I have had several Dick Hess puzzles in my collection for some time now and he has designed and produced quite a number including both packing, sliding block and entanglement ones. I thought I would start off with something of his that is more manageable and the 3/4 Pack Puzzle fits the bill just right.
The 3/4 Pack Puzzle was Dick's IPP36 exchange puzzle in Kyoto last year. Its a 2D tray packing puzzle with six 3/4 discs. Manufactured by Walt Hoppe, it is made from laser cut Cherry wood and measures about 12.7cm x 9cm x 0.9cm. The tray and pieces are precision cut with tight tolerances. It even has a slot for one of discs for ease of storage when not in play
Typically for puzzles like this, where the fit is just right, I would place it in a dry box to make sure there is no expansion of the pieces due to the high humidity, which is what I did. One never knows if the inability to solve could have been due to expanded pieces which can't fit where it should.
The object is to place all six 3/4 discs flat into the square cavity. The puzzle comes with the solution sheet which shows that there are actually 8 ways to pack the pieces in. This explains why I didn't have too much trouble with this packing puzzle! But of the 8 ways (plus flipped pieces), only two are optimum (best) solutions and the rest go in descending order thereafter from 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th best solutions. I am proud to say my first attempt was actually one of the two "best" solutions!
The 3/4 Pack Puzzle is not too difficult and this is one of those packing puzzles that you can lay out all the pieces in the tray and slowly manipulate the pieces bit by bit to ensure every piece will fit inside. However, aside from the challenge perspective, I guess what's significant is also the math behind the design and the very precise manufacture of each and every copy to ensure that the puzzle works properly as intended. For those keen on the 3/4 Pack Puzzle or other Dick Hess puzzles, please PM me via my blog site email.
What a cute pun of a name...this was the first thought through my mind as Goh Pit Khiam handed me the puzzle he had designed 8 years ago to play with during the SPP#1. In case you still don't know what I am talking about....you have probably seen or heard about "Ship In A Bottle"?
I only had a short time to play with this puzzle during the SPP#1; not enough time for a typical GPK puzzle which usually looks simple but very often way more difficult.
The Sheep puzzle is made of laser cut wood and produced by Walt Hoppe in 2007. Only several copies were ever produced as prototypes, none for commercial sale or exchange. Every time I meet with GPK, he always pulls something new out of the hat to surprise me.
Quality and finishing is very good. This one comes with an acrylic cover with cut-outs to assist in moving the pieces inside the "bottle" and to prevent "unauthorized" moves.
The object is to remove all the pieces through the slot on the right side of the tray. As you can tell from the start position, the head and fore legs of the sheep are obstructed.
This is a sliding block puzzle. While it has only 5 pieces, its not your run-of-the-mill sliding puzzle but a very tricky one indeed! It took me quite a while to figure out how to manoeuvre the pieces out, and even a longer time to get the pieces back in, as I had forgotten the steps. This is a sequential movement puzzle and require about 9 moves to get the first piece out. After the the first piece comes out, the rest are relatively easy. Just don't forget the sequence or you will be stuck for a pretty long time like I was!
A challenging but fun puzzle with some unique moves thrown in. Once you figure out and memorize the moves, its pretty easily re-solvable. Its a great puzzle and I would definitely recommend GPK to produce more copies for sale.
Name
Easy EIGHT / Hard EIGHT
Designer
Robert Aubrey Hearn. Bob maintains his here.
Manufacturer
Walt and Chris Hoppe. There may still be a few copies available from Bob.
Type & Classification
2D Packing
Dimensions
10.8cm (length) x 10.8cm (Width) x 1.5cm (Thickness)
Materials & Construction
I believe the tray is walnut while the pieces are laser cut cherry. Quality fit and finish is very good. The fit is just right (with the very slightest play between the pieces) which is necessary for this type of puzzle. Overall a nice size for handling.
Overview
I got this puzzle from fellow puzzle collector and blogger Roxanne Wong (who was selling a few copies on behalf of Bob) during the Puzzle Party at IPP33 last August in Japan.
This packing puzzle comes with two challenges. The object is to place the 5 letters "E.I.G.H.T" into 2 different frames which sit on both sides of the tray. The easier challenge is of course the "Easy EIGHT" side.
Difficulty Level
The Easy EIGHT is easy. I am not good at packing puzzles, but this one took me about 10 minutes or so and I figured it out. The straight edges of the square frame obviously were a great help.
The Hard EIGHT is hard! Hard enough that I gave up after sometime. Here's a continual oval shaped frame with no straight edges and corners to guide whatsoever. I checked the solution and it didn't appear to look that difficult; but aren't all puzzles like that only upon hindsight?
Summary
A nice challenging duo-packing puzzle using only 5 letters of the alphabet. There's another similar 2D packing puzzle but using 10 numbers instead, called Digigrams.
