IPP35 - Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange

The 2015 International Puzzle Party was held in Ottawa in the state of Ontario, Canada from 6th to 9th August. Unlike the two previous editions of the IPP where the venue was at an airport hotel, this year's IPP was held downtown at the Ottawa Marriot, which made it very convenient for the IPP participants and their families to visit the sights of this beautiful city and to enjoy the nightlife, food and drink.  

Like all earlier IPPs, the two key events of the Party were the Puzzle Exchange and the Puzzle Party (the latter for my next blog post). For the guidelines/rules and on what typically happens during a puzzle exchange, you may wish to check out my post on last year's Exchange; click here. Here's an except from the said post:-

1. An exchanger must typically produce a minimum of around a 100 puzzles; 99 for the exchange and one for public display during IPP which is then donated to the Slocum Puzzle Collection at the University of Indiana Lilly Library. Many exchange participants tend to produce more than the 100 for post-exchange sale at the Puzzle Party or gifting. Not an inexpensive affair in terms of cost of production, shipping etc.

2. The participant's exchange puzzle must be an original design. However it need not be the exchanger's own design. He/she can commission or use someone else's design (with permission of course). 

3. The exchanged puzzle must not have been previously in someone's collection nor commercially available prior to the exchange.

This year's exchange saw a total of 88 participants. Simon Nightingale, who won the Jury Honourable Mention Award for his "Oh Ding" puzzle, nearly missed the Exchange as his two pieces of luggage containing all of his exchange puzzles, went awry....one suitcase ended up in Toronto while the other, Montreal. Fortunately the airline got his suitcases to him in time for the Puzzle Party the next day, and it was there where he not only sold puzzles, but also managed to exchange puzzles with the rest of the participants.

My Exchange Puzzle this year was one of my own designs; called "CamelPak", the exchange version a slight re-design from the version on PWBP. Made of laser cut acrylic, its a packing puzzle with two challenges. 1st challenge: Pack all the 5 camels into the tray. 2nd challenge: Pack 4 camels, the dog and snake into the tray. 

Here are the rest of the photos I managed to take during the Exchange.

90 copies all laid out and ready to go....

Everyone donates one copy of their puzzle to the Puzzle Exchange Table

Frans de Vreugd

Jerry Slocum

Diniar Namdarian

Eric Fuller

Allard Walker

Brian Young

Iwahiro Iwasawa

Scott Elliot

Laurie Brokenshire

Marcel Gillen

Frederic Boucher

My haul 5 hours later....

My sleeping partners during IPP35

Coming up in the next post...the IPP35 Puzzle Party.....