Vivaldi Burr

Of all the IPP36 Exchange Puzzles, the Vivaldi Burr must surely be one of the most unique and unusual looking ones present this year! Very nicely packaged, it even comes with portions of a score which act as cushioning in the box!

Exchanged and designed by Rene Dawir of Luxembourg, the Vivaldi Burr was produced by Marcel Gillen, the latter who is most well known for his chess piece puzzles. 

As you can see from the photos, the puzzle takes, IMHO the shape and form more of a cello (than a violin). It is reminiscent of the Japanese Kumiki puzzles, that are interlocking puzzles which take on a familiar shape eg animal or object.

The Vivaldi Burr is constructed entirely of thick MDF board and the pieces are precision cut using a CNC milling machine. Stripped down, it is essentially a "board burr" type puzzle. Quality, fit and finish is very good and everything is nicely put together and all pieces slide and move relatively smoothly.

The object is the disassemble and re-assemble the burr. Make no mistake here; while it doesn't look anything like a traditional burr and you can see everything you are doing, the Vivaldi Burr is not that easy to take apart, even though it may appear to be so. I don't have the exact solution steps but based on my own rough count, it takes about 9 steps to remove the first piece and approximately a total of 24 steps to dis-assemble the entire puzzle completely +/- a couple of steps. The first two steps are obvious. The steps are sequential and if one is missed, it may mean starting several steps from behind again. Putting it back to together is the exact reverse. It took me a good forty five minutes to take apart the thing apart and re-solve.

Moderately challenging to solve, overall a very nice design and well executed "burr" to collect. And something certainly very different from the usual.

Trois Chocolats

Trois Chocolats is a 2015 dexterity puzzle from Frederic Boucher. In recent years, he has also designed several others including Manholes 55, Pyramida and one of my favourites, Smiley In A Bottle. As of this post, Eric Fuller is also selling one of Frederic's non-dexterity puzzles, a 2D packing puzzle called Artefacts, well-worth taking a look!

 Trois Chocolats consists of a square jar with a screw cover and inside there are 3 cubes, each with a cavity, made from maple, cherry and wenge with a fourth smaller wenge solid block. The jar looks to be something you can commercially buy off the shelf but the cubes are hand-glued and finished, and very nicely done I might add. The jar measures 10cm tall and about 6.5cm wide. 

Looking at the photos I think you can guess what the object of the puzzle is; yes, to get the cubes to stack atop one another and the smaller block to fit inside the wenge cube. The cubes have been constructed in such a way that there is a particular order for stacking them; maple at the bottom and wenge on top with the cherry in between. Any other combination and the stack will have gaps.

When I first looked at the puzzle, I thought it was going to be a really tough challenge given there are 4 pieces. And in the early stages I had some difficulty with all the cubes rolling around inside the jar. But as I puzzled on, turning the jar in all directions, it didn't appear as difficult as I had expected. I slowly got the hang of it. I could get the cherry onto the maple cube and with some persistence, the wenge thereafter. The part that was most difficult was to get the small block into the cavity of the wenge cube. This took me a good twenty minutes to get right and occasionally in between, the other 3 cubes would dislodge and I had to start all over again. 

Trios Chocolats is a rather interesting design from Frederic and as i can testify, not impossible to solve; in fact surprisingly manageable, so long as you keep at it. For those into dexterity or bottle puzzles, here's one worth collecting.  

Magiq #8 & Tango 72

For this year's IPP36 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition, I submitted two entries. One was my own design (the subject of this post) while the second was a joint entry with fellow puzzler Primitivo Familiar Ramos, which I shall write about at a later date.

START

My first entry was called Magiq#8 and the goal (as can be seen from the photos) is to re-arrange the 5 pieces and change the #8 to a #0. Saying "abracadabra" would certainly help! I didn't manage to win any prizes...but hey, its the participation that counts right? 

Although this year's design bears some resemblance to my entry at last year's IPP competition, the "69", the Magiq#8 is totally different in terms of the solve. My design was expertly crafted by Tom Lensch and consists of exotic woods comprising walnut, holly, shedua and yellowheart. Construction, fit and finish is excellent and I particularly liked the perimeter trim added by Tom to the top edge of the box.

SOLVED STATE

Its not as straight forward a packing puzzle as one might expect and there is a trick to it. No spoilers so I shall not say anymore. What's the difficulty level? I can't say as I have not received any feedback so far, although puzzler Marc Pawliger did casually mention to me in the competition room that he found it quite devilish... If anyone is keen to purchase a copy, please contact Tom Lensch via his website to check on availability. 

My Exchange Puzzle is "Tango 72". This year, I designed a sliding block puzzle consisting of 5 pieces, 4 of which are identical. Like most sliding puzzles, the goal is to rearrange the pieces from a starting position to an end position, while only moving the pieces (left, right, up and down) within the tray. 

START

END

Here the end result is to form the words IPP36 from a scrambled state. It takes a minimum 72 moves to arrive at the final solution. I tried to make my design accommodate an additional but easier challenge with fewer moves, but somehow didn't quite manage to succeed. Tango 72 is made from 3mm laser cut acrylic and I have a couple of copies left for sale if anyone is interested.

Murbiter's Devilish Burr

The past few days were spent on Rosemary Howbrigg's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle, Murbiter's Devilish Burr designed by Primitivo Familiar Ramos. 

"Murbiter" is the ancient Arabic name of a town in Valencia, Spain called Sagunto, where Primitivo was born. I think this is the second burr Primitivo has named Murbiter; In 2014, Primitivo's own Exchange Puzzle was called the Murbiter's Psuedo Burr, the latter incidentally which was a lot easier to solve.

The design was produced for the Exchange by Brian Young of Mr Australia. The puzzle measures about 8cm x 8cm x 8cm and the pieces are made from Queensland Silver Ash while the burr ends with their rather nice edges are a contrasty reddish brown Western Australian Jarrah. Overall build quality and construction is excellent and all the pieces are snug but move smoothly.

I was stuck like that for some time even with Burr Tools

What is noticeably different about the Murbiter are the burr ends that lend the "I" shape to each piece (and according to James Dalgety, this technically should not qualify the Murbiter as a "burr" in the traditional sense of the word). The ends are not there just to make the puzzle look different but are integral to the design and the way the puzzle interlocks. Without the ends, the Murbiter has only a maximum level 6 solution. And since we are talking about the number of moves, I might as well deal with the puzzling aspect. This is a mid-level 15 solution burr and requires a total of 21 moves to take the thing fully apart. I did manage to take it apart (after quite a lot of time and effort), but putting it back together was really beyond me. It's not only devilish, its hellish! Make no mistake...it's way harder than it's level 15 solution would suggest.

I must insist that this puzzle is such a dexterous handful it requires more than two hands to solve! Even with the aid of Burr Tools, its difficult! Thank goodness I had my supportive wife to help....she supported and held the first three pieces in place with her hands while I slowly piled on the rest with mine. Brian says that the Murbiter "is a real challenge but not impossible"...which IMHO is somewhat of an understatement! Which is why Brian has also made an interesting video of himself solving the Murbiter unsupported, so go watch it. Don't worry, I doubt it will be a spoiler for anyone, given the way the solving goes.

For interlocking puzzle addicts, this is an interesting looking (and real challenging) one to add to your collection. Available from Mr Puzzle for A$59.09.

Zipper

Can two ordinary ordinary zippers that are joined together become a real mechanical puzzle? Well in the genius hands of Hirokazu Iwasawa, they definitely can! And here it is... 
 

Hirokazu (or Hiro) is very well known for what I call his "offbeat" designs. Yes he does design regular looking and playable puzzles too such the well known Odd Puzzle, Alcyl, Tritalon and the Jam Series but he also has a hidden talent for coming up with unique puzzles that most would not imagine possible; that is using everyday objects like the zippers shown here and choosing non-typical materials such as cloth and fabric. 

Many in the puzzle community will remember his extremely popular Square In The Bag which won the IPP32 Puzzlers' Award and his subsequent CorRECTly In The Bag. Amazing how he is able to think up such unusual and unique puzzle designs that actually work.

Zipper was Hiro's IPP36 exchange puzzle in Tokyo this past August. Made of two zippers joined together, the puzzle provides two challenges. 

1. Completely zip up one of the two colour zippers 
2. Zip up both zippers completely. 

My puzzler friend Khuong An Nguyen has suggested that Hiro may have been inspired by or based his Zipper design on the "Mobius Strip". Click here to find out what this is...a rather interesting read.

The Zipper measures about 29 cm and comes with two seperate zipper pulls. My copy is a green-yellow version though there are other colour combinations for sale. Quality wise the zipper is above average as the two zippers are physically glued together and can come apart if too much force is used or if you try to peel them apart. The zipper itself has already been pre-twisted so it's not just a simple task of finding the opening ends and zipping them up. 

For some strange reason in my search for the solution to the first challenge, I actually discovered and solved the second challenge. Physically as you examine the zippers, it does not look possible to zip both zippers together at the same time but in typical Hiro fashion, the solution is definitely out there and apart from eliciting my amazement, it's actually a pretty elegant solution in the final state. 

From the puzzling perspective, Zipper is not a very difficult puzzle to solve but presents a challenge that requires some thinking and close visual examination. You must not allow yourself to think that it is impossible physically, which was my initial experience with CorRECTly In The Bag.  Mentally reinforce to yourself that it is indeed solvable and there is a way to do it without resorting to force or tearing the zippers apart...You'll be surprised.   

All in, a great (exchange) puzzle that is very far removed from the norm and Zipper can be enjoyed by both seasoned and novice puzzlers alike. In fact non-puzzlers will probably have fun with it too since some thinking out of the box is required as is typical of Hiro's puzzles of this nature. 

Zipper is manufactured by DYLAN-KOBO in Japan. Currently it appears that the Zipper is not listed and available. Best to contact the site owner MINE (Mineyuki Uyematsu). MINE ships internationally.

CheckerBored 3

CheckerBored 3 is anything but boring! 

I had thought that with the fair amount of practice I have had with packing puzzles designed by Goh Pit Khiam such as Dancing Shoes, Almost There, Fusion etc and Stewart Coffin's CCC-1, Cruiser and Five-FIt, I would have been able to solve William Waite's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle the CheckerBored 3. But this was not to be the case, sadly. 

Waite runs a website called Puzzlemist selling some very beautiful (and very difficult looking) 2D packing puzzles based on various themes, all which have been designed and produced him. 

Waite's CheckerBored 3 consists of a regular square tray(10cm x 10cm) and six 6 other pieces. The pieces look as if they have been dissected from a regular 8x8 checker board into different shapes and 5 of the pieces consists of diagonal half squares as well. 

The entire puzzle has been precision laser cut with the darker squares laser etched in a grid pattern. Quality fit and finish is very good and each puzzle comes in a sponge lined box for protection. 

The object is to place all the 6 pieces into the tray to make a checker board pattern and with half squares permitted. 

The typical starting point would be to try placing all 6 pieces inside the tray and adjusting the pieces randomly to find a fit. But of course this would have been too easy and yielded no success. Somehow one piece just "didn't gel in with the others". I think I must have spent several hours over the course of a few days of puzzling but got no where; to the point I actually wondered if I had been given a wrong piece(s). Finally I threw in the towel and shot Waite an email asking for the solution. Waite replied to say he was traveling and had no access to the solution until the following week. But he did give me a couple of hints.

Using his hints....yes, it is possible to lay out the 6 given pieces in the tray in a checker board pattern as intended and it looks amazing...now why didn't I try that??

Nothing more needs to be said. A very challenging puzzle IMHO and die hard packing fans (Dave Holt, if you are reading this) won't be disappointed. You won't find CheckerBored 3 on his site but you can try contacting Waite directly (via his site contact) for availability.

Cast Lock

The Cast Lock is one of Hanayama's recent offerings and based on the 2014 IPP34 award winning competition entry design "Cassette" of Jin-Hoo Ann from Korea. 

Shaped like a small padlock, the puzzle measures about 4.3cm x 3.1cm x 2.1cm. It consists of 4 aluminium pieces of which two "elongated" rings with notches form the shackle while the other two form the body of the lock. The objective here is to dismantle the lock into four pieces and put it back together again. Quality of construction, fit and finish is very good and there is certain "looseness" of the puzzle which I believe is intended for easy movement of the pieces. While the rings can swivel around the body of the lock pretty easily, the disassembly is anything but that.

I don't have many Hanayama cast puzzles in my collection and for those that I own, I have managed to solve most of them without any help (well, I don't have many of the really difficult ones anyway!). But sadly, this lock eluded me despite several days of on-off playing. I managed to get past what I would consider the second stage and thereafter remained stuck. And stuck for a long time. Finally I threw in the towel and checked out the video solution which some kind soul had placed on YouTube. Looking at the movements which are serial and sequential in nature, I would not have been able to solve the Cast Lock on my own. The number of twist and turns and precise moves required to un-shackle the lock is pretty confusing and mind-boggling to say the least.

This is a very difficult puzzle to take apart and Hanayama rates it 5 out of 6 stars (I think it should be a 6 out of 6). It has stumped quite a number of puzzlers since it came to the market but I know of one puzzler, blogger Kevin Sadler who has managed to solve it. Check out his review here. 

Jin-Hoo Ahn has really designed a gem. As I looked the individual pieces, they don't look that complicated but yet the sum of the four parts result in a very challenging puzzle requiring a lot of effort to solve. This is one of those prime examples of "less is more"? If you want a really difficult take-apart puzzle, the Cast Lock is one that will provide a lot of value for money. Outside of Japan, its presently available from PuzzleMaster of Canada.

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.

Bolt & Golden Rhombic Icosahedron

Here are two IPP36 Exchange Puzzles I played with over the weekend.

The first is Bolt, designed by Atsushi Katagiri and made by Hideto Sato. Bolt is a relatively large puzzle measuring a good 12cm x 9cm x 7cm. Very well made and high quality, its a trick opening puzzle box made of some exotic Japanese wood (I am not sure what it is tho'). Even the turquoise cardboard box which it comes in looks and feels expensive, similar to those carrying Karakuri puzzles.

The Bolt is not a difficult puzzle and requires just four moves to remove the lid.  Not too hard to discover. Inside there is a cavernous amount of free space to put in personal items. A lot of puzzle boxes have tiny spaces to keep tiny momentoes but not the Bolt; it can probably take a couple of men's watches, rings and necklaces as well. A highly functional puzzle box for sure.

The second puzzle is Stephen Chin's Golden Rhombic Icosahedron...quite a mouthful for the name! Stephen Chin is very well known in the puzzle community for his polyhedron puzzles.

An icosahedron is a polyhedron with 20 faces! I am pretty sure few of you puzzlers know right off the bat what "icosahedron" or "polyhedron" means, so click the link here to find out more.

What is unique about this particular icosahedron is that its (perfectly) symmetrical, as far as I can tell. Also called a Platonic icosahedron, it looks familiarly like a super large "diamond" made of wood. This one measure about 8cm in diameter and 6cm thick. The object of Stephan's puzzle is to find the three ways to "open" up the icosahedron, which has been dissected into three interconnecting pieces. 

The puzzle is very well constructed, so well in fact that all the edges of the puzzle line up and join perfectly with each other. It took me a good several minutes of pressing and tugging before I found a slight movement of one of the edges. A bit more pulling and soon I extracted one of the three pieces. The puzzle is not serially interlocked, so removing a different piece can similarly open up the puzzle. I was able to open up the icosahedron with the removal of 2 of the 3 pieces but the third I found a bit too tight to disassemble and didn't bother going further. If you take apart the three pieces and scramble them up a bit, it takes a while to get the orientation right and re-assemble. 

Oh I forgot to mention Stephan says there's also a fourth way to open the puzzle....drop it!

Double Cast Puzzle Hook

This is one Hanayama Cast Puzzle which you will not find commercially available for sale anywhere in the world, online or in a shop...unless you have participated in the IPP36 Puzzle Exchange.

The Double Hook was Hiroaki Namba's creation (apart from being his exchange puzzle). Its a combination of two Cast Hook puzzles linked together as shown in the photo. Mr Namba first saw a "Triple Cast ABC" made by Yoshiaki Hirano ten years ago and was very impressed...and inspired!

I first saw these marvelous "impossible" cast puzzle creations at IPP33 in Tokyp in 2013. Absolutely amazing is what I can say...but more about those later. 

The standard Cast Hook that you can buy from puzzle retailers was designed by Vesa Timonen, who also designed a number of other cast puzzles such as the ever popular (and wearable) Cast Loop and Cast Cylinder for Hanayama. It comprises two interlocking identical hooks that have been twisted at different angles and the goal is to take them apart. Its essentially a disentanglement wire style puzzle on steroids. Hanayama rates it at one star difficulty, meaning its the easiest level out of six stars and indeed it is not too difficult.

What remains is the standard Cast Hook is on the left

I didn't find taking the Double Hook apart that difficult; now that is not to say that its easy. No its not, but my persistence paid off and after playing with a good fifteen minutes or so, the first hook came off and then the second. Like a lower level burr, the moment the first piece comes off, the rest can be quite easily figured out.

The real challenge came when I tried to assemble the Double Hook back to its original state. Despite going at it on and off over different periods for well over two days, I still cannot link all the four hooks the way it came originally. Getting three together is a cinch, what with after so much trying and practice, but the fourth hook has eluded me thus far. I cannot for the life of me remember the reverse of what I did to disassemble. From a one star difficulty quotient, I think the Double Hook has shot up to least five stars?

It makes the Cast Cake (which is an extremely challenging puzzle by all accounts) now seem rather easy by comparison. Looks like I have to contact Mr Namba for some assistance. 

[Edit 7 Sept 2016: I received an email from Mr Namba with nine photos of the steps to connect everything back together. As you might imagine, even with photos, puzzles of this nature is still not easy but I managed after quite of bit of trying (with coloured tape etc) to get the Double Hook back to its original state] 

If you already have a Cast Hook, buy another copy and try the assembly shown. If you don't, buy two copies and give it a go, Hanayama cast puzzles are inexpensive anyway.

  To see some amazing examples of "impossible objects" using different cast puzzles, click here and scroll all the way to the bottom. 

Dwarf Planet D

I am not terribly good at solving interlocking or burr puzzles, unless they are relatively low level. But now and again, I do come across one that I manage to dis-assemble AND re-assemble without any help (eg Burr Tools, photos etc).

The Dwarf Planet D is one such puzzle. In the past I would just have casually termed the Dwarf Planet D an interlocking "burr" but having corresponded with James Dalgety on the use of the right terminology, I shall refer to the Dwarf Planet D as an interlocking puzzle. For those who are interested, James said that...."originally back in the 1960s and 1970s the word "burr" was used to refer to interlocking puzzles made from straight rods with grooves cut out of them.  Like the standard 6-piece burr and Coffin's "Hexsticks"...

Terminology aside, the Dwarf Planet D was Jerry Slocum's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle. Designed by Australian William Hu, the Dwarf Planet D was produced by Brian Young of Mr Puzzle, Australia. 

The puzzle measures 7cm x 7cm x 7cm and comprises 6 "board" pieces each 10mm thick. Three of the large pieces are made from clear acrylic while the smaller ones are sandblasted (looks frosted) to give the puzzle more contrast. A nice touch here! Construction and finish is first rate and all the pieces are precision laser cut to allow for a good fit and sliding of the pieces. Nice details include the fine laser etching of the designer's and exchanger's names etc.

According to Brian, this is a level 6.8.2.3.3 puzzle. When I played with it, I estimated it to be around 28-30 moves! But who's counting? so long as I manage to take thing apart. The first piece is not that difficult to remove but its the second that got me stumped a bit. I practiced the various steps quite a few times before finally taking the puzzle fully apart, so as to remember the reverse for re-assembly. Thankfully the number of moves are not that high and I actually managed to get everything back together on my own. To be honest, if the puzzle had come un-assembled, I wouldn't have even known where to begin...let alone solve it.

A great interlocking puzzle that is well made and good looking; challenging but not frustratingly so, the latter which is important for me:-). I think most puzzlers (novice or experienced) would enjoy this puzzle, as there are only 6 pieces of which 3 are rather simple looking. Moreover you can see whatever you are doing (nothing hidden) and chart your progress as you go along. I certainly enjoyed playing with the Dwarf Planet D. Available from Mr Puzzle for US$22.62/- 

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.

Phive Pack

My puzzle this weekend was the "Phive Pack", a play on words, which (I think) means "five" piece packing puzzle, fellow puzzle blogger Allard Walker's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle. 

A somewhat different style of packing puzzle from the norm, this 3D packer does have five pieces; consisting of four odd-shaped ones which form a polyhedron and the fifth being a marble. The object is to place the four pieces and a rather good looking pearl-like marble into the accompanying plastic tube so that the latter is completely hidden within.

Designed by Jane Kostick of KO Sticks, the artisan folks who create incredible looking geometric sculptures and puzzles in wood, the puzzle was 3D printed by Shapeways. It was available in a variety of colours during the Exchange but I chose a bright magenta, the copy you see here. 

The Phive Pack came un-assembled. At first glance, I didn't think the puzzle was that difficult, after all it's only four pieces, and all I needed to do was to pack the four into the plastic tube, but how wrong I was. Of the four pieces, two are identical, while the remaining two look very much alike but have slightly different angled surfaces.    

It took me a good half an hour or more of trying before I found the right orientation of the pieces relative to each other. The angle and facets of the pieces really confuse but once put together correctly, the final shape is a nice symmetrical polyhedron and fits just nicely inside the stubby plastic tube. I wonder if Allard/Jane had designed the puzzle just the right size (about 4cm all round) to fit the tube or the other way round. Any other way would result in some portion of the marble being exposed and the puzzle sticking out, preventing one of the two plastic caps from covering the tube properly. 

Depending on who's playing with it, some may find it really hard, some not. In the words of puzzler Eitan Cher, it's a very "disorientating" puzzle to solve. Agreed! IMHO, its not an overly difficult puzzle but not an easy one either...just somewhere in between with the right amount of challenge for an exchange puzzle. Contact Allard via his blog site if you are keen to get one. 

POPP

POPP was Frans de Vreugd's IPP36 exchange puzzle and was designed by Christoph Lohe from Germany. This is my second puzzle from Lohe, the first being the beautifully crafted Closed Box. 

Nope, this puzzle has nothing to do with puzzle lock designer extraordinaire Rainer Popp, even though the burr pieces are "locked" inside the cage. It so happens that the external surfaces of the pieces form the shapes P.O.P.P along the outsides of the cage. But here's what Christoph had to say:-

"I always wanted to design an interlocking puzzle for beginners, with a minimum number of pieces. My choice was a 4x4x5 frame with only two sticks inside. With 15 moves to release the first stick, it is not a trivial puzzle but still managable for people who are not experienced in Burr puzzles. With a little bit of imagination, the puzzle reads "POPP" around the circumference, so I devoted it to Rainer Popp, the brilliant designer of outstanding metallic trick locks"

Pelikan Puzzles produced the exchange copies (made of bubinga and maple) and the quality of construction, fit and finish is excellent with all the pieces cut sharp and glued perfectly. The pieces fit snugly and slide smoothly, though I had it placed in my dry box for a day or two to "loosen" the puzzle a tad further to cope with Singapore's 80-90% humidity conditions.

This is an interlocking puzzle with a cage and two burr style pieces, the latter which are rather irregularly shaped (not your traditional looking ones). And designing just two burr sticks, Christoph was able to get it to a level 15 (meaning it takes 15 moves for one of the pieces to be come out of the cage), quite an achievement I would imagine. Dimensions wise its not large measuring about 6cm x 4.8cm x 4.8cm; quite petite, but comfortable enough for average size hands and fingers.

Although I am lousy with interlocking puzzles such as these, even relatively low level ones, I was able to take it apart without any help, surprising myself!  Perhaps it was because there were only two moving pieces which didn't confuse so much, but still it wasn't a walk in the park and I encountered some dead ends. After some pushing and pulling, I was able to pull one of the pieces out. 

Even though it has only 15 moves, it still takes a good memory to remember the reverse sequence to fit the two pieces back into their cage. Unfortunately I am terribly forgetful and got stuck several times while attempting to assemble the puzzle. So it was Burr Tools to the rescue; but I only relied on it for the first two moves, thereafter I figured out the next thirteen myself and pushed and pulled the pieces back into their respective positions within the cage.

A very nice little well-made puzzle that would appeal to interlocking and burr enthusiasts (or folks that like to collect high quality wooden puzzles) or both. I think Frans may have some more copies left available for sale. Pelikan is retailing it on their site for 29 Euros and for those living in the US or Canada, Puzzlemaster will also be making it available very soon.

Halve A Heart

This is the first of my IPP36 Exchange Puzzles I am reviewing. I thought I would start off with something not too complicated and which I am familiar with.

Halve A Heart was designed and produced by Scott Elliot for his exchange in Kyoto, Japan just several weeks ago. 3D printed, Halve A Heart follows a recent string of puzzles in the last couple of years that bears a similar theme; the object is to put two pieces together to form a particular shape. In 2014, Scott came up with Join The Club and in 2015, his Diamond Engagement.

First off, the puzzle measures about 4.5cm x 4.5cm x 1.4cm. Quality of print is good and the puzzle is solid printed (not hollow) which gives it a hefty feel and makes it pretty durable. The two halves join together to form a heart. In fact the red is so red it looks like blood, how appropriate for this puzzle!

While there are only two pieces each with identical shapes, putting together was (to my surprise) more difficult that I had expected. The halves need to twist and slide against each other to finally form the intended shape. It did take me more than several minutes before I found the right orientation of both pieces relative to each other and discovered the point where the two pieces would mesh together nicely in one smooth motion. Halve A Heart appears to be more difficult than the previous two puzzles. No force whatsoever is needed. In fact the assembled heart was a bit on the "loose" side for my copy and while the pieces will not fall apart, the heart would not hold its shape unless it was lying flat on a table.

Notwithstanding, a nice pocket-able little puzzle that will probably frustrate non-puzzlers and maybe even some puzzlers. Scott made a number of these for sale and he may still have some copies left over if anyone is interested.