Jerry's Mechanical Puzzle & Brain Teaser Collection

Road Blocks won the Jury Honourable Mention Award at this year's IPP35 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in Ottawa, Canada. This design comes from fellow Singaporean puzzler Goh Pit Khiam, whose other entry, "Number Blocks" also won the same award....two exact same awards in the same competition, a rarity indeed!

My copy of Road Blocks was bought from Tom Lensch, during the IPP35 Puzzle Party. Made of Maple for the box and pieces comprising of Bocote, Indian Rosewood, Yellowheart and Canarywood, the construction, fit and finishing is excellent. Dimensionally its about 4 inches or so square and about one and quarter inch thick. Nice size!

My copy came unsolved. The object of the puzzle is to fill the four (almost) identical shaped pieces into the box. Not really your usual packing puzzle as you will notice the inside of the box is surrounded by a channel and each of the pieces is formed by two squarish flat blocks of wood sandwiching a third which protrudes. It would be obvious that the blocks are not going to go in straight just like that into the box. Like a lot of Goh Pit Khiam designed puzzles, this is a packing puzzle which although looks relatively simple in appearance, is anything but.

To solve this puzzle, careful study of the pieces and the inside construction of the box and how the pieces and the box interact is necessary. This will save a lot of unnecessary headache as randomly trying to insert the pieces won't work here. In some ways, the Road Blocks puzzle brings to my mind another puzzle, Bill Cutler's famous Blockhead. Somewhat similar principle but not quite; Road Blocks comes with an added twist to it!

While it didn't take me long to solve, this puzzle is breeze through either.
An experienced puzzler would figure things out after a while but to the uninitiated, Road Blocks can prove to be very challenging. But it satisfies with a nice solution nonetheless!

Overall a great (3D) packing puzzle and truly well deserving of the IPP Award. A must have for collectors and packing puzzle enthusiasts. From what Tom tells me, he will be making more copies in the coming months, so drop him an email via his site if you wish to purchase one.

Quadrant I is the first of my eighty-eight Exchange Puzzles that I am playing with since coming home from IPP35 in Canada last month.

This was Eric Fuller's exchange puzzle and was designed by Turkish designer, Yavuz Demirhan. At last count, he has 422 of his designs uploaded to PWBP.

Its made of maple, walnut and cherry and roughly about 7.5 cm square and 3.5 cm thick. Coming from Eric himself, the quality of construction and finish is top notch no less. Everything is very precise and all the pieces fit and slide smoothly with just a hint of snugness.

The object of Quadrant I is to disassemble and reassemble the four pieces, each of which comprises a sandwich of three blocks (rather similar to the Road Blocks in the previous post). But the pieces here go round and interlock with a square ring instead of falling into a box as a packing puzzle.

At level 6 with a total of 15 moves, this is not a difficult puzzle. Once you understand how the pieces move and are extracted, it is pretty manageable and when the first piece comes out, the rest follow suit easily. The small number of moves to take out the first piece also makes it relatively easier to remember the reverse sequence for re-assembly. No Burr Tools needed here...hooray!

For non-burrist like myself, the Quadrant I is a great puzzle and really appropriate as an exchange puzzle, with just the right level of difficulty. Experienced puzzlers should have no problem with this one.

These two puzzles came to me courtesy of Pelikan, from the Czech Republic. These are from their most recent batch of offerings and are available on their site. The Co-Mo Cross and Little Box were both designed by William Hu.

The Co-Mo Cross as the name suggests is a co-ordinate motion puzzle. The puzzle is made entirely from American Walnut. Extremely well constructed as per Pelikan standards with fine attention to detail. Its so well put together that I had a very hard time finding the joint lines of the pieces which are completely hidden amongst the grain of the pieces. I only discovered them after I had played with the puzzle for a while. Incredible how Pelikan achieved this. Very snug fit yet when you co-ordinately slide the pieces, they move very smoothly against each other. Not a large puzzle by any means but comfortable to hold. It measures 6.4 cm x 6.4 cm x 6.4 cm.

As I said, it took me a while to detect which and how the pieces had to move; but once I got this, the four pieces slid apart quite easily. Re-assembly also took a bit of effort as the tight tolerance of the pieces requires one to get all the four pieces at their correct positions just right for them to slide back into position. Not easy this step and I had to fiddle for a while to get everything into the solved state.

William Hu states: "Co Mo cross was an attempt at making a very small and concise co-ordinate motion puzzle with very few slanted cuts - of which there are only two in this design. The shape of a 2x2x2 cross is made of two pairs of identical pieces (which are mirror pairs). The separating motion is a little unusual but pleasant."

The next puzzle is the Little Box. This one measures 6 cm x 6 cm x 6 cm and is made of eight exotic hardwoods consisting of Maple, Wenge, Cherry, American Walnut, Acacia, Mahagony, Padouk and Amaranth. Again everything is nicely constructed and this one has all beveled edges for each of the pieces.

Why is it called by such a name when it doesn't even look anything like a box? William had this to say:

"Little Box is a very simple assembly puzzle intended for beginners, with a small hollow inside. Serially interlocking with a single, relatively easy to find solution, this puzzle is a nice introduction to non-cubic assemblies. The shape of the pieces is inspired by the rebated joint in woodworking.."

Right in the centre of the puzzle is the hollow which contains a surprise; cute little cube, which indeed surprised me when it dropped out after I removed the first piece. While it may be easy to take apart within six steps, reassembly is not as simple. I got some of the pieces mixed up a bit and had to backtrack a couple of times before finding their correct orientations with each other.

Both are wonderful puzzles from a great designer and comes with great craftsmanship. Not difficult puzzles for experienced puzzlers (and non-burrists) but definitely worthy to be in any collection. And did I mention they are superb value for money too?

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.

I have been after Gary Foshee's Open Lock for some time now, having missed one of Wil Strijbos' puzzle sales a couple of years back. Fortunately during IPP35 while I was exchanging puzzles with Gary during the Puzzle Exchange, I casually asked him if he had any Open Locks available and he said "go ask Wil". I didn't wait. I stopped my exchange temporarily and rushed over to Wil to quickly reserve one. In situations like this, time waits for no puzzler. Lucky for me I was one of the first, because that same night, he had sold out all the Open Locks he had.

Gary's Open Lock (also called the Transparent Lock) is just what the name says; its a naked lock with everything (well almost everything) showing. Its a pretty large lock measuring about 12 cm from the bottom to the top of the shackle and roughly the body is about 2 cm thick. The lock is made of aluminium while the shackle is forged steel. Gary doesn't make many of these because its very difficult to manufacture and so the numbers available are usually very limited and consequently, very expensive as well. In case you didn't know, the Lunatic Lock, which is commercially available was also designed by Gary Foshee.

The Open Lock can best be described as a "sequential discovery" puzzle. Meaning that you have to open the Open Lock (no pun intended) with nothing else but tools and implements that come with the lock. No external tools are permitted. In the case of the Open Lock, there is only the T-shaped hex key, instead of a key.

The Open Lock shows its insides (of course it does!). And you will note that the shackle is locked in place by two horizontal bars, a thin one nearer the top (visible in the bottom photo) and a thick screw threaded rod at the bottom. It is obvious that these two rods must give way for the shackle to be pulled upwards and freed.

Here is where the sequential discovery part of the puzzle is. The solve is not difficult (certainly not the level of difficulty of the Popplocks), but tricky with some surprises (and A-ha moments). One has to use whatever tools available and do various tasks along the way to finally get the shackle unlocked from the body. Although it takes about seven steps to remove the shackle, it still takes a fair amount of time to complete the entire solve and to re-assemble everything.

Overall a very fun and entertaining puzzle lock which does not disappoint. Experienced puzzlers would have no problem with it. Unfortunately it seems that they are only available every couple of years and in very small numbers, very much rarer than Popplocks. So the only way to is to buy privately or through auctions, if at all they show up during the latter.

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.

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.

What a very cool name for a puzzle! Love's Dozen is my first puzzle from puzzle craftsman Jerry McFarland. I have heard of his excellent workmanship over the last several years but never had the chance to buy one of his works until at the last IPP Puzzle Party in Canada. There he had a table showcasing some new prototypes and selling a small selection of puzzles he had recently produced.

Love's Dozen was designed by Bruce Love nearly thirty years ago in 1987. It is a six piece burr with the classic burr shape in the solved state. My copy is made of three different woods. Each pair of pieces comprise of Bloodwood, Jatoba and Ramin, giving the puzzle a contrast of light, medium and dark colours. Construction, fit and finish is excellent and I like the way that each piece has slight beveled edges making the pieces very smooth and comfortable to hold. The puzzle measures about 7.5 cm all round, a very good size that is neither too small nor too large for ease of handling.

As far as the solving goes, I didn't have too much trouble taking the puzzle apart as it is not a very high level burr and a bit of experimentation here and there did the trick. It is a level 12 solution at the hardest. Unlike other burrs, this one does not possess a unique solution. According to the accompanying literature, Love's Dozen has 90 solutions and 154 assemblies. What's unique is that the 12 moves required here to remove the first piece from the burr is the highest possible for a 6-piece burr. And the 12 move solution also happens to be the only one which all pairs of parallel pieces are of the same wood. In a way, if you specify the requirement that each pair of parallel pieces must be of the same wood, then Love's Dozen may be considered to have a unique solution. Currently the highest level for a 6-piece burr with a unique solution is 10.

Re-assembly is altogether a different kettle of fish. And of course I had a lot of problems trying to put the thing back together again. Thankfully I didn't have to resort to configuring Burr Tools since Jerry provided a printed solution.

I don't know about the rest of you puzzlers out there but I think Artefacts is one of nicest and most unusual looking packing puzzles around.

Artefacts made its debut at the IPP35 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition just this August in Ottawa, Canada. Its the design of Japan based French Canadian Frederic Boucher, who previously came up with the Marble Cake which was quite a hit with the puzzle community.

Challenge #2 - Pack the 5 pieces flat around the brass rod. Notice the half-units!

Artefacts is made of 4 contrasting coloured exotic hardwoods; Paduak, Maple and Cherry for the tray and Ebony for the 5 wooden pieces. All the 5 pieces are irregular shaped and consists of glued blocks with both whole and half-units, something that Frederic is pretty fond of incorporating into his designs. What's unusual is also that the puzzle contains a 6th piece which is a solid brass rod. The combination of dark Ebony pieces contrasting with shiny brass makes Artefacts stand out amongst other wooden and acrylic 2D packing puzzles. Construction fit and finish is excellent and the puzzle has a very high quality feel. What I understand from Frederic is that he has the pieces and blocks of the puzzle cut by someone else but he hand-glues the tray and pieces and does the finishing himself.

Dimensional-wise it measures about 9.5cm x 9.5cm.

Visual appearance aside, Artefacts also scores well from the puzzling perspective. It has two challenges.The first is to place all 6 pieces (including the brass rod) flat into the tray. The second challenge involves planting the brass rod vertically into a hole at the centre of the tray and then to fit the remaining 5 wooden pieces flat in.

One would have thought that packing 6 pieces into a tray would be more difficult than 5 but in fact for Artefacts, the opposite seems to apply. I managed to pack the 6 pieces flat into the tray pretty quickly (there are 3 possible solutions; maybe that's why its easier). But I struggled nearly a week with the second challenge; packing the 5 wooden pieces around the brass rod, before I gave up and looked at the solution. The second challenge has only one solution! Burr Tools will not help here.

While its a pity it didn't manage to win any awards at IPP35, overall its a great puzzle no less (and a winner in my books). Packing puzzle enthusiasts would definitely love this one! If you would like an Artefacts, please PM me for Frederic's contact. He makes limited quantities of his designs from time to time.

The 2x2 Burr is the design creation of Osanori Yamamoto and the puzzle was also Rosemary Howbrigg's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle.

The 2x2 was produced for Rosemary by Mr Puzzle and its a 4-piece puzzle made of Western Australian Jarrah for the wooden pieces and 10mm thick acrylic for the remaining two. The 2 wooden pieces are identical while the acrylic slabs have different shaped cut-outs for each. Construction fit and finish is very good and the wooden pieces are strengthened at the joints with bamboo dowels even. Very nice touch.

The puzzle came un-assembled and the object is to fit the pieces together to form the symmetrical shape as shown in the photo. I didn't think it would be that difficult looking at the cut of the pieces, after all, Rosemary's Exchange Puzzle to me at last year's IPP34 the 4-piece "Black Hole Burr" only took me less than half hour to solve. But I was dead wrong. This one is a lot harder!

Firstly the assembly of the pieces cannot be achieved in orthogonal fashion; meaning moving the pieces left right up and down against each other. Instead, putting the puzzle together requires multiple rotational movements. And this is something that Burr Tools won't be of help.

I tried all the usual stuff but the 2x2 took me on and off trying for a good several days before the a-ha moment came. It appeared that I didn't expand my thinking a bit further! Some careful analysis right at the beginning of how the wooden pieces can be possibly inserted into 2 flat layers of acrylic and how the puzzle will end up in the final state would yield dividends as you play along. And NO force at all is necessary!

Not an easy puzzle at all by any means and Mr Puzzle has rated the 2x2 at a difficulty level 9/10; ie very difficult, and I concur. At the time of this writing, the 2x2 is available from Mr Puzzle for A$38.50.

Its always nice to get together with fellow puzzlers/collectors and last week while I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for business, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Yee Dian Lee at his home and spending a great evening with him talking about puzzles and admiring his extensive collection.

The puzzle den is actually longer than what the photo shows

Some of you puzzlers would know Yee Dian pretty well, especially those who have attended past IPPs. Yee Dian attended his first IPP at IPP12 in Tokyo in 1992, over twenty three years ago. Since then he has not missed a single IPP to-date! I had met Yee Dian the first time over three years ago at IPP33 in Japan and since then we have regularly kept in touch. it was only now that I paid a visit to his home and see vast puzzle and puzzle books collection.

Yee Dian is an Electrical Engineer by training and graduated from Osaka University, Japan. Professionally he a corporate trainer working mainly with various Malaysian government departments. Apart from mechanical puzzles, Yee Dian is also the Testing Procter for the Malaysian Mensa as well as Secretary of the Malaysian Sudoku Society.

I was hosted to a sumptious dinner by Yee Dian and his lovely wife, the meal home-cooked by Yee Dian's mother-in-law. Thereafter I spent the rest of the evening in his puzzle room. As I ascended halfway to his puzzle room, Yee Dian's puzzle vessel collection greeted me. It occupies an entire wall and the cabinet houses several puzzle vessels/pots from all over the world. What a sight to behold!

Puzzle vessels galore!

Yee Dian's puzzle den occupies the better portion of the third floor of his three storey house with both sides lined with shelves from floor to ceiling. The right shelves comprise mainly of puzzles and some books while the left are almost all puzzle books. I have never seen so many puzzle books in my life!

His IPP Exchange Puzzles, which number over 2,000 are not in the same puzzle den; there is just not enough space for them. Instead they are kept in boxes (all marked and numbered by year/country) which line one side of the corridor leading to his daughter's bedroom.

Yee Dian does not just collect mechanical puzzles (his main interests being puzzle vessels and interlocking) but also focuses on puzzle books. While his mechanical puzzle collection numbers several thousand (he says he has lost count), his puzzle book collection is well over 5,000 titles! They are in several languages including English, Japanese and Chinese.

Outside of Japan, Yee Dian has the largest private collection of puzzle books in South East Asia. A real treasure trove of puzzle literature acquired over many years with each and every title/details recorded meticulously. His passion is hunting for rare puzzle books both on the internet and when he travels abroad.

All puzzle books here

To go through just his mechanical puzzles alone, it would probably take a whole week. Yee Dian recounted to me that there was once a European collector (a pretty well know name in the puzzle community whom I shall keep anonymous) who visited some years back; he had spent three days in the puzzle den only coming out for meals and toilet breaks. Yee Dian welcomes any puzzler visiting Malaysia to drop by his home for a visit. Nowadays I go to Malaysia for business quite regularly. I am already looking forward to my next trip!

Well, enough said, I will let the photos do the rest of the talking....

Ultra rare puzzle books on this shelf

Notice some of the wooden puzzle boxes at the lower right?
These were from Akio Kamei before he became famous

Yee Dian and I exchanging gifts.
I received a very nice puzzle vessel (a wine pot)
which will be the subject of a future blog post

Can't afford a Berrocal? Read on...this may just be the thing for you!

Last week my son and I played with two very cute, colourful and interesting "put together cum packing" puzzles. These were the "Restoration Puzzle-Human Model" ("Mannequin") and "Cow" from Japanese toy manufacturer Megahouse.

Both puzzles came to me courtesy of YC Lam of Hong Kong who runs his Felix Puzzle site. Although the site is in Chinese, Google translate will help matters and he has a pretty good selection of puzzles from various manufacturers.

As you can tell from the photos, it is pretty obvious what the respective goals of the puzzles are; fix together the limbs, head etc and "pack" all the internal organs into the body. The Mannequin has 36 pieces while the "Berro-cow" has 37.

Both are entirely made of plastic, but to my surprise, not some cheapo light plastic to be scoffed at. This is really heavy duty stuff which makes the completed figurines very hefty and solid. The pieces don't snap into place as I had expected them to, but rather rely on friction to hold each other together. In the assembled state the puzzles would not come apart unless you bash the puzzle around.

Both are uniquely attractive and make excellent display and conversation pieces. In a bed of wooden burrs, these two would really stand out! To be honest, how many of you puzzlers have seen something like this before? And before I forget to mention....they are really useful for aspiring doctors and vets! I don't know about the Cow, but the Mannequin looks anatomically correct to me!

For the price of HK$130 (slightly less than US$17) each, the quality of manufacture is really very good and I was pretty impressed. If you can't afford a Berrocal, well I guess here's a really inexpensive and viable alternative...which happens also not to need polishing ...move over, Mini David!

From a puzzling perspective, both are not difficult puzzles. The Cow tho' I felt was much more challenging than the Mannequin. The former has a lot more small and similar looking internal organs which had to be inserted into the body forming twin layers; very much like a two layer packing puzzle. Solutions come in the form of a QR code download so help is at hand should you need it.

Over the weekend I had read Mike Desilets'guest post about the Euro Falle 02 on Kevin Sadler's puzzle blog and decided that I should bring my copy of the Euro Falle 03 with me for my five-day business trip. I thought I could get in some puzzling during the evenings after work. Of course I also wanted to make sure that I had something that can withstand the rigors of being tightly packed in my luggage without a risk of damage. The Euro Falle 03 was just the right puzzle.

I had obtained my Euro Falle 03 from Allan Stein during the IPP35 Puzzle Exchange in Ottawa, Canada just this past August. Like the Euro Falle 02 and 04, the 03 is the design of Jurgen Rieche and one of the more recent offerings in a range of products coming from Siebenstein-Spiele.

In terms of quality, manufacture and attention to detail, I think Mike has already summed it up pretty well. In fact his review (for a first time blog post) is not only impressive but comprehensive; and I have really nothing more to add. Like the Euro Falle 02, the puzzle consists of layers of laser cut wood stacked together and as Mike has stated, it is very solid and heavy.

Dimensionally the Euro Falle 03 is just slightly short of 8 cm x 8 cm, about 2.5 cm high and bears a rounded shape with protruding corners. The 03 has 4 wooden layers making it thicker and heftier than the 02. This puzzle can stand a lot of abuse!

What's the solving like? Well I have not played with 02, but based on Mike's description of the 02, it would appear that the 03 probably has a similar mechanism. While it took me around half an hour to figure how to remove the Euro coin, the actual solving itself is pretty fast (once you know how).

Suffice to say, the Euro Falle 03 is a rather tricky puzzle for the uninitiated and inexperienced. Looking at the way its been designed, one could conceivably spend a considerable amount of time trying to figure things out (and possibly barking up the wrong tree) before the "a-ha" moment finally kicks in. But once you know the solution, re-solving is easy. Damn...I should have brought a couple more puzzles...I have another 3 nights to go!

Puzzle Master retails the Euro Falle 02 (CA$23.99), 03 and 04 (CA$34.99 each), Puzzle-shop.de stocks the 03 and 04 (25 Euros each) while Brilliant Puzzles carry only the 02 (US$24.95)

[All photos above of the Euro Falle 03 shot with an iPhone on my hotel room bed]

Is Lockdown a packing puzzle? Well, I guess it probably is. It's also my first puzzle comprising of pieces in the shape of linked spheres.

LockDown is a Stewart Coffin design (#271-A). Also made by Stewart Coffin for Rob Jones' Exchange Puzzle at IPP35 in Ottawa, Canada this last August. I am not sure the species of the woods used but the puzzle is well made and feels solid and sturdy. It measures about 10cm wide and 7.5cm tall in the assembled state. The spheres are around 2.3cm in diameter.

The puzzle consists of 3 different pieces, each formed by linked spheres. The puzzle came un-assembled and the object is to pack all 3 pieces into the triangular tray to form a pyramid. One edge of the tray has a curved recess to facilitate access of the pieces.

To form the pyramid outside of the tray is not too difficult. With some thinking, you can probably figure out how the final shape would look, given that there are just 10 spheres. Its the packing that requires a lot more effort. The instructions are also explicit that no force is required.

While I figured out the shape of the pyramid pretty soon, it took me the better part of an hour before I managed to get the pieces into the tray. Some experimentation is required to get the right orientation of the pieces and aside from this, the movements also require twisting and rotation. Indeed once the pieces are inside the tray, you could grab the top few balls and lift the entire puzzle off the surface it's on. Truly "locked down".

There are not too many moves involved to solve this puzzle; no need actually since the shapes of the mutil-sphere pieces are enough create a good deal of confusion. Although there are only 3 pieces, the packing is more than moderately challenging and pretty tricky.
To put it another way, the Lockdown is just the right level of difficulty for an Exchange Puzzle. None commercially available but Rob may have some extra copies for sale, just maybe.

I am on a roll....here's another packing puzzle featuring a pyramid. This time the puzzle in question is the Packed Pyramid, Norton Starr's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle. The Packed Pyramid was designed and crafted by Bill Sheckels, a custom furniture maker who also makes very nice looking puzzles on the side.

This puzzle is quite a thing of beauty. The pieces are made from dark Mexican Ebony while the tray is Zebrawood. All in all, good colour contrast, solid, very well made with a nice smooth finish.The 4 pieces are identical pentehedrons (a 5 sided 3D polygon).

There are 3 challenges here; namely to form a pyramid shape outside the tray, then form the pyramid inside tray and finally packing the 4 pieces flat into the tray. The last challenge really isn't one since the puzzle came packed already, probably for ease of transportation and storage for the Exchange.

While there are only 4 pieces and all look the same, the task of the forming the pyramid is not as easy as it may appear...in fact, rather difficult and tricky. Trying to just combine two of the four pieces together to form some sort of coherent shape is itself pretty confusing and I found myself fumbling quite a bit. The trick is not to try to work all four pieces at the same time but start with just two. Eventually you will figure it out after some time. For some puzzlers, that may take quite a while.

Once the first challenge is solved, the second of forming the pyramid inside the tray is not difficult, at least not as difficult as the pyramid packing puzzle the "Lockdown" reviewed in the previous post. Here things are pretty straight forward. The third challenge of just placing all the 4 pieces back flat into the tray is also easy.

Overall a really nice high quality shape-forming cum packing puzzle that is challenging but not frustratingly so. Again, just the right level of difficulty for an Exchange Puzzle!

The Packed Pyramid is available from Bill via his Etsy puzzle shop linked from his site mentioned above.

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.

Most serious puzzlers in the community would probably have heard of Yvon Pelletier, the affable and very friendly French Canadian living in Montreal who crafts wooden puzzles as a hobby. Its an almost full-time hobby I would imagine, for Yvon has made over 700 burrs and interlocking puzzles to-date and will no doubt continue to make even more.

I was very pleasantly surprised when I met Yvon at IPP35 in Canada this past August, barely recognizing him from his Facebook photo (not everyone has a mohawk!). He gave me as a present one of my designs that he had made. This puzzle is my Novice's Burr.

I was surprised that Yvon bothered to make a copy of the design since there are so many other more interesting, nicer and highly complicated burrs out there on PWBP. And he didn't just fashion it out using one type of wood (which would have made the puzzle looking rather plain) but in fact selected four types of wood including Oak, Louro Faia, Ebony and Wenge. And painstakingly gluing cube units together to create a puzzle that is aesthetically pleasing with contrasting colour tones and texture. From the top, the puzzle even looks like it has a checker board pattern.

Yvon Pelletier with some of his beautiful creations

This is the first time I have seen Yvon's work in person and I must say (for an amateur woodworker) his quality of craftsmanship is up there with the very best. Unfortunately Yvon only makes puzzles for himself (or as gifts for friends) and does not sell any commercially. The fit and finish of my Novice's Burr is very good although the pieces were a wee bit too snug due to the humid Singapore weather. But a few days in the dry box did the trick. I was pleased to be able to handle a real copy of my puzzle design; sadly most of my other designs will probably only remain on paper and never see the light of day.

The Novice's Burr is a Level 5.2.3.4.4 (hence the name!) which requires a total of 18 moves to totally disassemble. I tried to make it as simple as possible from a design standpoint using just two plates with four congruent (and simple) burr pieces. While it has a Level 5 solution, but as I played with it, I discovered that I could actually rotate the plates with all the pieces still intact and one or two of the pieces can also rotate accordingly. Perhaps after drying, the looseness contributed to this. It would appear then the rotations can possibly increase the number of steps to remove the first piece and make the puzzle harder. Anyway I didn't bother to experiment further. A design flaw of mine and certainly unintended of course! Oh well....

Really happy to have a working copy of my Novice's Burr in my collection. My sincere thanks to Yvon for a beautifully crafted present!

The Ternary Burr is quite a monster of a burr. Not only in terms of its physical size (9.5cm x 9.5cm x 12.5cm) but also the level of difficulty. I have had the Ternary Burr for two years now, having bought it from Eric Fuller back in 2013 and its been hiding at the back of my puzzle closet since.

The Ternary Burr belongs to a group of puzzles that are known as "N-ary" puzzles. A very informative write-up with loads of photos about "N-ary" puzzles by Goetz Schwandtner can be found here.

Designed by well-known Singaporean puzzle designer Goh Pit Khiam, there are only 68 copies of the Ternary Burr that have been so far made and sold commercially; 30 copies from Brian Young in 2009 and 38 from Eric Fuller. Hence the rather expensive (but value for money) price of US$274.

The Ternary Burr has a "base-3" mechanism with inherent dead ends. What is this "base-3" mechanism? Here's what Goh had to say:-

In an n-ary puzzle, each stage can have n positions. In the Ternary burr, each stage consists of only one piece which can be in one of three different positions. If there are two stages, there would be 3 x 3 different positions of both pieces. If there are m stages, then there are n^m different positions. The mechanism of the puzzle tries to make the puzzle go through all these positions, thus creating plenty of moves before disassembly. In the Ternary burr mechanism, it doesn't really go through every possible combination of piece positions. Some of them are dead-ends. In the later designs like the NumLock, it really does go through every piece positions before dis-assembly occurs.

The Ternary Burr from Eric is made from Cherry and Walnut. It consists of a total of 22 pieces including a 17-piece cage which can be dismantled fully. The cage houses 5 Walnut interlocking burr pieces which have to be shifted in a particular sequence requiring a total of 75 moves to remove the first piece. A total of 98 moves is needed to fully take apart the entire burr. And there is only one solution!

Construction fit and finish is excellent and the pieces all move smoothly after some dry-box de-humidification.Given its size, the Ternary Burr is very heavy and solid and quite a large handful to hold for average size hands.

Needless to say, a burr at this level is well beyond me. I tried to figure out the N-ary sequence but this proved way to difficult and confusing, resulting in me getting stuck a number of times mid-way. A very good memory would certainly help, since there are repeating moves.

Even with the aid of Burr Tools which I needed, it took a fairly long time for me to get through the entire sequence and extract the first piece. And then to disassemble the remaining 17 pieces of the cage. Putting back the whole thing together took me even longer as I grappled with the 22 pieces, first forming the rectangular cage and then going though the reverse N-ary moves to insert the 5 burr pieces back into the cage. For a really amazing feat of the Ternary Burr's re-assembly (without any aids), check out Brian Young's video on YouTube. Incredible!

The Ternary Burr is no doubt for hardcore burrists. Yes, today there are some higher level burrs around but none made in the fashion of the Ternary Burr, with most of its pieces dissimilar, as you can see from the photo. Unfortunately its not commercially available and the only way to get one is through private sale or auction. Given that they are also very difficult to make (Eric said "crafting this design took all (his) abilities"), we are unlikely to see any new copies on the market anytime soon.

A rather long name but here's a fun (but not too difficult) puzzle I solved over the weekend. The Pinned Wedge Key Puzzle (PWKP) was Keith Winegar's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle to me in Ottawa, Canada this past August.

When I first saw his puzzle, I was reminded of two earlier puzzles with a similar design; Wil Strijbos'4-Piece metal puzzle, and Hanayama's Cast Spiral. The object is to take apart the 4 pieces and then reassemble.

Keith has designed a number of wedge key style puzzles in the past but he takes the PWKP design a couple of notches up.

Firstly in terms of construction, finish and quality...very good. The 4 jigsaw looking pieces are very precisely cut and all the outer edges and surfaces are beveled and smoothed. The puzzle is pretty hefty and solid with a size of 8.8cm x 8.8cm x 2.2cm and made of Black Walnut.

What is different about the PWKP is that its made more difficult with a number of iron set screws inserted into the pieces. Besides the 4 pieces which "wedge" together to lock themselves, the screws serve as double reinforcement locking. The trick is to figure out how remove the screws and un-wedge the 4 pieces.

Another unusual thing is that the puzzle comes with two paper clips and a large thick rubber band. These are the only "tools" that a solver may use to help take apart the PWKP. No other external tools permitted!

It took me about 10 minutes to figure things out and separate the 4 pieces. Putting everything back was just the reverse.

Overall, a moderately challenging but great puzzle. Novices may take quite a while or even much longer, but for experienced puzzlers, it would be a relatively fast and fun solve. The PWKP is not commercially available but some of Keith's other designs and his earlier wedge key puzzle are available from PuzzleMaster.

If there was an award at IPP35 for an Exchange Puzzle with the most original design, I think it should go to David Litwin's "Straight Up".

The "Straight Up" looks just like a real traditional shaving razor and comes nicely packaged in an attractive box too. Its made of laser cut acrylic and David has chosen a pearlescent finish for the handle to give it an authentic look. Very nicely made indeed!

As you might guess, the object is to unfold the "razor" and expose the "blade". Not that simple, because the blade is restrained in its handle by a locking mechanism. To unlock the blade fully, you need to navigate a" maze" (forming the words IPP) cut into the blade. This took me a couple of minutes of trying before I got it out; because you can't really see clearly all that's happening within, although you know what's there and needs to be done.

Notice anything special about the maze?

To return the blade to its folded position, its the reverse but I found this step a tad harder even though now all is exposed and you can see how the blade is to be locked back into position and what goes where. A bit of dexterity here and there is also required.

Overall, not that difficult to solve with some trying, and certainly not as challenging as David's previous (IPP33) Exchange Puzzle, a packing puzzle called City Block. But very unusual, neat idea and a "sharp" looker!

The last few puzzle designs from Frederic Boucher were very nice packing puzzles, including the Marble Cake, Tool Box and his IPP35 Puzzle Design Competition entry, Artefacts all reviewed previously.

But just recently, Frederic has expanded his portfolio to include an impossible object; although sometime earlier in 2003, he had a rather unusual dexterity puzzle called Manholes 55.

The puzzle I received from Frederic is called "Smiley In A Bottle". This Impossible Bottle comes in a rather small package, the bottle appears to be an ordinary glass bottle about 13cm tall and about 5cm in diameter. At first glance, it looks like the typical Impossible Bottle puzzle with a rod inside and a bolt and nut running through it, and so it does. But Frederic has taken the design a few notches up.

There are two challenges here:-

Challenge #1 - Remove the rod, bolt and nut and smiley from the bottle.
Challenge #2 - Using only the rod, bolt and nut (and no other external tools), place the smiley on the end of the bolt that protrudes from the bottom of the bottle.

The first challenge is quite manageable for most puzzlers, especially those who have played with similar bottles before. Back in 2012, I had solved Wil Strijbos'Coke Bottle #1, so I knew what I had to do and got everything out in about 5 minutes.

It was the second challenge that stumped me for a while. To solve this step, some "out of the bottle" thinking is required and you are only allowed to use what you have from the bottle. The rod, bolt and nut is definitely necessary but the trick is to figure out how to use them correctly. After a bit of analysis, I proceeded. A pair of steady hands would also help things along faster. Compared to challenge #1, here I took three times as long to complete and then finally the a-ha moment! Because of challenge #2, Smiley In A Bottle is not just a impossible bottle, but can be considered a "sequential discovery" puzzle as well.

The Smiley In A Bottle is, IMHO a brilliant first attempt by Frederic at an impossible object. Well constructed and executed with an easier (not easy) challenge, and a second which is novel and more than moderately difficult challenge. For impossible bottle fans, this is a must-have to collect.

The copy I have from Frederic is according to him, the easier version. He has also made several copies of a harder version; one with two bolts/nuts through the rod. They are available for sale at a very reasonable 1,200/1,500 Japanese Yen (approx. US$9.75/12.20) respectively.

If you would like a copy of either puzzle, PM me via this blog's email and I will put you directly in touch with Frederic.

Road Blocks

Quadrant I

Co-Mo Cross & Little Box

Helical Burr

Open Lock

CCC-1 & Diamond Engagement

Love's Dozen

Artefacts

2 x 2 Burr

Yee Dian Lee - Puzzle Books Collector Extraordinaire

The (Very) Affordable Berrocal (Alternative)

Euro Falle 03

Lockdown

Packed Pyramid

Triburrlism

Novice's Burr

Ternary Burr

Pinned Wedge Key Puzzle

Here's A Sharp Looking Puzzle!

Smiley In A Bottle