GyroTwisty

Here's another Diniar Namdarian-designed 3D printed "twist" puzzle. Exchanged by Hendrik Haak at IPP38 in San Diego, USA.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/gyrotwisty/

Sewing Box

Here's a rather unusual and (very colourful) disassembly puzzle designed by Diniar Namdarian. Click the link below to read more.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/sewing-box/

Vapors

The label on the packaging reads "Design from the twisted mind of Derek Bosch"...hmm, I wonder if there was an intentional pun here. Well, Vapors is a "twist" puzzle...of sorts.

Vapors is Steve Nicholls IPP36 Exchange Puzzle. Conceptually it is similar to his Pole Dancers where the goal here is to twist the two spirally interlocking pieces out of the cube. However, physically there is little similarity to Pole Dancers. Instead of the cylindrical "burr" style design like the latter or others in the "Helical" range, Steve has chosen to encase the red spiral pieces inside a square white cube. Which leads me to conclude that the exterior design and colours were deliberate, to match those of the Japanese flag (since IPP36 was held in Kyoto early this August). I say it looks rather eye-catching and unique. However, I am not sure why it's called Vapors?

The puzzle was 3D printed by Steve (mostly Steve fabricates all his puzzles using 3D printing) and measures 5.8cm all round. Its the same size as that of a standard Rubik's Cube. The cube itself is textured on four sides not only to make gripping easy but to give the puzzle some pattern. There is sufficient tolerance to allow the pieces to "twist" reasonably smoothly without jamming nor it being too loose.

Like burr pieces, the spiral pieces contain various protrusions and notches and they interact with other protrusions on the inside hollow of the cube. To extract the said pieces, you have to pull, push and twist one or the other of the pieces or sometimes even both at the same time in particular (sequential) manner. Similar to how you would solve a burr, but now, the pieces go up, down and round, instead of up, down, left and right. Vapors is not easy and I found it harder than Pole Dancers from last year. Removal was not too difficult and done within minutes. But it took me several sessions of play over the course of one and half days to re-assemble everything back to its original state. My poor memory of how I took it apart didn't help either. I might have taken less time, but during the putting together stage, I accidentally broke one of the pieces and had to use epoxy glue to join the broken halves and wait a good eight hours for the glue to set completely before resuming assembly.

For puzzlers who like cylindrical "burrs", this is a must have to add to any collection. A couple of puzzlers have lamented the fact that these puzzles are not made of wood....Don't we all wish they can be made of exotic woods. However, I am not sure if wood turning (or other methods of wood-working) can produce such designs into actual working copies. Granted 3D printed ones can't compare with the quality of their wooden counter-parts, but at least these designs have been realised into functioning copies for puzzlers to enjoy. And as far as I can tell, so far Derek has designed and Steve produced, everyone of this type of puzzle that have come onto the market.

Those interested to get a copy of Vapors can contact Steve Nicholls via his website here.

Phive Pack

My puzzle this weekend was the "Phive Pack", a play on words, which (I think) means "five" piece packing puzzle, fellow puzzle blogger Allard Walker's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle. 

A somewhat different style of packing puzzle from the norm, this 3D packer does have five pieces; consisting of four odd-shaped ones which form a polyhedron and the fifth being a marble. The object is to place the four pieces and a rather good looking pearl-like marble into the accompanying plastic tube so that the latter is completely hidden within.

Designed by Jane Kostick of KO Sticks, the artisan folks who create incredible looking geometric sculptures and puzzles in wood, the puzzle was 3D printed by Shapeways. It was available in a variety of colours during the Exchange but I chose a bright magenta, the copy you see here. 

The Phive Pack came un-assembled. At first glance, I didn't think the puzzle was that difficult, after all it's only four pieces, and all I needed to do was to pack the four into the plastic tube, but how wrong I was. Of the four pieces, two are identical, while the remaining two look very much alike but have slightly different angled surfaces.    

It took me a good half an hour or more of trying before I found the right orientation of the pieces relative to each other. The angle and facets of the pieces really confuse but once put together correctly, the final shape is a nice symmetrical polyhedron and fits just nicely inside the stubby plastic tube. I wonder if Allard/Jane had designed the puzzle just the right size (about 4cm all round) to fit the tube or the other way round. Any other way would result in some portion of the marble being exposed and the puzzle sticking out, preventing one of the two plastic caps from covering the tube properly. 

Depending on who's playing with it, some may find it really hard, some not. In the words of puzzler Eitan Cher, it's a very "disorientating" puzzle to solve. Agreed! IMHO, its not an overly difficult puzzle but not an easy one either...just somewhere in between with the right amount of challenge for an exchange puzzle. Contact Allard via his blog site if you are keen to get one. 

Halve A Heart

This is the first of my IPP36 Exchange Puzzles I am reviewing. I thought I would start off with something not too complicated and which I am familiar with.

Halve A Heart was designed and produced by Scott Elliot for his exchange in Kyoto, Japan just several weeks ago. 3D printed, Halve A Heart follows a recent string of puzzles in the last couple of years that bears a similar theme; the object is to put two pieces together to form a particular shape. In 2014, Scott came up with Join The Club and in 2015, his Diamond Engagement.

First off, the puzzle measures about 4.5cm x 4.5cm x 1.4cm. Quality of print is good and the puzzle is solid printed (not hollow) which gives it a hefty feel and makes it pretty durable. The two halves join together to form a heart. In fact the red is so red it looks like blood, how appropriate for this puzzle!

While there are only two pieces each with identical shapes, putting together was (to my surprise) more difficult that I had expected. The halves need to twist and slide against each other to finally form the intended shape. It did take me more than several minutes before I found the right orientation of both pieces relative to each other and discovered the point where the two pieces would mesh together nicely in one smooth motion. Halve A Heart appears to be more difficult than the previous two puzzles. No force whatsoever is needed. In fact the assembled heart was a bit on the "loose" side for my copy and while the pieces will not fall apart, the heart would not hold its shape unless it was lying flat on a table.

Notwithstanding, a nice pocket-able little puzzle that will probably frustrate non-puzzlers and maybe even some puzzlers. Scott made a number of these for sale and he may still have some copies left over if anyone is interested.

Star Beams

This cute and colourful puzzle came courtesy of Dutchman Oskar van Deventer during the IPP34 Puzzle Exchange in London in 2014. But its an old design which dates back to 1989.

Oskar is one of the rarer prolific designers who is comfortable with both puzzle genres; the twisties and non-twisties and amongst the non-twisties, he has designed over a dozen of the Hanayama Cast puzzles to-date including the Cast Twist and Cast Nutcase. He has also designed some unusual ones that include his Boston Subway and Snakes In A Plane.

Star Beams is an interlocking puzzle consisting of six "beams" produced by 3D printing. Overall quality is good. As described on Oskar's Shapeway shop:-

"The puzzle has six pentagram-shaped beams that are woven through each other. It was in 1989 that Oskar discovered this geometry. It is based on the geometry of a regular dodecahedron (with twelve pentagonal faces). When each of the six axes is offset a bit, this nice tetrahedral geometry results" 

The entire assembly is held together by one beam that cuts through four others.

The object of course is to take it apart and put it back together. Don't let the cute and colourful form factor fool you. While its not difficult to figure out how to take it apart and I got this done rather quickly, the putting together proved impossible for me. Even with the aid of photographs taken along the way, I had a lot of difficulty trying to assemble the lot. The notches and grooves are precisely cut and if you mesh the beams together the wrong way, you have to re-start. Of course given that the puzzle is rather small (each beam is 5cm) made it very fiddly and difficult to handle as well.

Check out Oskar's youtube video of the Star Beams (too bad it doesn't show the solve). Its available from Shapeways for US$38.43 as well as Puzzlemaster, the latter much cheaper at CA$29.99. 

Pole Dancers

Name
Pole Dancers

Designer
Derek Bosch. Very well known in the community for his cylindrical burr designs range, see for example the Helical Burr. For his other works, click here. I just realized I do have a copy of his "Derek's Half Dozen"....stay tuned for a future post on this one.

Manufacturer & Availability
Produced by Steve Nicholls. May be available but in limited quantities. You can contact Steve here.

Type & Classification
Interlocking

Dimensions
16cm x 4.5cm diameter

Materials & Construction
3D printed in plastic resin. Very well made and absolutely gorgeous colours. Mine's a bright yellow and purple. I saw other colourful combinations as well at IPP. Nicely presented in a transparent carrying tube. 

Overview
Looking like a delicious ice lolly, you can probably guess why the puzzle is called Pole Dancers. No prizes here. The puzzle was also Steve's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle in Ottawa, Canada last year. The goal here is to separate the purple and yellow pieces from the rod. 

For this type of cylindrical puzzles, 3D printing is probably the best (and only) choice available. I seriously doubt if they can be made in wood. As I mentioned previously in my review of the Helical Burr, the manipulation of a 3D printed burr like this is never going to be as slippery smooth as a well made interlocking wooden burr. However, it is sufficiently slick for comfortable play and I did not experience any jamming. One of the advantages of 3D printing is that the puzzle won't expand in humid climates unlike their wooden cousins. In fact as I played more, the puzzle got quit "seasoned" after a while and the movement of the pieces became smoother overall.

Solving consists of pulling, pushing and rotating the pieces around the axis of the rod. The pieces are interlocked together via grooves and notches on their insides and the surface of the rod. Typically trial and error is required at the beginning to see how the pieces interact with each other. Careful observation of the movements is also necessary, particularly when you want to re-assemble the puzzle later. And remember the orientation of the pieces too. I don't know the exact number of moves as I lost count somewhere after the first 5 to 6. But by my estimation, I think its somewhere between 13 to 15 moves for full dis-assembly. Honestly the dance gets quite confusing halfway through!

Difficulty
Its a difficult puzzle no doubt, but strangely I felt it was a bit less difficult than the Helical Burr which had four pieces (vs three for Pole Dancers) and even fewer moves. Maybe the Helical Burr was the first time I was playing with this sort of puzzle and hadn't gotten used to it yet.

While Helical Burr required only the removal of the first piece and the rest became pretty straight forward coming apart, Pole Dancers is tricky in the sense that you are not sure which end of the rod the two pieces emerge from (or is it from both ends?) and you get a bit confused halfway and need to back track once you hit a dead end. 

Summary
Another great design here from Derek Bosch. Well made, colourful and a nice alternative to the usual rectilinear wooden burrs. And what an appropriate name!

The Moose Ball

The Moose Ball was the second puzzle I brought along on my present business trip, together with the Cubic Burr.

This is a "tetrahedrally based puzzle with only four pieces"...according to the instructions which came with the puzzle. If you are stumped by the technical term (like I was, click here), And if you are wondering what's a moose, click here.

This puzzle was Simon Bexfield's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle and Simon 3D printed the puzzle himself. Nicely done and quality and fit is good. 

The puzzle consists of 4 pieces and the object is to take it apart and put the pieces back together again. When I first handled it I thought it was some sort of co-ordinate motion puzzle and tried to pull all 4 pieces apart together. Not really so, as I played with it and figured what needed to be done since the 4 pieces are "locked" together.

Its not a difficult puzzle and most experienced puzzlers would be able to solve it quite quickly. Putting it back together is a slight tad harder but with only 4 pieces and single solution, not hard to figure out either.

I believe Simon has the Moose Ball available for sale (and not only in black) but in a variety of colours as well. If you would like want, you can contact Simon via his website.