A Plugged Well

A Plugged Well was Matthew Dawson's Exchange Puzzle at IPP32 held in Washington last week. Matthew Dawson is one half of the Dawson/Makishi duo that brought us the Pagoda series of wooden puzzles. For readers who have followed my blog, you may remember that I had reviewed the Pagoda No 3 quite a while back and I couldn't manage to solve it then. Until today, I have yet to revisit my Pagoda No 3 to try to solve it again, given that new puzzles seem to come my way and consume much of my time. Well, if there is any consolation this time round, I succeeded in solving the Plugged Well. But perhaps not quite the way I would have liked it to end!

Designed and made by Brian Young of Mr Puzzle, A Plugged Well is made of walnut with metal parts fabricated from brass and steel. Mine is of a darker shade brown although different copies will vary from dark to light coloured wood. The puzzle measures about 10cm tall, 6.8cm deep and 5cm wide. Quality of construction, fit and finish is excellent. Externally, there is a brass tube sitting atop the well and lower down, there is what appears to be a screw inserted into a "door" in front.

The object of the puzzle is to "unplugged" the well. Indeed the "instructions" that came with the puzzle states:- "You've inherited this oil well from Uncle Bubba who plugged it in a tricky way back in the 1960's when oil was selling for under $3 a barrel.  With oil now over $100 a barrel the challenge is to unplug the well.  You'll know you've got the oil flowing again when you find the barrel of oil.  Can you pitch your wits against Uncle Bubba and work out how he plugged the well?"

This is a sequential discovery puzzle meaning that you have to follow a series of steps in a particular order to solve it. Everything needed to solve the puzzle, such as tools and implements are also all found within the puzzle itself.

The barrel of oil sitting atop the unplugged well

I don't wish to describe how the barrel of oil is "found", so as not to spoil anybody else's fun. But suffice to say, the first four steps are pretty obvious and I quickly figured them out. Thereafter, I was stumped for a long while trying to determine the next step. As usual, when everything fails, I resorted to the usual shaking, tapping, knocking and all sorts of other actions. I can hear something loose knocking about inside but couldn't really tell what it was.

After much effort trying this and that with the "tools" available, I made some progress, but each time when I thought I achieved the next step, I became stuck and had to backtrack and start over again. Going back and forth  I lost sight of the steps I took....talk about sequential...sigh!!! But with lots of trial and error in manipulation, pushing and pulling, I was able to "feel" my way through. Something finally gave in inside, and at last I managed to unplugged the well and extracted the barrel of oil. To be honest, although I was probably headed in the right direction,  I am not really sure what I did correct to get the barrel of oil out. The insides looked quite complicated and initially I couldn't quite figure out how the internal mechanism worked.

Overall a very difficult puzzle indeed and even though its been described as sequential discovery, there are many steps which I would not have discovered on my own via a logical or systematic process of reasoning or deduction. I checked the solution that came with it and believe it or not, there are well over twenty (rather very detailed) steps to solve the puzzle!!! The schematic drawing (showing the insides) was no walk in the park either.

Nonetheless, I was very impressed at the ingenuity of design and the puzzle's solution. The Plugged Well has far more "interactive" parts and sequential steps needed than either the Houdini's Torture Cell or Wil Strijbos' First Box, all squeezed into a smallish palm sized object....quite amazing!

Now here is the clincher! In the process of taking photos of the puzzle for this review, I had accidentally re-assembled the puzzle wrongly and now the thing is stuck it seems....beyond salvation? I hope not, because the puzzle didn't come cheap. Not sure what I can do now but to email Matthew Dawson for help!!

Update 21 August 2012

With the aid of an "external" tool, I managed to "unstuck" my puzzle....Whew! Thanks to Matthew Dawson and Neil Hutchinson for their helpful suggestions.

Also, for another take on the Plugged Well, check out Jeff Chou's blog post.