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.

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!

4 Ducks & A Duckling

Name
4 Ducks & A Duckling

Designer
Jerry Loo

Manufacturer & Availability
My prototype and competition copies were 3D printed by Steve Nicholls. John Hache licensed my design for his IPP35 Exchange Puzzle and his version is laser cut 0.5in thick acrylic. You may wish to contact either Steve or John for availability.

Type & Classification
2D Packing

Dimensions
12.5 cm x 12.5 cm x 2cm (John's version is 10cm x 10cm x 1.25cm)

John Hache's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle (made from laser cut acrylic)

Materials & Construction
3D printed using ABS resin

Overview
4 Ducks was the second of my two entries for the IPP35 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at Ottawa, Canada last August. There are 3 challenges for this puzzle:

• Fit all 4 ducks into the pond (tray)
• Fit all 4 ducks and the duckling into the pond
• Fit all 4 ducks into the pond to form a symmetrical shape

Solution
WARNING: The link here shows the solutions. Password - duckling
DO NOT click on the link if you do not wish to see it. 

Difficulty Level
The first challenge is very easy, while the second is moderate. The last is pretty hard; there are 144 ways to fit the 4 ducks into the tray but only ONE will form a symmetrical pattern. Based on feedback, most puzzlers can solve the first two challenges quite quickly but take a while to figure out the third.

Summary
Prior to designing 4 ducks, I have been toying around with designing puzzles using the triangular format. While there are some instances where the format is suitable for 3D interlocking burr style puzzles, but for 2D packing puzzles, the format enables more thematic shapes and design options (like the 4 ducks here). I think it also generally makes a puzzle using triangular lines somewhat harder, since most of us are used to and always seeing and playing with vertical/horizontal format puzzle designs.

Triburrlism

Triburrlism is my second Steve Nicholls designed puzzle. My first was the Kray Twins, his IPP34 Exchange Puzzle to me which I had no success because it was tough. But for this second puzzle, I had much better luck.

Triburrlism, like the Kray Twins is a "diagonal" burr. Consisting of three pieces, it was made by Steve from 3D printing out of ABS resin. My copy (which I acquired from Steve during the IPP35 Puzzle Party) came in three colours with a slightly textured surface. The printing and finishing is very good and the puzzle has a smooth snug fit with nice clean edges. Dimensionally its around 4cm x 4cm x 3cm thick; not a large puzzle by any means, but easy enough handle comfortably.

The Triburrlism came un-assembled and the object is to get the three pieces together to form a symmetrical shape. which must fit inside the tin it came in. While the final shape is not stated, you can roughly tell by examining the pieces and their notches what the solved state is supposed to end up looking like. 

Unlike the Kray Twins which I needed Burr Tools help from Steve, I managed to solve the Triburrlism with a bit of persistence and experimentation. From a design standpoint, the Triburrlism, by nature of having just three pieces is a lot easier than the Kray Twins which has six. With just only three pieces, its not too difficult to figure out how the pieces will interlock together in its final shape but getting the moves right for the pieces to mesh properly is the challenging part. Half the number of pieces versus the Kray Twins but IMHO less than half the difficulty. But nonetheless still fairly challenging and this one has a twist to it; two in fact :-). It takes approximately ten moves to fully assemble the puzzle.

Once solved, repeat solving is pretty easy with a bit of practice. If diagonal burrs is what you like, the Triburrlism is a great little puzzle and a good lead up to the Kray Twins! Its available from Steve by request.

CCC-1 & Diamond Engagement

Over the weekend, I played with another two IPP35 Exchange Puzzles, of which only one I was able to solve.

Well I will start with the unsuccessful one first, which was the CCC-1 ("Coffin-Cutler Collaboration"). This was Bill Cutler's exchange puzzle and it was designed in collaboration with Stewart Coffin and based on Coffin's Design #177A. The CCC-1 was made by Coffin.

It's a packing puzzle and the object is to fit the 5 polyminoes (ranging from 4 to 6 units) into the tray. The puzzle came with its accompanying literature/explanation. I think both Cutler and Coffin knew that this was no easy puzzle so they also including a note containing a clue on how to solve it. But even with the clue, I was hopelessly lost and had to asked fellow Sinaporean puzzle collector/designer Goh Pit Khiam for help. 

Goh is quite an expert on these sort of packing puzzles having designed many of them himself including the IPP33 award winning Dancing Shoes. Goh had earlier borrowed the CCC-1 from me and solved it rather quickly.

Like always, only with the benefit of hindsight after seeing the solution, I felt perhaps I could have done better with the CCC-1. Very difficult puzzle indeed (at least for me) and I think the solving aid provided is probably quite necessary. Definitely would be of much interest to packing puzzle enthusiasts, and since its a Coffin/Cutler puzzle, a great addition to any puzzle collection. If the CCC-1 could be made with exotic woods, even better still. As far as I can tell, the CCC-1 is not available commercially so the only source is from Bill Cutler.

Diamond Engagement

I had much better luck with the Scott Elliot's Diamond Engagement Exchange Puzzle. Last year his exchange puzzle was "Join The Club". This year his exchange puzzle borrows the same theme as Join The Club with a similar solving method. Scott produced his puzzle via 3D printing. 

Although the puzzle consists of only 2 pieces, getting them together still required some effort and experimentation. But once you find the correct " entry" point, the pieces slide themselves nicely into each other. The solution is actually quite easy once you figure out what to do and the solving becomes very repeatable; ust a couple of seconds is all it takes. 

Diamond Engagement is one of those highly pocketable puzzles that you can easily take with you anywhere and have a play while waiting for someone, travelling on public transport etc to keep your fingers occupied. it is available for sale by PuzzleMaster of Canada for CA$24.99.

Diamond Engagement solving bears similarities to the Hanayama Cast Dot. The Cast Dot came out mid 2016.

Helical Burr

The Helical Burr was Derek Bosch's second "cylindrical" burr design. Prior to the Helical, he had the Tubular Burr. Subsequent to it, he came up with the Hellical Burr which by various accounts is horrendously difficult and his fourth design, the W(h)orl(e)d Burr. Being in the puzzle community I was aware when each of them hit the market. I am lousy at burrs and since I am not even good at the normal square ones, I gave the miss on these cylindrical burrs at that time. But when I saw several of them being displayed for sale on Steve Nicholls' table during the IPP35 Puzzle Party and how beautiful and colourful they looked, I just had to go for one and chose the easiest of the lot, the Helical Burr.

Derek's Helical Burr also won him the Jury's Grand Prize at IPP33 in Japan in 2013. At that time, the competition puzzle was in prototype form made of SLS nylon and didn't look that great. But the copy that I have today was 3D printed by Steve and looks gorgeous in red and black. Not only that, its larger than the prototype, well made and feels very solid with a textured finish for better grip. In fact while playing with it, once I dropped it several feet onto my tiled balcony floor but nothing cracked or broke; 3D plastic is pretty tough! In terms of the movement of the pieces, while the sliding is not as smooth as wood for sure, the puzzle functions very well and I did not experience any jamming of any sort.

The Helical Burr comprises of four pieces. Two of the larger "spiraling" pieces (if this is the correct term) wrap around two internal "cock-screw" shaped pieces. Like a normal burr puzzle, you need to manipulate the various pieces to extract the first piece. And like a normal burr, you need to push and pull the different pieces to find out which piece makes the opening move. In this case, because its cylindrical, the pushing, pulling and twisting move the pieces up and down, instead of up/down and left/right. And because the Helical Burr does not behave like the latter, with spirals and rotations, it makes it even more confusing.

Is it difficult? Of course! But I tackled the Helical Burr by slowly studying the moves and trying to see how the four pieces interact with each other. My method was to use the ends, "notches" and various parts of both the larger outer pieces and internal pieces as reference points ie at which point the twisting should stop, where the ends of the pieces meet at which stage, how the first piece goes out/in first etc There is a sequence here. This is important especially during the reassembly which is in the reverse order. Without careful observation initially, chances are putting the pieces back together will really be very painful. Careful play at the take-apart stage will yield dividends later on. 

By my count, it takes about eleven moves (assuming one continuous rotation is one move) to remove the first piece. After that the rest comes out fairly easily. It is fortunate that Steve did not print all the pieces in a single colour otherwise I think the Helical Burr would have been an even more difficult puzzle. The two-tone colours not only add to the overall aesthetics but actually aids in the solving as well. There is also an alternative solution which is easier and I stumbled upon it half way, but I didn't try to experiment further with that path; the intended solution here is already tough enough to figure out.

An awesome puzzle I would say; incredible how Derek designed it cylinder shaped to function like a burr with multiple movements and dead ends if you get the sequence of the moves wrong. From Kevin Sadler's review of the other two later designs, and the Hellical Burr which takes over forty moves, I am not sure I want to try those anytime soon.

To get a copy of the Helical, Hellical or W(h)orl(e)d Burrs, you may wish to contact Steve through his site. Each puzzle being individually printed, he may be able to provide custom colours for you as well.