get all the Exchange puzzles into my gallery. As there are about 80 of them, I will not mention them here one by one, but have put them ona separate page of IPP32 Exchange puzzles This is also to avoid putting them on this web page in an unstructured pile, similar to the one created from these puzzles on my living room table (see picture to the right). |
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Only a few hours before the German Cube Day (GCD) it arrived: The last puzzle to get a three digit number. It is a Bin Laden and it is as close to being number 1000 as it is as close to being a true binary puzzle. It was designed by Rik van Grol to seem like a binary puzzle at first, but to get you stuck in a dead end then. Only when you figure out that in fact it is a hybrid of binary and ternary puzzle, you can solve it. This is also the motivation for the "devilish" name. |
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This is the moment that readers of this web page (and myself) have been waiting for: My collection has crossed the 1000 boundary and puzzle numbers are four digits from now on. I have been wondering which puzzle would get the honour to be the celebration puzzle, but when I found this puzzle on GCD yesterday, I had no doubt: I picked up an Auf dem Holzweg which seemed to be the first level-6-Kugellager to exist (or actually equivalent, but very, very close to a Kugellager). However, it turned out to be something new: A combination of two ternary puzzles (see yellow and green sections in the picture to the right), which I will now call "double-ternary". More details on this discovery are presented in my updated article. |
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After my research on n-ary puzzles (see Kugellager.pdf and the n-ary Puzzles Group page) it seems that his puzzle has deserved to be number 1000. If you do not believe me, have a look at the updates for puzzles 900 and 500 in the update history. |
Today is Burr's day (no, not birthday, but with a similar feeling), and to let you know why, let's have a look at the latest update. Today I picked up three packets at three different locations (hooray, German post offices!) and got a whole load of nice Burrs:
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Since this a lot of puzzles and Jack knows that I already have some, he included a nice house for me to build and store all the puzzles in it. :) Today I won't provide links from the puzzle name to the puzzle pages, but instead run a little quiz:
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With my last update, my gallery crossed the line of 900 items and so I decided to decide to pick out a special one from this update: A 7-ary Kugellager which (to my knowledge) is the first 7-ary puzzle and has level 4802. Of course, I have added the puzzle to my paper about n-ary puzzles and I am proud to present a new version today: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading! |
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As this is a typical member of the family, I extended my paper of course: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
The paper is hosted on my homepage: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
The paper is hosted on my homepage: Kugellager.pdf. Enjoy reading!
Puzzle number 500: Kugellager
Last change: 2025-01-03 | [TO MY HOMEPAGE] | © Goetz Schwandtner 2008 |