Cast Infinity

Update 24 October 2017 - Dear Reader, please check out my new puzzle blog and e-store at http://mechanical-puzzles.com

A very Happy New Year to everyone! This is my first post for 2017.

This weekend's puzzle was Vesa Timonen's Cast Infinity produced by Hanayama. In case you do not know Messr. Timonen, he has designed many puzzles and a number for Hanayama such as the Cast Loop, Square, Cylinder and Donuts.  A number of them award winning, including his non-Cast Symmetrick.

The Infinity comes with a shiny surface and is very well made (of zinc alloy). Tough and heavy. Generally I would prefer a matt to gloss surface for metal puzzles but in this instance, the shininess actually works pretty well and accentuates the curves of the Infinity. IMHO, it's one of the more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing puzzles around.

Size wise, its measures roughly about 5.3cm x 3.2cm x 1.7cm and large enough to be handled quite comfortably.

The object here is to remove the two inner circular pieces from the "8" shaped cage (the Greek symbol for Infinity).

From the puzzling aspect, this is not an easy puzzle. Hanayama rates it at a level 6 stars; ie most difficult in the Hanayama range. But with only two moving pieces, its not excruciatingly difficult and I would rate it rather at about 5 stars. Both pieces rotate within their respective housings inside the cage, but they are interlocked against each other via a series of notches on the pieces as well as the inside of the cage itself.  At any one time, only one of the two pieces will move in one particular direction. To solve the puzzle, the pieces need to be rotated in both clockwise and counter clockwise manner (as well as upwards and downwards) and there is a sort of sequence to this, otherwise one or the other piece would simply find a dead end.

In some ways, I kinda have the feeling that the Cast Infinity is almost a bit like a "N-ary puzzle" where there is a series of repeated moves, but technically I don't think this is the case [Edit 8 Jan 2017: Puzzler Michel van Ipenburg has confirmed to me that the Infinity is indeed a N-ary puzzle]. Other puzzles with a similar "style" that came to my mind when I was playing with the Infinity are the circular type burrs designed by Derek Bosch such as the Helical Burr, Pole Dancers and Vapors , where you manipulate two main opposing interlocking pieces in a particular sequence to disassemble. For lack of anything else, I guess you can call it a flat(ish) burr.

Overall the Infinity is great puzzle and I was rather surprise that I took less than 20 mins to disassemble the pieces and just a tad longer to put everything together again, the latter in the reverse order, but more difficult. Once you have gotten used to the moves, its fairly repeatable also. And coming from Hanayama, you can be assured of decent quality and value for money pricing.

Of Symmetry And Shapes

This weekend's puzzle play consisted of Symmetrick from Vesa Timonen of Finland and Four Triangles Five Shapes from Emrehan Halici of Turkey. 

Symmetrick

Symmetrick was a Top 10 Vote Getter during the IPP33 Puzzle Design Competition in Japan. It was also Vesa's exchange puzzle during IPP32 the previous year. In case you didn't know, vesa is a very prolific designer with a number of Hanayama Cast puzzle designs to his name.

Comprising of just two irregular shaped pieces made of Finnish Curly Birch wood in a raw finish, the goal here is to form a symmetrical shape. The instructions are clear....to place the two pieces on a flat surface to form a symmetrical shape...no tricks, no silhouette, hole in centre and the like.

One would wonder how difficult can that be with just two pieces right? Wrong...it is in fact a rather difficult puzzle, more so if you don't even understand what a symmetrical shape refers to. 

During IPP33 itself, I had already seen quite a number of puzzlers in the competition room trying to figure this one out.... and many couldn't solve it even by the end of the event. All round it received a lot of positive comments. I took about a couple of hours before hitting the jackpot. Please PM me if you would like to see the solution...it's really quite unexpected.

Symmetrick IMHO is really an example of a great puzzle design, so simple and innocuous looking with just two pieces, yet very challenging. For those who love this sort of shape forming puzzles, its a must have. Available from Mr Puzzle Of Australia and Sloyd of Finland.

Four Triangles Five Shapes

This puzzle came courtesy of Emrehan Halici. I had a privilege of meeting Emrehan the second time during IPP35 in Ottawa last year and his Four Triangles Five Shapes (FTFS) was his exchange puzzle to me.

The FTFS is made of 3mm red laser cut acrylic. The four pieces comprise of four triangles of different shapes. Nicely cut and pretty large pieces so easy to handle.

There are five different tasks here (hence the name "five shapes"). Using all the triangles to make the following shapes:-

1. 3 different Pararellograms

2. An Isoceles triangle

3. A Square

I was able to make just one of the parallelograms, the isoceles triangle and the square...or so I thought. I shot an email to Emrehan for the solutions to the other two parallelograms and when he replied I was in for a shock; I had only gotten the square correct!

How difficult is the FTFS? Well, I only managed to solve one of the five shapes, despite just four pieces. I would rate it as very challenging indeed. As this one is an exchange puzzle, it's only available from the designer (assuming he has any left), so please PM me if you would like to get a copy and I will link you up with Emrehan.