New blog post up on James Dalgety's IPP37 Exchange Puzzle.
http://mechanical-puzzles.com/one-minute-puzzle-in-cube/
Showing posts with label Vaclav Obsivac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vaclav Obsivac. Show all posts
Saturday, 31 March 2018
OMPIC - One Minute Puzzle In Cube
Dear Readers,
New blog post up on James Dalgety's IPP37 Exchange Puzzle.
http://mechanical-puzzles.com/one-minute-puzzle-in-cube/
New blog post up on James Dalgety's IPP37 Exchange Puzzle.
http://mechanical-puzzles.com/one-minute-puzzle-in-cube/
Sunday, 18 September 2016
Hexator & Kissel
Update 23 October 2017 - Dear Reader, please check out my new puzzle blog and e-store at http://mechanical-puzzles.com
Over the weekend, I played with two IPP36 Exchange Puzzles designed and manufactured by Vaclav Obsivac from the Czech Republic, more popularly known to the puzzle community as Vinco. I have a number of Vinco's puzzles in my collection including the Cross Box, Murbiter's Pseudo-Burr and the very large sized 18 Dutch Mills.
Vinco's online puzzle site has an incredible and very extensive range of interlocking and co-ordinate motion puzzles, made of different woods, a large selection of them using exotic woods and all at very reasonable prices.
Both my exchange copies came assembled. Both are well made with good fit and finish using Cherry wood and will display rather nicely.
The first is the Hexator, a burr-shaped interlocking solid with 6 irregular pieces each made of different rectangular blocks glued together. Measuring about 5.5cm all round, this was Abel Garcia's exchange puzzle. Taking apart the Hexator was not to difficult once you find where the pieces connect and slide them apart. But the challenge came during the re-assembly. I didn't think it was going to be that difficult but the moment I scrambled the pieces, I wished I hadn't done so. While its only 6 pieces, the pieces are (almost) identical to each other but not so. They just look confusingly similar.
There is only one solution and if you can't find the right pieces to mesh together correctly and in the correct sequence, you'll be going around in circles like I did. To borrow the phrase from one puzzler, the Hexator is confusingly disorientating. While Vinco had deliberately constructed the puzzle to have a symmetrical external pattern of colours on all 6 sides by using darker and lighter woods, I found that this didn't help me much. Thankfully he added the printed solution to the packaging.
The next is Patrick Major's exchange puzzle, the Kissel, a puzzle comprising 4 identical pieces, each consisting of 3 balls joined together in an L-shape. In the solved state, the puzzle forms a symmetrical bunching of 12 balls. The overall size of the bunch is approximately 7cm all round with each ball about 2.7cm in diameter.
The Kissel took me even longer than the Hexator to take apart. I had thought that this was possibly co-ordinate motion puzzle and tried to remove the pieces as such. However it was not the case. As I was pulling and pushing (the usual way I disentangle such puzzles) trying to find the one piece that can move, suddenly a piece came off and everything came tumbling down. Again, I had little luck with the dis-assembly and had to resort to the solution. In a way the Kissel sort of resembled a co-ordinate motion puzzle but not quite, since I more or less had to "snap" the last piece into place to lock down the rest, even though a slight amount of force (not excessive) was needed.
Over the weekend, I played with two IPP36 Exchange Puzzles designed and manufactured by Vaclav Obsivac from the Czech Republic, more popularly known to the puzzle community as Vinco. I have a number of Vinco's puzzles in my collection including the Cross Box, Murbiter's Pseudo-Burr and the very large sized 18 Dutch Mills.
Vinco's online puzzle site has an incredible and very extensive range of interlocking and co-ordinate motion puzzles, made of different woods, a large selection of them using exotic woods and all at very reasonable prices.
Both my exchange copies came assembled. Both are well made with good fit and finish using Cherry wood and will display rather nicely.
The first is the Hexator, a burr-shaped interlocking solid with 6 irregular pieces each made of different rectangular blocks glued together. Measuring about 5.5cm all round, this was Abel Garcia's exchange puzzle. Taking apart the Hexator was not to difficult once you find where the pieces connect and slide them apart. But the challenge came during the re-assembly. I didn't think it was going to be that difficult but the moment I scrambled the pieces, I wished I hadn't done so. While its only 6 pieces, the pieces are (almost) identical to each other but not so. They just look confusingly similar.
There is only one solution and if you can't find the right pieces to mesh together correctly and in the correct sequence, you'll be going around in circles like I did. To borrow the phrase from one puzzler, the Hexator is confusingly disorientating. While Vinco had deliberately constructed the puzzle to have a symmetrical external pattern of colours on all 6 sides by using darker and lighter woods, I found that this didn't help me much. Thankfully he added the printed solution to the packaging.
The next is Patrick Major's exchange puzzle, the Kissel, a puzzle comprising 4 identical pieces, each consisting of 3 balls joined together in an L-shape. In the solved state, the puzzle forms a symmetrical bunching of 12 balls. The overall size of the bunch is approximately 7cm all round with each ball about 2.7cm in diameter.
The Kissel took me even longer than the Hexator to take apart. I had thought that this was possibly co-ordinate motion puzzle and tried to remove the pieces as such. However it was not the case. As I was pulling and pushing (the usual way I disentangle such puzzles) trying to find the one piece that can move, suddenly a piece came off and everything came tumbling down. Again, I had little luck with the dis-assembly and had to resort to the solution. In a way the Kissel sort of resembled a co-ordinate motion puzzle but not quite, since I more or less had to "snap" the last piece into place to lock down the rest, even though a slight amount of force (not excessive) was needed.
Monday, 6 April 2015
When Is A Burr Not A Burr?
Answer: When it's Primitivo Familiar Ramo's "Murtbiter's Pseudo-Burr".
This is my second puzzle from Primitivo, the first being his Twin Box Pentominoes, made by Brian Menold of Wood Wonders. The Pseudo-Burr was also Primitivo's IPP34 Exchange Puzzle!
Consisting of four congruent pieces and a cube, the puzzle gets its name from the fact that when put together, it looks like any other ordinary six piece burr. But its not! The pieces are actually cubes cut and glued together and quality is reasonably good. Primitivo's batch of exchange puzzles were made by Vaclav Obsivac of Vinco Puzzles.
The puzzle came unsolved, so the object is to assemble it to look like a burr. Its not a very difficult puzzle and I managed to solve it in under ten minutes. Certainly some logical thinking of how the pieces should fit with each other would help. The accompanying instructions and diagram shows the final shape of the burr. But this is one of those puzzles that with some persistence, you would eventually discover the solution. Nonetheless, still a bit tricky trying to figure out the four identical pieces. Kudos to Primitivo for coming up with such an interesting design!
Again, a puzzle "with just the right level of difficulty appropriate for an exchange puzzle". Quite easy to solve repeatedly after you have gotten it the first time round. And oh, if anyone knows the meaning of "Murbiter", please feel free to drop me a comment, thanks.
This is my second puzzle from Primitivo, the first being his Twin Box Pentominoes, made by Brian Menold of Wood Wonders. The Pseudo-Burr was also Primitivo's IPP34 Exchange Puzzle!
Consisting of four congruent pieces and a cube, the puzzle gets its name from the fact that when put together, it looks like any other ordinary six piece burr. But its not! The pieces are actually cubes cut and glued together and quality is reasonably good. Primitivo's batch of exchange puzzles were made by Vaclav Obsivac of Vinco Puzzles.
The puzzle came unsolved, so the object is to assemble it to look like a burr. Its not a very difficult puzzle and I managed to solve it in under ten minutes. Certainly some logical thinking of how the pieces should fit with each other would help. The accompanying instructions and diagram shows the final shape of the burr. But this is one of those puzzles that with some persistence, you would eventually discover the solution. Nonetheless, still a bit tricky trying to figure out the four identical pieces. Kudos to Primitivo for coming up with such an interesting design!
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| From this to the "burr" above |
Saturday, 2 August 2014
Vinco Packing Puzzles
Update 23 October 2017 - Dear Reader, please check out my new puzzle blog and e-store at http://mechanical-puzzles.com
Rectangle AC1
Consisting of 7 pieces and made of various woods which may include Oak, Elm, Larch, Walnut, Ash, Pear, Cherry and Vinco's favourite, Plum. This is not your regular packing puzzle consisting of square blocks or units. Instead as I discovered, the pieces comprise triangular cuts and shapes, making the packing a lot harder than what it looks at first sight. Nope, Burr Tools wouldn't help here.
Similar to the Rectangle AC1 where the shapes and pieces are concerned, this one ups the difficulty quotient with 9 pieces. Harder still because they have to fit inside an Octagon frame....most of us (well I am) are used to the more normal square or rectangle ones.
The most difficult of the three here with a whopping 16 pieces of mixed shapes. And also the largest!
The AC1 cost 7 euros, Octagon AC is 8 euros and HCP1, 9 euros. These are prices as quoted on Vinco's site. Superb value for money! Both Puzzlemaster of Canada and Mr Puzzle of Australia also carry a range of Vinco puzzles including the ones mentioned here. You may also contact Bernhard Schweitzer of Puzzlewood for some of Vinco's older packing puzzle designs.
While all three puzzles are well constructed with good fit, they are not your premium quality puzzles (which Vinco also has) as reflected by the prices; so don't expect them to be like the Eric Fuller or Pelikan wood puzzles. Excellent for the budget concious puzzle collector tho'.... if there is even such a thing....
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