Gridlock at the Arc De Triomphe

Anti slide puzzle designed by Brian Young, Junichi Yananose and William Hu. Difficult and I still have not found the solution to it...

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/anti-slide-puzzle/

Pulsar Burr

Hi folks, here's a short post which should have been published last weekend but I got caught up with life and work. Thought I would post it today before I head over to IPP37 in Europe this coming Thursday. 

The puzzle I was playing with last week was Lambert Brights's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle called "Pulsar Burr" designed by Junichi Yananose and manufactured by Brian Young of Mr Puzzle, Australia.

The Pulsar consist of 5 pieces, four board pieces made of 10mm acrylic and a single wooden notched burr made of Australian Jarrah. Quality and build is up to the usual high standards coming from Brian and all the pieces fit and move smoothly. Although my copy was a tad too snug probably due to the high humidity of Singapore causing the wooden piece to expand. The acrylic pieces are precise laser cut with no slant edges whatsoever as sometimes appearing on thicker cut acrylic pieces. Size is 60mm x 40mm x 80mm when assembled.

Nothing too unusual about the Pulsar as far as an interlocking burr goes except that you will notice that one of the board pieces has a curved channel cut into it. Rather unique and -certainly the first time I have come across a burr piece with a curved cut-out like that. Straight off, this tells me that Burr Tools probably can't work for this puzzle Ha Ha!

The puzzle (unfortunately) came unassembled, hence my struggle with it last week. I can understand why it was like that, since an assembled puzzle would not have been too difficult considering it requires only several moves to extract the first piece. But unassembled, that is a whole different thing altogether, especially something designed by Junichi. Putting together something like that from scratch would have required a great deal of experimentation and analysis, not to mention trial and error, something which (with hindsight after looking at the accompanying solution) would have rather been beyond me. My early concerted attempts to solve were quite off-tangent to begin with. Brian says that "this is a very doable puzzle for someone who’s had a little experience assembling burrs....",  hmm...I am not so sure about that!

Assembled, the puzzle looks pretty nice with a combo of wood and acrylic. I tried the disassembly and this proved to be very manageable without the solution. This puzzle is definitely for diehard fans of interlocking burrs. And for a very reasonable price too of A$32.73 on Brian's website, although the wooden piece there has both ends tapered.

A Voyage To Terra Australis

Here's a 2D packing puzzle that I have been toiling over on and off the last several weeks...but got nowhere.

It's Brian Young's IPP34 Exchange Puzzle, designed by Junichi Yananose with an Australia theme. Its a "double-sided" packing puzzle because the twelve pentominoe pieces are printed on both sides with the Australian coastline. The description states...

The puzzle is to help Matthew Flinders fix his map of the Australian Coastline so that the entire coastline joins up and makes a correct map of Australia....Matthew Flinders and his crew had a few extra tots of rum as they were sailing past Bundaberg; in fact they must have used up the whole quota for the trip because they were way off course. They thought they had found the great inland sea but it was really Uluru sticking up out of the desert! You need to help them redraw the map of the Coastline so it joins up correctly and they can get on their way back to England to report to King George III.

The object is to rearrange the pieces to fit the tray and get the coastline of Australia correct but some of the pieces have to be flipped over to complete the puzzle correctly. 

According to Brian, "there are 2,339 different ways to pack the twelve pentominoe pieces into the 6 x 10 unit rectangular frame. And that number does not include the permutations of flipping pieces". However the way the puzzle has been designed, it has only one solution! The puzzle is made of laser cut hoop pinewood and lacquered.

If you are not sure what the outline of Australia looks like, or want to get more information about this beautiful country which I had the opportunity to visit twice in the past (Perth and Melbourne), click here.

The puzzle came with a scrambled (wrong) coastline and despite my many attempts at trying to get it right, each time I came up short. This is a very difficult puzzle (even tho' it appears to look easy) from what Sue (Brian's wife) tells me, after I threw in the towel and emailed her for the solution. Looking at the solution, well it looked rather do-able...and I got the "how come I didn't try putting that piece there?" questions running through my mind. I had missed some things that with more careful observation, I would have spotted. Sigh!

A Voyage To Terra Australis (and other exclusive past IPP exchange puzzles) is available at Brian's site Mr Puzzle for AU$27.50. 

Black Hole Burr

I like the Black Hole Burr ("BHB") because its one of the few interlocking burrs that I can actually solve without Burr Tools or other aids. Plus the fact it has only 3 board pieces and a black "block". Not as intimidating as one might imagine.

The BHB was Rosemary Howbrigg's IPP34 Exchange Puzzle. It was designed by Junichi Yananose and produced by Brian Young of the new revamped Mr Puzzle. The three board pieces are made of laser cut acrylic and the block is wood painted black. Quality of construction fit and finish is excellent and everything fits and slides nicely.

At first glance, it doesn't look too difficult, after all, its only three pieces. But believe me, its more difficult than it looks. Its not too hard to get the three acrylic pieces together without the block and that is what I tried to do first, so as to get a feel of the orientation of the pieces and how they interact with each other and how the block might fit into the centre. Once I had figured this out, I then sorted out the fit of the block.

Having solved the BHB, while its not as difficult as I had expected, its no walk in the park either, at least not for me. And take a hint here; Burr Tools won't work for this puzzle (So you probably know what's involved).

Its a tricky puzzle made more challenging by the fact that the pieces are transparent acrylic, making it harder to see the outlines of the pieces and where they join/intersect etc. My less than perfect eyesight, especially at night doesn't help either.

Overall a well made burr puzzle that provides a nice challenge that does not overly frustrate; the type that one would classify as having "just the right amount of difficulty for an exchange puzzle".

Available from Mr Puzzle for AU$30/-. 

The World's Most Expensive Exchange Puzzle?

Is this the world's most expensive Exchange Puzzle? Probably...but we'll talk about the price later...

Sequential discovery puzzles don't come onto the market often. In fact the last one I played with was Wil Strijbos Angel Box over a year ago..

But when a new one comes along, it's usually a winner. The Big Ben is such a puzzle!

The Big Ben (a miniature replica modeled after the clock tower at the north end of the Palace of Westminster), was John Moores' Exchange Puzzle at IPP34 in London this year. Without a doubt, it made ninety-nine Exchange participants (including me) very happy people, especially so when we later found out how much it was retailing for. It was jointly designed by John Moores, Junichi Yananose and Brian Young.

Made by Brian Young of Mr Puzzle, Australia, the Big Ben comprises of Papua New Guinean Rosewood, Western Australia Jarrah and Queensland Silver Ash, all native woods of Australia. The attention to detail is amazing and you really need to see the actual copy to appreciate the intricate design that has gone into the puzzle, not only externally from an aesthetic point of view but also the trick and mechanism of the internals. Quality, fit and finish is excellent.

The Big Ben retails on Mr Puzzle for a whopping A$385! Likely the most expensive exchange puzzle at retail price. However probably not, if you also consider aftermarket online auctions where exchange puzzles have attracted bids in excess of US$500 (thanks to Nick Baxter for this info). Even if it had cost John Moores A$100 to have each of these puzzles made (and I am just guessing here the price) it would have set him back a cool A$10,000 to use them for the exchange, since he would have needed a minimum of ninety-nine copies. But then again, John is from Monaco....  

As mentioned this is a sequential discovery (or progressive move) puzzle where you solve little sub-puzzles along the way (using tools that are part of the puzzle; but no other external tools permitted) leading to the eventual solving of the main puzzle.

The object is to find the "Big Ben" (in this case a tiny plastic bell, a miniature like the real one) hidden somewhere in the recesses of the clock tower. Along the way, another item, a representation of Queen's Elizabeth's crown can also be picked up.

Like any good sequential discovery puzzle, there are many things to do to solve the puzzle. In the case of the Big Ben, there are broadly four main challenges, each with multiple steps. I don't want to give away too much here since this is an expensive puzzle and one should have the maximum pleasure from the solve. 

The first challenge is the perhaps the easiest...for confidence building and getting one into the groove of things. Here you will discover some tools which are to be used later and are necessary. Didn't take me long to figure things out here. 

The second challenge is harder and IMHO, a lot harder than the first challenge. The main portions of the Big Ben has to be taken apart. I took a good half an hour or so to get through this stage. Once this was over, a sigh of relief, an a-ha moment to savour for a while.

The Big Ben and Queen Elizabeth's Crown found

The third challenge....which is the hardest and stumped me for a long time. Not that I couldn't solve the puzzle (ie getting the bell out of the clock tower); in fact I did solve it...only that I did it the unintended way!. Two other puzzlers solved it the wrong way too before finding out the correct method; one of them Kevin Sadler whom I approached for help for the right solution method after showing him how I had solved my copy, which proved to be incorrect. I tried the correct method and I must say that it is really quite an elegant solution and works well, but very subtle and tricky. As Allard Walker aptly puts it in his blog post, the solution requires "the detective skills of Poirot and the imagination of Heath Robinson". 

The fourth and last challenge is to put everything back together again AND including setting all the four clock faces back to the original 9 o'clock. I managed to reassemble everything back in place but was quite happy to leave the clocks in whatever facings they happened to end up. Didn't see the need to give myself any more extra work. The Big Ben looks just fine as it is!

Expensive yes, but loads of puzzling value for the money. Overall a really fine puzzle from the puzzling perspective. Difficult yes, especially the last part, but gradual and manageable most of the way with a-ha moments thrown in. A puzzle that you probably won't want to put down once you start.

Oh...and John, if you are reading this, we puzzlers would love for you to continue to participate in future IPP Exchanges with puzzles just like your Big Ben!!!

H Burr

Name
H Burr

Designer
Designed by Junichi Yananose in 2001. For Junichi's other designs (there are over 40), click here.

Manufacturer
Torito of Japan. Sold by Satomi Beattie of CU-Japan who's based in the United Kingdom. 

Type & Classification
Interlocking

Dimensions
8.3cm (Length) x 8.3cm (Width) x 8.3cm (Height). Chunky, heavy and solid..very nice!

Materials & Construction
Aluminium. Construction, fit and finish is very good. The burr has a nice matt finish (probably this is necessary since a polished surface would inevitably result in scratches after some time of playing). Each of the 12 pieces are smooth to touch with slightly bevelled edges.

Overview

I first found out about this puzzle from the Revomaze forum and wow! it's a metal burr...nice; got to have it! You can tell from the photos why its called the "H" Burr.

The H Burr consist of 12 separate pieces of which three pairs are congruent (ie identical). Object is to separate the 12 pieces and put it together again. 

Taking apart the puzzle literally meant "splitting" the puzzle in half. Here, there is not the usual single unique piece which holds the entire puzzle together which first needs to be removed. Instead, as I found out, the puzzle consists of two "halves" of 6 interlocking pieces each, which sort of "dovetails" nicely together. Depending on the orientation of the puzzle, you can either lift the top half upwards or pull the two halves apart sideways and then continue the rest of the disassembly.

Once the two halves have come apart, the rest of the disassembly was pretty easy. The real challenge is putting all the pieces back together to form the original shape. Although all the pieces are "H" shaped and similar looking, there are differences (some subtle) due to the various cuts and notches of each piece and this adds greatly to the challenge of putting them back together.

I was glad the puzzle came boxed with the solution. There are just too many pieces to grapple with to even try to memorise where each piece is suppose to be.

Difficulty Level

Very difficult even tho' there are 4 solutions. But I am sure there's someone out there who could probably solve it without the solution.

Summary
You don't often see an interlocking burr made of metal. Most burrs are made of wood. The only other ones I am aware of made of aluminium are the 7-Move and 10-Move Aluminium burrs from Wil Stribos and the Lee Valley Burr. The H Burr is a handsome and well made burr. Owing to its relatively large size and physically complicated looking interlocking appearance, it also displays extremely well.

P&L Packing Puzzle

The P&L was designed by Junichi Yananose and made and sold by Mr Puzzle Australia (aka Brian Young) for exchange at IPP31. It is actually a petite packing puzzle measuring 80mm(L) x 63mm(W) x 23mm(H) and very pocketable. Again the attraction for me to this puzzle was the use of 5 different woods consisting of Queensland Silly Oak, Tasmanian Blackwood, Pepperwood, Rosewood and Queensland Silver Ash. My copy is very well cut and made and all the pieces fit into the box very nicely.

The object of the puzzle is to pack into the box 5 L-shaped pieces and 5 P-shaped pieces. One of the L-shaped pieces has a No.31 (IPP31) on one of its surfaces and this No.31 must show up on top when the puzzle is in the solved state. The 10 pieces form two layers inside the box with no empty spaces. Externally, it looks like the box has got extra thick sides and an unduly small space for the pieces, but this is because the opening of the box leads to a much larger hollow inside the box to which all the pieces must fit in.

The P&L in my opinion poses a reasonably fair challenge. Just when I thought I was about to be able to fit every single piece into the box, I find that I can't fit that one last piece; and out comes all the Ps and Ls again. It took me a couple of hours of trying different layout configurations within the small confines of the box before I finally slotted in the last P on top. Overall, a nice and cute little packing puzzle but those with large hands and fingers may find the small pieces a bit fiddly and clumsy to handle.