Cube+

Cube+ is my first experience with this sort "shape forming" puzzle. This puzzle came to me courtesy of David Goodman during the IPP34 Puzzle Exchange in London last year.

I am not sure what the wood used is, but it looks pretty well made by Gaya Game (this is the first time I have come across this online seller and they have a pretty decent catalog of products). 

Challenge #1 - Use all 7 pieces

The puzzle contains seven pieces comprising three congruent pairs. Each piece per pair consists of five units. The seventh piece is two units long. There are two challenges here; the first is to use all seven pieces to form a typical "burr" shape and the second is to find six pieces to form a 3 x 3 x 3 cube. As of late, there are quite a number of these designs from various puzzlers the goal which is to form a 3D symmetrical shape of one type or another.

Challenge #2 - Use 6 of the 7 pieces

For some strange reason I started off with the second challenge and oddly enough, I managed to solve the puzzle rather quickly within twenty minutes or so of fiddling. However I took well over forty five minutes for the first challenge which I thought would be the easier challenge since all seven pieces have to be used. 

I won't say the puzzle is by any means easy but its not that overly difficult either. And I am happy to report I didn't have to resort to Burr Tools! There must be only one unique solution to either challenge also, I would assume. For both challenges, especially the first, some logical thinking rather than random assembly would certainly help with the solve.