Push Box - Two

This weekend's puzzle play was "Push Box-Two" designed and made by IPP34 award winning neurologist Dr. Simon Nightingale from the UK.

Push Box-Two is made entirely from Corian again and I really like the choice of material because it gives the puzzle the smooth cool feeling of stone/concrete; and weighty too. Only drawback is that it might crack and break if dropped from too high up. Push Box-Two is physically similar to Simon's IPP34 exchange puzzle, the "Push Box". 

But it is of a different colour this time, a sort of a light beige. And of course the mechanism is different from its predecessor. It measures the same 6.3cm all round and the object is to open the spring loaded drawer. Very well made and high quality.

Again I have to admit that I managed to open the box without really fully understanding how the mechanism works although I know there are bits of moving parts (ie sounds like ball bearings) inside causing a rattling noise which keeps the "drawer" locked in place. 

Simon had previously sent me the solution to his earlier Push Box so I had a slight inkling as to the method of solve for Push Box-Two. But this didn't help much and I spent a bit of time turning and tilting the box and pushing here and there, a lot at random, before the box suddenly popped open. The drawer doesn't come out all the way (unfortunately) so there is no way I can inspect the internals of the puzzle. Unless of course I crack open the puzzle which would be a silly thing to do of course. 

Push Box Puzzle

This is one of those puzzles I managed to solve but have no clue how I did it nor can I explain how the puzzle works!

The Push Box Puzzle came courtesy of Simon Nightingale during the IPP34 puzzle exchange. If you didn't already know, Simon was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize for the 2014 IPP34 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design competition for his "Six Locks 2 Keys" puzzle.

The Push Box is made from Corian (the stuff that you would normally find on kitchen and sink counter tops). The puzzle is pretty heavy and well made in a nice light blue colour. The joint lines are well hidden and not obvious at all. It looks like Simon had dug out the insides to create the box. I am not sure how strong Corian is but I would think the box would likely crack if dropped onto a hard floor from anything more than 3 feet. The object is the push and "open the box" like a drawer.

The drawer is spring loaded and allows for some movement (several mm) inwards but there is hidden mechanism which keeps the drawer from coming out of the box. Inside there are a couple of ball bearings spinning around, which may or may not have anything to do with the locking mechanism (yes, there are some puzzles where ball bearings are red herrings; serve no function but to merely to confuse).

I fiddled with the puzzle for a while, trying to guess how the drawer is locked inside the box and how the ball bearings come into play. I pushed and released the drawer over and over again, turned the box at all sorts of angles and in all orientations, and all of a sudden, pop out comes the drawer. The drawer cannot be fully withdrawn and part of it remains inside the box. Again I am not sure if the drawer is intended to fully come out, but I don't think so. And the box also cannot be taken apart.

I managed to solve it a couple more times, more through trial and error, but not fully understanding how the hidden mechanism/trick works, at least not until I see the inside. And mind you, I have a fair amount of experience with trick/puzzle boxes. I have emailed Simon for the solution. Hope he replies soon. I am really super curious as to how it operates. I will update this post, once I have seen the solution.

Loris

Name
Loris. The Loris is actually a nocturnal primate found in the forests of India, Sri Lanka and parts of South East Asia.

Designer
Dave Rossetti, the late Frank Chambers & K. Stevens

Manufacturer
The late Frank Chambers & K. Stevens. Not available commercially

Type & Classification
Trick/Puzzle box

Dimensions
12.8cm (Length) x 7.4cm (width) x 5.1cm (Height)

Materials & Construction
Body of the box is made of Corian (the material used for kitchen counter tops) while the white sliding lid is made of Velstone, a polyester resin similar to plastic. Construction is very good and built to close tolerances with fine edges, although the corners of my copy were very slightly blunt due to handling and wear over time.

IPP
The Loris was Dave's IPP23 Exchange Puzzle in Chicago, USA in 2003, so this box is now 10 years old.

Overview

I met Dave at IPP33 in Tokyo, Japan just this August during the Puzzle Party. He was in front of Wil Strijbos table and pondering if he should purchase Wil's Lotus puzzle that was on sale. I told him how good the Lotus was and we started a conversation.

I mentioned to him I owned one of his past exchange puzzles, the Oriental Toothpick Safe and asked if he had any other similar puzzle boxes made of Corian available. He said he would check when he got home from IPP33. True to his word, a week later he emailed to say he had a Loris box and asked if I wanted to purchase it from him. A couple of emails thereafter and several days later, the Loris was on its way to me.

What struck me when I first opened the packaging was the size of the Loris. This is a relatively large and hefty box and made my Oriental Toothpick Safe look diminutive. Like the Toothpick Safe, the object is to slide the lid off the box (without the need for banging or shaking).

Having puzzled over the Toothpick Safe (which I then needed help from fellow puzzle blogger Brian Pletcher), I knew the Loris would not be easy. And indeed it was not. I tried out the methods I had used on the Toothpick Safe, hoping for some similarities, but there was none. Since no tapping, banging or shaking was necessary, I orientated the Loris is various ways, upside down, sideways, rotating, checking for gravity and dowel pins etc to see if I could gain some clue how to open the box. But nothing worked.

Then I remembered one of my emails to Dave to ask what does "Loris" mean and he replied it is a "slow animal - a hint". I even thought Loris was a brand for wrist watches (the brand is actually Lorus). Suffice to say, Dave's reply gave me a an idea about how to go about solving.

With Dave's "slow animal" clue, I tried something (no spoilers here) and lo and behold, I got the lid to slide open after a while. What I saw inside the box totally flipped me out; a most unusual and unique mechanism locking the lid in place. No gravity pins but certainly gravity plays a part (hint!)

Difficulty Level
Very difficult! If not for Dave's clue, I would not have managed to solve the box on my own. The insides are totally invisible from the outside and one can do nothing but only guess what could be going on inside.

Summary
A very nice, well-made and aesthetically pleasing puzzle/trick box with a good use of alternative materials (other than the usual exotic or hard woods). Given its rarity and unavailability, the Loris is a real puzzle collector's gem!

Oriental Toothpick Safe

In my first participation of the recent Baxterweb Puzzle Auction, I managed to bid and win the Oriental Toothpick Safe. Needless to say, given that its a Baxter auction, my winning bid didn't come cheap! This puzzle box was both a competition entry as well as Dave Rossetti's IPP21 Exchange Puzzle in Tokyo, 2001.

Designed and made by Frank Chambers, the body of the Toothpick Safe is made of Corian (the type of material used on kitchen counter tops) while the sliding lid is made of Velstone, a polyester resin similar to plastic. Towards one end of the lid is affixed a non-movable black round button. In the hand, the box feels pretty weighty and the corian has the texture of a smooth pebble.

The Toothpick Safe is 9.9cm long, 3.6cm wide and 2.6cm tall. Despite being over 11 years old, my copy of the puzzle was in excellent condition with virtually no signs of visible wear, except for a bit of yellowing of the lid surface. All the eight corners of the puzzle remain pointedly sharp; usually corners will be the first to blunt especially after some rough handling or if previously dropped onto a hard surface. During the auction, there was a similar Match Box puzzle listed, made of the same materials, also by Frank Chambers but the high bid was just way too high for me.

The object of the puzzle of course is to slide the lid to open the box. The lid is able to slide very slightly to the left and occasionally to the right, sometimes a bit more to either side. It is obvious there is some kind of mechanism which prevents the lid from sliding further in either direction. I tried the usual methods generally associated with wooden puzzle/trick boxes of this nature. Tilting, rotating, spinning, shaking and tapping the box didn't yield any results. I resorted to the soft approach; gently nudging the lid, re-orientating the box in different directions, flipping the box over, upside-down, sideways etc but still no significant movement of the lid. All this went on for a good whole afternoon. I also checked out Brian's review of the Toothpick Safe on his blog but there were no clues to be had either.

After quite a while of manipulation and seeing how the lid moves and stops, I had some inkling of how the internal "locking" mechanism works but I still was not certain (well if I were, I would have managed to open the box already, wouldn't I?). Finally after more fiddling here and there, at last I got the lid to slide all the way to the right. Inside the box were five toothpicks and a piece of paper (which appeared to another puzzle of some sort utilising the toothpicks, but not the solution to the box). To be honest, I am not sure what I did...I think I only managed to solve the box purely by chance through trial and error. Even though the box is opened to the fullest, I could not see the internal mechanism which unlocks the lid.

Brian mentioned that removing the black button would allow the lid to be removed totally and this would reveal the mechanism. However my black button appeared to be firmly embedded and I didn't want to risk the use of too much force in case anything got damaged. Anyway, I am not sure if it was intended that the black button be removed.

I tried to repeat solving but with no success. I emailed Brian for help since he had see the internal mechanism and he very quickly responded. Following his advice I was able to open the box one more time but since then the box has chosen to remain closed.

Overall, the Toothpick Safe is a very high quality and well-made puzzle box and considering its rarity, definitely a collector's item. What bugs me is that I still cannot figure out how the internals work, nor can I repeatedly solve it. John Rausch on his site mentioned that the mechanism in the box "is simple but clever"; so I guess I will just have to be satisfied with knowing that the puzzle I had bid for and won was well worth the money!

Update: I have been able to open the box three to four more times but not in succession! However after spending another evening on the box, I think I have figured out the mechanism (even though I can't see it) and now I can solve repeatedly quite successfully. No knocking necessary...just gentle nudging will do!

Remove The Yolk

I received this puzzle with the kind courtesy of Robrecht Louage. Robrecht, as you may remember was the winner of last year's IPP31's Puzzle Design Competition Jury Grand Prize for his 4-Steps Visible Lock; and also the designer and maker of the La Cerradura Doble, both of which have been reviewed earlier in this blog.

The Remove The Yolk was also an entrant 2 years ago for the IPP30 in Osaka, Japan. Unfortunately, being very limited in numbers, it is not commercially available from any puzzle retailer, as far as I am aware.

The Yolk is a relatively large puzzle measuring 12cm x 8cm x 1.5cm. Made of Corian (the material used in domestic kitchen counter tops) and metal (ie; internal ball bearings you can hear rolling about), the Yolk is very well constructed and exudes quality. The only visible moving part of the puzzle, the "sliding key" slides smoothly and nothing gets stuck during play. Corian is not light so the puzzle feels weighty in the palm.

The object of the puzzle is to remove a 1 Euro coin which is lodged inside the sliding key. The key is locked in the body of the puzzle. The key can slide left and right and protrude from both ends of the puzzle but within certain limits. While I had no sight of the internals of the Yolk, I can only assume that the locking mechanism is similar to that of the 4-Steps visible lock, employing the use of a maze and ball bearings. Hence the Yolk requires a certain dexterity to solve.

There are two holes on the top of the puzzle, a small one where you can see part of the Euro coin and a larger one for the coin to come out once the key is unlocked and the puzzle is solved. If you have ever puzzled over Jean Claude Constantine's Centrale puzzle, you will find the Yolk very similar to the Centrale.

However, that being said, while the locking mechanisms of both puzzles adopt the same principle in the way they work, they are well likely to be entirely different in design and construction. I guess unless both puzzles are cracked open (ie rendering them damaged and useless forever), we will never know for sure.

Like the Centrale, I spent a substantial amount of time on-off puzzling over the Yolk but could not solve it. I even placed the 4-Steps and Yolk side by side and tried to trace the movements of the 4-Steps to the Yolk, hoping that since they were both from the same designer, similar in dimensions and consist of sliding keys with ball bearings etc, there was a slim off-chance that the Yolk might have a similar mechanism to the 4-Steps, as the Yolk came out a year earlier before the 4-Steps...wishful thinking!!

Nothing worked and in the end I gave in and referred to the IPP30 online solution for the Yolk. I followed the movements from a series of photos but still the key refused to budge and the coin remained trapped. Finally I emailed Robrecht for help and he directed me to a YouTube video where (Robrecht's son) shows the way to remove the coin. Following the steps, I eventually managed to solve the Yolk. There are a total of 6 steps required to remove the coin.

Once you remember the steps, solving becomes easy and repeatable (which is always the case isn't it?... with the benefit of hindsight). Compare this to the 4-Steps Visible Lock + NOTHING VISIBLE....well you can guess how difficult it is! This is one of those puzzles which I would never have been able to solve without the full solution; even clues would not have helped, since you can't see what you are doing and you can't feel your way around either (unlike a Revomaze).

In conclusion, I wish to thank Robrecht for the Yolk and I am very happy to have one in my collection.

La Cerradura Doble

This puzzle, which was an entry for IPP28 in 2008, was acquired from Robrecht Louage, who was this year's IPP 31 Grand Jury Prize winner for his 4 Steps Visible Lock reviewed some time back in this blog. Cerradura in Spanish means "lock" and one look at the puzzle and you probably can tell why.

The Cerradura measures 160mm(L) x 95mm(W) x 16mm(H). Made of Corian (the type of material found in kitchen counter tops), steel and acrylic, the puzzle is not only hefty but also very well constructed and finished to tight tolerances. All moving parts slide and move as they should. The overall combination of the three different materials and contrasting colour tones gives the puzzle a very solid and industrial kind of look.

The puzzle consist of two flat steel plates or "keys" that are "locked" in place by 5 movable sliders with grooves or "teeth", each of which can be pushed either up or down within a narrow range of movement. Covering this assembly is a acrylic top plate screwed into position at the corners.

The object of the puzzle is to remove both steel keys from the puzzle. To do this, you have to navigate each of the steel keys out of the puzzle by moving the sliders individually to free the steel keys in order for them to pass through. This puzzle has been designed in such a way that you cannot remove one key entirely and then followed by the other. Both keys need to be worked on and moved in tandem. Occasionally you will also need to move one key backwards in order for a slider to disengage the other key for the latter to move.

This is not a very difficult puzzle and I was able to remove both keys after about 40 minutes of pushing, pulling and sliding. As usual I applied my trial and error method which did the trick quite well here for this particular puzzle. The Cerradura is one of those puzzles that not only can you see exactly what you are doing and what you need to do next, but you also remain constantly aware of the progress you are making as you slowly manipulate the two keys out to reach your goal.

Returning the puzzle back to the original state required almost the same effort as removing the keys but somehow I felt the reverse was slightly easier to carry out. Overall, a nice puzzle that is sufficiently challenging not just for the enthusiast; but with everything in full view (without hidden magnets, pins, mazes etc), can quite easily accommodate non-puzzlers as well.

For another take on the La Cerradura Doble, check out Allard's review on his puzzle blog.