New York Puzzle Party (Part 2)

Check out Part 1 if you're just joining us.

After a long night of puzzling, we got up at around 7:30 to head over to the actual New York Puzzle Party. It started around 9:30, and we wanted to get there a bit early so we could get a good seat. Thanks to Brett's GPS, we found the location without any trouble: it was held in a classroom of Trevor Day School.

We headed upstairs and found the room, where we saw Tom Cutrofello, who organized the event, as well as geometric sculptor George Hart and David Leschinsky from Eureka Puzzles and Games, my favorite Boston-area puzzle shop. Saul Bobroff, Tim Udall, and Chris Morgan had also come down from Boston. There were a bunch of people I hadn't met before, including Tim Rowett of Grand Illusions, Stewart Lamle of WizdomZone, Tanya Thompson of ThinkFun, Daniel Deschamps, Stan Leeb, and Ken Irvine.

Ken had actually heard of NYPP through my blog and ended up coming, so it was quite cool to meet him. It was kind of neat to introduce myself and have people say "Oh! I've seen your blog!" Tanya and Daniel recognized me from it as well, how cool is that?

I also met Jeffrey Aurand, who I had been introduced to by Matt Dawson, I think. We had been corresponding a bit over the last few months, so it was great to meet him in person.

Folks brought a variety of puzzles to show or to sell. Here's a picture of Brett and Rob with some of the items they brought. I didn't have anything to sell, but I brought Pagoda Puzzle Box and Pinwheel to see if I could drum up some sales for Matt or Jerry.

Only one person was able to solve the Pagoda box, though quite a few folks played around with it: it was Devin from Eureka who had come down with David. Nobody had any luck with Pinwheel either, but many people remarked that it was a very cool puzzle. Here's a picture of Daniel Deschamps from Montreal giving it a try.

After a bit of socializing and checking out the various puzzles people had brought, the presentations started. After Tom welcomed everybody and talked for a little while, Rob gave a presentation about the Instant Insanity puzzle family. This is a puzzle that consists of a number of blocks (usually four) with different colors or symbols on them, and the object is to arrange them in a row so that the faces are all different colors. Check out Rob's Puzzle Page for more info.

He talked about the history of the puzzle, which actually dates all the way back before 1900. It had all sorts of incarnations, but was popularized by Franz Armbruster in 1966 when it was mass produced by Parker Brothers.

Next, he talked about a graphical solution method for this puzzle that involves looking at the cubes and drawing a graph of interconnected nodes to represent the puzzle. By examining this graph, you can fairly easily determine a solution for any puzzle of this type. It was quite an interesting presentation, even though this puzzle doesn't appeal much to me personally.

After Rob's presentation, there was a great presentation by an architect, Eric Clough, who talked about an amazing apartment he and his firm had created. It was being renovated for a family with children, so they decided, as a surprise, to fill the house with a whole series of interesting puzzles to solve. There were cyphers on the radiator covers, secret compartments in the credenza, and all sorts of other interesting things. The coolest thing was that they were all tied together by a book, a fictional narrative that guided the children through discovering the different puzzles that were hidden in the apartment. I can't really do it justice here, so check out this article for more info.

After this presentation, we headed out to lunch, where I ate with Saul, David, and Devin at a diner nearby. I had some apple cinnamon french toast that was pretty tasty.

When we got back, folks were milling around looking at the different puzzles people had brought. Tanya from ThinkFun had brought a few puzzles that were new to their Aha! series of puzzles: Star Burst, a classic three-piece burr; Straight Arrow, a sliding puzzle based on Iwahiro's Rectangular Jam; and Blockout, a plastic version of Bill Cutler's Blockhead.

I was particularly psyched to see Blockout [This puzzle since been renamed to Square Fit], since it is a very cool puzzle and is available for a very good price. I had seen a different version of it several months ago and I think it took me 30-45 minutes to figure out, which was quite surprising since it looks pretty easy.

The object is to get the four pieces into the box, but the pieces are cut at an angle and interfere with each other. The solution is quite clever! Tanya was kind enough to give me the copy she brought, which was quite nice of her. Thanks Tanya! I'm looking forward to stumping my friends with this one.

Jeff Aurand brought a few puzzle boxes for me to try, since he knows I love boxes. From left to right: a box by Allan Boardman, Hoop by Shiro Tajima, and A Chance Meeting by Tatuo Miyamoto.

I started out with the box by Allan, which was magnificently crafted. Click on the picture and you can see the tiny little box-joints that join the corners of the box. Allan specializes in tiny puzzles (he's a microxylometagrobologist), so it is no surprise that he can craft these tiny details with the utmost precision.

The mechanism was similar to one I had seen in the Karakuri small box series, but even though I had seen this type of trick before, it was a surprise when I discovered it. Overall, a very cool box!

Next, I tried A Chance Meeting by Miyamoto. I had seen photos of this puzzle before and was quite intrigued. The top is a false lid that comes off immediately. Once it is removed, you can see a clover shape that is made up of heart shapes that are similar to the one on the lid.

This one took me longer than I expected: the solution had a bit of a twist that I did not expect, but eventually I discovered it. I think it took me about 10-15 minutes. It is a very cool puzzle!

Finally, I tried Hoop by Shiro Tajima. I was really looking forward to this one because Jeff said this was one of his favorite boxes. Sure enough, it was absolutely awesome! The really sneaky thing about this one is that you keep thinking that you're making progress, only to find that you're stuck. After finding the first move, it seems like the top is about to come off, but you have only just begun!

I think this one took me a good 20-30 minutes to solve. It has a very unique mechanism that is unlike any other box I have seen before. I'm definitely happy that I got the chance to try this one. Thanks Jeff!

After the lunch break, there were a few more presentations: Betsy Carter spoke about her book The Puzzle King about her great uncle who popularized the jigsaw puzzle, someone demonstrated a Rubik's cube-solving robot they had constructed, George Hart talked about what he's been working on, and Tom Cutrofello gave an exhaustive presentation of the various iPhone puzzle apps he's found.

Sorry for the quick treatment of the lectures, but I was a bit more focused on the puzzles. So, back to that:

Tim Udall had brought his collection of puzzle knives, which was really cool since I had never even heard of this category of puzzles before. I like knives (I have a small collection) and I like puzzles so this was a sure winner with me.

Most of the knives were tricky to open, and one was tricky to close. I don't think any of them were actually intended as puzzles, rather they just had a fairly hard to discover locking mechanism. A lot of knives have locking mechanisms to keep them from opening or closing when you don't want them to, these were just harder to discover than usual.

One in particular stumped me for a while: it looked like a normal knife, but the blade did not rotate out in the way you would have expected it to. Very cool stuff! I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of them.

Tim brought another interesting puzzle called Magic Billet Box (careful, the video on the site is a spoiler). It is a very nicely constructed machined aluminum puzzle box. There are two versions of this puzzle, and Tim had the harder one.

I worked on this one for a while and didn't have much luck. Unfortunately, I saw Tim showing the solution to somebody, so I'm not sure how much longer this one would have taken me. The solution is fairly novel. You can order this puzzle with all sorts of different designs on the outside too.

Stan Leeb brought a tray packing puzzle that he had been working on in hopes that somebody could tell him the name of the designer. [Update: this puzzle was designed and made by Vladimir Krasnoukhov] I told him I didn't know, but he let me try solving it. I worked on it for about 5 minutes before discovering the solution. Stan was surprised to see that it was different than the solution that he had found, so he took a picture of it to remember.

It is a neat little tray puzzle that is reminiscent of Stewart Coffin's designs that require some out-of-the-box thinking. It also makes a nice pattern when it is complete, though yone wouldn't want to store it that way since it would give away the solution. I also liked that it has room for the extra piece in the frame.

Georg Hart brought a bunch of his 3D printed puzzles. This time he had some interesting torus-shaped puzzles. The one on the left is only two pieces, so it isn't too hard to solve. The one on the right is a little trickier with four pieces.

Here's another picture of some puzzles that were for sale. I'm not sure of the name of the craftsman [Update: this is the work of Henry Stroudt of Maine], but they are quite nicely made with contrasting woods laminated together to create an interesting effect. Brett purchased one of the trucks: the object is to pack the blocks in the back of the truck. A neat looking puzzle!

There were a few puzzles for sale, but nothing that really caught my eye. I did end up buying two puzzles from Rick Eason: Keyhole Cube and eL Perch.

Keyhole Cube consists of eight cubes that have various combinations of screws and keyholes in them. The object is to assemble the eight cubes into a 2x2x2 cube.

I didn't solve this one during my trip, but have solved it since I got back. I think it took me about 20-30 minutes. Once I thought I had solved it, I checked his website only to discover that you were supposed to solve it without using any twisting movements. Back to the drawing board! After a few more minutes I found a proper solution. Cool puzzle!

eL Perch is an interesting concept: the idea is to not only form a 3x3x3 cube from the pieces, but to form it in such a way so that it will balance on the perch without any pieces sliding off.

There are three solutions, and it took me about 30 minutes to find one of them. It was fun thinking about how to make the best use of the support that is available from the perch. The photo shows a solution that won't work: the last piece is not supported by anything and will slide off when placed.

Both puzzles are nicely finished and well crafted. I think he still has some available: you can get his email address from his website if you'd like to purchase one.

That brings us to the end of NYPP, but the fun didn't stop there. After the party we all headed out for dinner at a place called the Popover Cafe, which was quite tasty. I'm not quite as good at summarizing conversation as I am at talking about puzzles, so I'll leave that part to your imagination.

After dinner, we headed back to Brett's house and worked on a few more puzzles before heading to bed. What a day! And more puzzle fun to come the next day. Stay tuned!

New York Puzzle Party (Part 1)

This weekend I went down to New York City for the New York Puzzle Party. It is a yearly event organized by Tom Cutrofello, the mechanical puzzle correspondent for Games magazine. I was really looking forward to this event, since it would be a great chance to check out some puzzles I hadn't seen and to meet other puzzle people. Best of all, I would be staying at Brett Kuehner's house where I would have have plenty of time to try some of the puzzles in his great collection! I met Brett back in the fall during the puzzle dinner in New York that he organized.

I headed straight from work to Brett's place in New Jersey, and arrived at around 9:00 after a tiring but uneventful. Rob Stegmann of Rob's Puzzle Page was staying there as well, and was there when I arrived. Shortly after I got there, Rick Eason arrived, having driven all the way from Maine.

We sat around in Brett's living room for a bit and played around with some puzzles. The first one that I tried was this puzzle by Brett's brother. It was a one-of-a-kind puzzle that Brett had posted pictures of, so I couldn't wait to take a look at it.

It looked like a solid block of wood with a square rod passing through it. One end of the rod has a pin going through it. There are four holes drilled in the center of each of the other faces. The puzzle had a nice weight to it, and the finish and details were superb! Definitely a top-notch puzzle.

Brett told me that it didn't require hitting or spinning, so I did the only other thing I could think of doing to a box with holes in it (Brett said it was ok). I tried this action in every way I could think of, and didn't have much luck. I worked on it again on Saturday and Sunday, but this one had me stumped! Definitely one I would like to spend more time with at some point.

Next up, I was thrilled to get a chance to try Fulcrum Box (AKA Stickman #11) by Robert Yarger. I had seen pictures of this one before, and thought that it would be a fun box to try. Only 35 copies were made, so it is quite cool that Brett has one.

My first impression was that it was much smaller than I anticipated. With all those complex mechanics, I expected it to be pretty large, but as you can see in the picture it is fairly small. Still, the appearance is quite striking and makes you wonder how in the world it works. The craftsmanship was good, with a nice fit and finish.

I played around with it a bit, and actually found it to be fairly challenging, which was surprising since I had heard that it wasn't very difficult. I got the first compartment open after a bit of fiddling, but the second one was a bit more stubborn. I think it took me about a half hour to get the whole thing open.

Even though the mechanism is visible, it is still pretty tricky to figure out what is going on, partly because of the complexity and partly because I wasn't sure what was fixed and what could move. I think it is brilliant to have a box with a completely visible mechanism like this, yet still have it be a challenge. Very cool!

After trying these two puzzles, Brett busted out his Karakuri collection. First up, I tried Maze5+2steps by Hiroyuki Oka. This was his 2009 Christmas present, and has a clean, simple appearance. As you can expect with all of the Karakuri Club boxes, the fit and finish is extraordinary.

There are two compartments to this box, one of which is quite small and flat, small enough for a business card. It is very easy to find this first one, but finding the other one requires navigating a fairly tricky keyway. Overall I didn't find this one to be too difficult, I think it took me a few minutes.

The cool thing about this one is that you can easily discover the first compartment, but you could spend quite a bit more time finding the second one. The trick, however, is a fairly common trick that I had seen before, which is why it didn't take too long. For somebody not familiar with trick boxes, this could potentially take a while.

Next, I tried Two Steps of Drawers by Hideto Satou, his 2008 Christmas present. This is a nice looking little puzzle with two compartments.

There is one step required to open the first drawer, and one step to open the second drawer. I didn't find either of them to be particularly challenging and solved it in about a minute. Not my favorite due to its simplicity and I didn't find the moves to be particularly novel. Still, a nice little box that is well constructed.

After that, I tried Chip by Hiroyuki Oka, his 2007 Christmas present. This is a nice little box with an simple but interesting inlay on the outside. The "Chip" on the top is made out of several pieces of wood laminated together.

I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that there is a magnet in the chip, since it is immediately obvious once you touch it. I really liked this aspect of the puzzle, since he gives you a tool to help you discover how the box might open.

This little hint makes what might be a very difficult box for a non-puzzler to solve somewhat more managable, which I thought was nice. Plus, it makes for a more self-contained experience. The mechanism is not particularly novel, but I liked the presentation and it is very well constructed.

Here's a picture of Rob trying out Pinwheel by Bram Cohen and made by Jerry McFarland. I think I underestimated the difficulty of this puzzle in my initial review: sometimes the right move just strikes you, and it happened to strike me right away on this one. A lot of the serious puzzlers I showed it to this weekend had a tough time with it. I think the only person who got it apart was Rick Eason and he gave up on getting it back together.

Next in the Karakuri box lineup, I tried Moneybox by Hideto Satou. It is a nice looking box with a little coin slot and a colorful inlay. It came with the following warning: "Please don't use paper moneys and light coins. If you use them, some trouble will happen."

Well, after a warning like that, the solution seemed fairly obvious. It didn't appear to be working at first, but eventually I was able to get the box to open after a bit of fiddling. The solution to this one is a cool idea for a puzzle box: I believe that Akio Kamei's Money Bank operates with a similar theme, though the mechanism is different. This one wasn't too hard, but it had a cool mechanism and is quite well constructed.

This next box, Covered Type Secret Box by Yoshiyuki Ninomiya, is a great box. The geometric inlay on the outside is quite striking, and it is amazingly well constructed. It is just as you would expect from an 80-year-old master of the puzzle box craft.

Three sides have the inlay (the back right side in the picture is also inlaid) and three sides do not (the bottom and back left are not). This was a fairly tricky box to solve, but it does provide a hint to the observant puzzler. Because of this, I think this was one of my favorites of the Karakuri boxes that I tried that evening.

Brett knew that I also liked Perry McDaniel's work, so he also brought out Marbled Walnut Sheet Cake by Perry McDaniel. The craftsmanship, of course, is superb: it had a nice smooth finish with perfect joints.

I like his cake-themed puzzles, they have a lightheartedness that I enjoy. On the box he lists the nutritional contents: plenty of fiber and a little bit of iron! This one is quite difficult, requiring several moves to open.

I have played around with a bunch of puzzles similar to this, so I think it only took me about ten minutes to get it open and shut, but I was unable to get it to open and shut reliably. I'm not sure if it was me or the puzzle! Still, a cool box that was quite a challenge. If you're not familiar with this type of puzzle, it could take you quite a while!

Well, at this point it was about 1:00AM and everybody was getting pretty tired. Plus, we had to get up around 7:30 tomorrow to get to NYPP on time, so we decided to head to bed. What an awesome night, and I'm sure there would be tons of puzzling goodness to come!

A big thanks to Brett for hosting us at his house and letting me try out these great puzzles, it made for a great weekend of puzzling! More to come about the rest of the weekend.

Stewart Coffin Visit

Today was the day that I got to visit the home of world famous puzzle designer and craftsman, Stewart Coffin! Stewart is a legend in the puzzle community, so I was thrilled when John Devost offered to introduce me to him. He only lives about 30 minutes away from me in Andover, MA, which is the town where I grew up.

When I arrived, I was greeted by his wife Mary waving at me through the window. I was welcomed by Stewart at the door where I shook his hand and I introduced myself. After taking off my coat, we all sat down at the kitchen table where I set down the box of puzzles that I had brought.

First, I pulled out three hexstick puzzles that I had borrowed from John, since I thought Stewart would get a kick out of seeing John's excellent work reproducing his design, Four-Color Hexsticks, as well as some variations, Hextasy and Hectix Revisited.

He played around a bit with each of them and was quite impressed by John's attention to detail. He loved the fine detail on the beveled ends of the pieces. After taking Hectix Revisited apart somewhat and putting it back together, he disassembled Hextasy to see the different pieces.

While he was looking at these puzzles, Stuart told me about about how he 3M mass produced Hectix many years ago. They had no trouble casting the parts very quickly, but the union labor to assemble the puzzles was costing them a fortune! He told them to send the parts to him and paid a bunch of kids 2 cents a puzzle to assemble them, which wasn't too bad for those days.

He proudly told me that one of his daughters could assemble four of them per minute, and got so good at it that she could do it by touch alone. In fact, he once did a live show on public access TV about puzzles and she assembled it with a blindfold on!

Next, I took out Bram Cohen's Pinwheel, made by Jerry McFarland. Mary was quite amused by this one and remarked that it was a nice looking puzzle. Stewart also seemed quite impressed by its appearance. He fiddled around with it for a little while, but confessed that he wasn't much of a solver, so I offered to show him the solution. He chuckled as it slid apart and marvelled at the intricate pieces. I explained as much as I could about the CNC process Jerry used to craft them.

As I was putting it back together, Stewart went over to his shelves and pulled out a few puzzles that he thought I might find interesting. First, he brought out a beautiful copy of Jupiter, designed by Stewart and made by Bart Buie. Mary told me how if you spun it in the air it would go flying apart, but that Stewart didn't let her do it because it took him a while to get it back together.

He carefully slid it apart and disassembled it far enough that I could see what one of the pieces looked like. Very cool! It would have been fun to take it apart, but I didn't want to risk leaving it in disarray, so we put it back together again.

As we were doing this, he told me about how he used to sell puzzles at crafts fairs, and that this design used to be the centerpiece of his booth. He used to show people how you could throw it up in the air to fling the pieces apart and told the audience that if anybody could put it back together, they could have it. The adults were reluctant to try, since they don't want to risk failure, and it is a tricky puzzle! The children didn't have much luck either.

Sometimes he would plant one of his daughters in the audience, and she would come up, assemble it quickly, and then walk off with it. I'm sure that was quite amusing for everybody involved. When I hear about him selling at crafts fairs, it always makes me hopeful that I'll find some brilliant puzzle craftsman at a craft show, but unfortunately I haven't seen one yet! Can you imagine running into a booth with such amazing puzzles?

Stewart also told me that Jupiter was quite difficult to glue together, and he actually needed a machinist friend of his to help make a jig to glue it together! Quite a process, eh? Here's a picture of me and Stuart, with him holding Jupiter. As you can see, it is a pretty large puzzle.

Next, I played around a bit with a puzzle he named Cruiser (#167 in his design numbering system), since he enjoys taking it on cruises to stump folks.

This one is deceptively tricky, since the right angles of the pieces don't fit into the corners, as you would expect. Even with this hint, I didn't have much luck with this one. I worked on it for a while and Mary chuckled each time I put a right angle in a corner and reminded me that it wouldn't work.

Eventually, I conceded defeat and he showed me where the first piece went. With that hint, it still took me a minute or two to finished it. I need more practice on these tray packing puzzles: they look so simple that it makes you feel foolish not to solve them quicker, but they can be pretty tough!

Speaking of tough packing puzzles, I also tried Four Fit (#217), which I also had a tough time with. Fortunately, before I started he told me that Martin Gardener (another big name in the puzzle world) concluded that it was impossible, so I didn't feel quite as bad. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to get a picture of this one, so this picture is of Tom Lensch's version (photo by Tom Lensch).

I ended up giving up on this one as well, since it didn't seem like I was going to be able to figure it out any time soon. (It is tricky making conversation and solving at the same time!) The solution is quite tricky: I think it could have taken me many days to figure this one out!

Another one that he showed me was design #242. It comes as is shown in the picture, and the goal is to figure out what to do with the extra pieces. It looked hard enough to get it to the state it was currently in, so I didn't have the guts to completely disassemble this one. It looks like an interesting puzzle though!

While I was working on this, Stewart played around with 4-Play by Bill Cutler, which I recently picked up from Eureka for John. He wasn't too interested in the 4 dimensional aspect of this puzzle, but he worked for quite a while on the 3 dimensional problem. If you are baffled by the 4D/3D thing, I'll be doing an entry on this puzzle at some point with more details.

After he got tired of working on this one, I showed him Cast Marble by Bram Cohen, which I thought he might enjoy since it is an interesting dissection. He got a real kick out of how this one came apart and laughed out loud when I showed it to him. An entry about this puzzle will be coming soon as well.

Finally, the part I'm sure many of you were waiting for: I took a bunch of pictures of the various puzzles he had on display. There are some very cool puzzles that I'm sure you'll recognize. Help me identify them in the comments if you'd like, and I'll add some captions to the pictures!

After taking a look at his collection, I pulled out Frand's Mind Bender from my box of puzzles, just to show him some of the work I had done. Of course, it isn't really a mechanical puzzle, but I think he still thought it was pretty neat.

Well, that's about it! I had a great time and I hope Stuart did as well. It was really an honor to meet a man who has contributed so much to the puzzle community. A big thanks to Stuart and Mary for welcoming me into their home, and thanks to John Devost for introducing us. I hope to return again soon!

Pinwheel

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of trying one of Jerry McFarland's newest creations, Pinwheel, designed by Bram Cohen. John Devost recently added it to the puzzle library over at RenegadePuzzlers.ca and was kind enough to loan it to me.

As you can see, it is a beautiful looking puzzle. It has gone through several design iterations by Bram, which you can read about on the Pinwheel section of Jerry's page. A smaller, laser cut version of this puzzle was used as Bram's exchange puzzle for IPP29.

The version I tried did not have the contrasting woods laminated together like in this picture (all photos are by Jerry). Rather, alternating pieces were made completely out of light or dark woods (I think cherry and walnut), which gives it a striking appearance.

It is made of six identical and quite oddly shaped pieces. I was surprised that it was a bit of a challenge to take it apart. I knew it was a coordinate motion puzzle and just assumed that all the pieces would slide apart fairly easily. Not so! Some manipulation is required before the pieces will slide apart.

It took me a minute or two to figure it out, but I could imagine that it could potentially take quite a bit longer. I just had an instinct about what to do, and it turned out to be correct. My girlfriend was pretty stumped by it, so it is definitely not a trivial puzzle. She also really liked the appearance.

Even after solving it, I had a great time just playing around with the pieces, taking it apart, and putting it back together. There are two dead-ends that you can reach while trying to disassemble it, though I didn't hit these during my attempt to solve it, my girlfriend did.

I think one of the coolest things about this puzzle is the way it was constructed. Jerry machined each piece out of a solid block of wood using a CNC milling machine. How cool is that? I wish I had one and knew how to use it!

Overall, this is a great puzzle that I would recommend. Jerry hasn't set a price yet, but when he does, you can contact him to buy it [Update: the price is $225]. I'll be bringing it down to the New York Puzzle Party in February so other folks can check it out.

Thanks to John Devost for making this review possible! Coming up next, I'll be reviewing some puzzle boxes I got from Bits and Pieces.

John Devost Hex Stick Puzzles

Back in November on the RenegadePuzzlers.ca forum, I was engaging in a lively debate about whether or not Robert "Stickman" Yarger should consider having one of his designs mass produced by Bits and Pieces. Being a cheapskate, I was advocating that he should in order to allow more people to appreciate his brilliant designs. Of course, the opposing point of view is that the quality of their puzzles is quite terrible, and it would be unfortunate to butcher such a nice design.

John Devost was commenting on the sloppy precision of their version of Stewart Coffin's Four Color Hexsticks, which they sold under the name Starbust Puzzle. As you can see from the picture (and as John pointed out), the gaps are quite large.

I replied that for $10 this was fine with me, but John said not waste my money on it and offered to loan me his copy of Four Color Hexsticks as well as three other hex-stock puzzles he had built! Well, of course this was an offer that I couldn't refuse!

When I received them, I decided to try Four Color Hexsticks first. This puzzle is described here in Stewart Coffin's book The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections (online for free here). There are two types of pieces in this twelve-piece puzzle: nine with two notches and three with three notches. These pieces can be assembled into an interlocking structure in three different ways.

As Coffin notes, when constructed out of four different colors of wood such that the three notch pieces are all the same color, two of the three solutions can have an interesting color symmetry. In the first solution the colors are rotationally symmetrical and in the second solution pieces of the same color are parallel.

I had a lot of fun playing around with this puzzle and the craftsmanship is superb. It is made out of Benge, Wenge, Purpleheart, and Lacewood and looks gorgeous (photo by John). John Devost has a "triple-buffing" process that gives the pieces a great shine and durability. The fit was perfect! I could definitely see how the Bits and Pieces version could make you shudder when you are striving for this level of perfection!

As a puzzle, this is great because the three solutions are of varying levels of difficulty. The first one I found without too much trouble. It was the first thing I could think of to try and it ended up working.

The second solution was a bit more difficult, but due to Coffin's note about the pieces of the same color being parallel in this solution, it was quite a bit easier than I think it would have been otherwise. The third solution eluded me for a little while, but after playing with the other puzzles that John sent me, I was able to figure it out as well. Overall, a fun puzzle!

The next one I tried was Gamex, which John said was one of the easier of the four. It was made out of wenge, which is a beautiful dark wood (photo by John). It is a Bill Cutler design.

I didn't find it too challenging after having done Four Color Hexsticks: the pieces are quite similar with one minor difference that restricts it to only one solution. Unlike Four Color Hexsticks, Gamex has no redundant notches, so the final assembly is solid.

Next, I attempted Hextasy which is a design by Ronald Kint-Bruynseels. I was a bit confused by this one at first, since the prior two puzzles came apart into twelve notched sticks I assumed that the pieces must have gotten stuck together accidently.

I tried to pull them apart for a bit before I realized that they were supposed to be glued together (I'm sure John is cringing reading this). Oops! Fortunately they were very well glued!

It is a nice looking puzzle made out of African Avodire and comes apart into six pieces (photo by John). There are three pairs of identical pieces. Interestingly, all of the twelve sticks that make up the pieces are identical. One pair contains just one stick each, one pair contains two sticks each, and one pair contains three sticks each. A very elegant design!

I didn't have too much trouble solving this one, and ended up discovering two solutions that are slightly different. I think it took me about 10-15 minutes, but I was getting the hang of these puzzles due to my experience with Four-color Hexsticks and Gamex. As Ronald said, this puzzle is a "demonstration of the fact that the good old familiar puzzles still have some things hidden inside."  This was his 2009 entry into the Puzzle Design Competition.

Finally, I attempted the hardest of the bunch, Hectix Revisited, by Bill Cutler. It is made out of lacewood and like all of these puzzles made by John, the construction and fit is superb! (photo by John)

Since I wanted to solve this difficult puzzle with no additional information, I had my girlfriend disassemble it for me. It indeed quite difficult and was designed to be so! Bill mentions on his website that he looked for a set of pieces that would satisfy the following conditions:

1. Use as many different pieces as possible
2. Only one solution
3. Many assemblies
4. As difficult to disassemble as possible

Of these conditions, I think #1 and #2 were the biggest factors in making it difficult, since there were so many different options for the placement of a given piece, only one of which was correct.

I played around with this one for many hours, probably approaching 10 or so. I kept going around in circles and couldn't figure out what to do with one piece that was particularly tricky to place. (I just noticed now that this is the same piece that makes up all of the pieces in Hextasy, I wish I had noticed this before!) I had a hypothesis for how it needed to assemble, but I couldn't quite figure it out.

Eventually I yielded and asked John for a hint. When giving me the hint, John mentioned that he and Stewart Coffin also needed a hint from Bill, so I didn't feel too bad. After getting the hint, I could see that I was pretty close. Due to the many hours I had already spent on it I was able to finish it up in about 10 minutes with this additional info. Phew! It was quite a relief to finally have this one back together.

Of the four, I think Hectix Revisited was my favorite. Four-color Hexsticks is a close second, I really like the multiple solutions, but it doesn't come together quite as nicely because there are three redundant notches in the design to facilitate the multiple solutions. Hectix Revisited has exactly as many notches as are necessary, which gives it a snugness that I liked. Plus, it was a real challenge!

A big thanks to John Devost for loaning me these puzzles, I had a great time with them. He is an excellent craftsman!

Bronze Revomaze

I was able to give the Bronze Revomaze a try thanks to John Devost's puzzle library over at RenegadePuzzlers.ca. This is the third puzzle in a series of five. Check out my blog entry about the Blue Revomaze for more information about this series of puzzles. I also have a review of my experience with the Green Revomaze.

This one turned out to be a real beast, as I expected (and hoped!) The folks on the Revomaze forum say that this puzzle takes the concept to a whole different level, and they were right. I spent probably close to 10 hours working on this one, which is more than double what the previous two took.

At first, I was going along at a fairly good clip and exploring the various paths at the beginning of the puzzle. The first thing that struck me is that this one is the first in the series that isn't simple to reset. There is a trap near the beginning that is a bit of a challenge to get out of. After a while, I understood that tricky area fairly well, but couldn't figure out how to proceed. It seemed like every possible avenue had been explored, and I was just coming up with dead ends.

After being stuck for a few hours, I perused the Revomaze forums a bit and saw that people who were having trouble were told to look for a hint hidden on the website. Since I was stuck for a while, I decided to see if I could find the hint. I was able to find it without too much trouble and I was quite delighted by what it implied: the Bronze really is a tricky puzzle!

With this hint in hand, I was able to figure out how to proceed, but almost immediately afterwards I got stuck again! Everything I tried ended in a trap, so I gave up for the night and went to bed.

The next morning, I was able to find the way forward (it is quite sneaky!) and progressed quite a bit further. After making some more progress, I again got stuck at a very tricky spot near the end and needed to take a break for a while. Later that day, I worked on it again and was finally able to figure out what was going on and solve the damn thing.

Phew! As far as puzzles go, this one is a real marathon: I felt completely exhausted and satisfied when I finally finished it. The first two are very hard, but are possible with enough effort. This one I think many people will find too difficult and quit. I am a bit concerned/intimidated as to how difficult the Silver and Gold will be! I have heard that people are spending 50+ hours on the Silver one, so it is sure to be an incredible challenge.

In conclusion, I'd say that the Bronze is my favorite of the bunch so far. It is more clever and less frustrating than Green. Even though it is probably too difficult for many people, it is quite ingenious and well designed. Definitely try one of the earlier ones before you tackle this, or you'll end up chucking it through a window.

I love how these puzzles really play on your assumptions and make you think outside the box to come up with a solution. That, and they transport your focus into this unseen world within the Revomaze where you gradually develop an understanding of how the puzzle is laid out. I still haven't written down any maps for these: I find that I end up travelling through the maze so many times that I develop a pretty clear mental picture of it. It is quite an experience!

A big thanks to John Devost for making this series of reviews possible!

To read another review of the Bronze Revomaze, check out Oli's blog entry here.

My Puzzle Nemesis Vanquished!

Well those of you who have been following my blog for a while will know that I have been struggling with Dick Hess's Yak for about a year now. In fact, I wrote about it way back in my fifth blog entry (I am up to #70 now)! I bought it from Eureka on the recommendation of David, the owner, back in December of 2008. He warned me that it was quite difficult, but I figured I could handle it.

It turns out that I could not handle it, and I worked on this damn puzzle on-and-off for a year. I even bought other Dick Hess puzzles of the same variety in the hopes that they would give me some insight: first The Whale (left) in September 2009 and then Brontosaurus (below) in January 2010.

Well thanks to solving these two puzzles, I was finally able to solve The Yak! And it was every bit as satisfying as I hoped it would be. The solution is very tricky due to the many futile things that you can do while trying to solve it. I kept thinking I was discovering a key move that would help, but then it would lead to a dead end.

They are all nicely crafted puzzles: The Yak that held up very well to the many hours I spent working on it. The wire is a nice gauge that resists forcing but is still light and elegant. The finish still has a great shine to it.

While The Yak is an awesome puzzle, I'd definitely suggest trying out The Wale and/or Brontosaurus before trying this one. Even though Brontosaurus is rated a 10/10 difficulty, the same as the Yak, I found it to be quite a bit easier. I think The Whale took me about 30 minutes and Brontosaurus took me about 45 minutes.

The Whale helped me understand what the pre-solve state of this group of puzzles looked like, since there weren't very many options for how to proceed other than to discover it. This helped focus my attention and is why this puzzle is a bit easier than the others. Still, I think most people would find this fairly challenging. I wish the key move was slightly easier to execute on this one: I felt like I needed a very small amount of force at one point, but I may have not been lining it up quite right.

The Brontosaurus is quite similar to The Whale and now that I know how to solve it, I am surprised at how long it took me to figure it out. The move is not that tricky once you've done The Whale. Perhaps I wasn't focused enough or in the right frame of mind at first.

All three are related to a topological construct named Borromean Rings, where three rings are linked together but removing any one ring will unlink the remaining two. When you look at each of these three puzzles, you will notice that none of the pieces are actually linked directly: each component is linked completely around another component, much like this diagram.

This, at least for me, made these puzzles quite confounding at first. They seem to thwart you at every turn until you think logically about how to approach them. I would highly recommend all of them!

Well this entry is a little out of order: there are a few items in my backlog at the moment, but I was so thrilled to have finished it that I wanted to write it while I was still in the moment. Woo hoo!

Bird In The Nest and Mini Secret Box

Two of the puzzles I got for Christmas from my parents were Bird In The Nest and Mini Secret Box from Bits and Pieces. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Bird In The Nest is a puzzle by Vladimir Krasnoukhov and James Dalgety that was an entry in the 2007 Puzzle Design Competition at the International Puzzle Party. I really didn't know what to expect from this puzzle, because it was unlike anything I had seen before. The object is to free the bird from the nest.

I fiddled around with this for a while before I started to understand how the pieces were interacting. Eventually I was able to remove the bird, but I continued and took the rest of the puzzle apart and tried to put it back together. In all, I think it took me about 10-20 minutes to solve this one.

However, due to the imprecision of the construction, the pieces that should be identical are not actually interchangeable. If you don't put the pieces back where they came from, the seams can look pretty ugly, and it also makes it more obvious which pieces of wood are connected.

Despite this, I was overall quite satisfied with the quality of this puzzle, though the beak of the bird is quite fragile and was chipped a bit. I would just suggest keeping careful track of the locations of the pieces when you disassemble it, and perhaps numbering them to avoid confusion. That said, trying to figure out which piece goes where is a puzzle in itself, even though it wasn't intended to be!

For the price, this is a nice little puzzle! I had a good time with it as did the other folks that I have showed it to. Due to the somewhat fragile nature of the edges of the pieces, I would be hesitant to have folks who might be careless play with it unsupervised.

Mini Secret Box was designed by Doug Engel. I put this one on my 'wish list' because Jeff Chiou mentioned that it was simple but clever and that his wife really likes it. Plus, it is quite inexpensive!

The quality of this puzzle is fairly good, though I found the mechanism to be a bit stiff. When I was solving it, I wasn't sure if I was breaking it. This feeling was common among folks that I showed it to at Christmas.

This one took me maybe 1-2 minutes to solve, and the folks that I have shown it to only took a few minutes to solve it as well. This is a bit too simple for my taste, but it is a good starter puzzle to show to people who don't have much patience.

Still, the price is great and the solution is clever, so I would still recommend this puzzle. Just don't expect it to keep you busy for too long!

2009 Karakuri Club Christmas Presents

The Karakuri Creation Group is a group of puzzle box craftsmen and craftswomen who are producing some of the most interesting puzzle box designs you can find. They have an interesting business model where you can pay an annual membership fee of $120 that allows you to purchase KCG boxes at a discount and receive a free Christmas present from the craftsman of your choice. In addition, you can buy extra presents for $100 each, which is a great deal considering the high quality of KCG's boxes.

These are new designs that haven't previously been released to the public, no you have no idea what you're going to get, which is kind of fun. It is also an interesting model for the craftsmen to work in, because they have the freedom to design what they want with the preorders already in place. Of course, you can also buy directly from them without a membership.

I got three boxes this year and had them shipped to my office, since I was concerned that they might be stolen from in front of my apartment. When they arrived, I told myself that I was going to pace myself and only solve one per day.

When they arrived, I took them all out of their packaging so I could admire them. The first box that I examined was a cute little anteater by Yoko Kakuda (I had requested Ninomiya but they ran out). When I looked at it, I immediately thought to myself "man, I'm going to be really disappointed if all you have to do is ________," and sure enough that was the solution.  Oh well!

It does have a nice appearance and is very solidly built. I showed it to my girlfriend and some family members, and most of them spent about 2-3 minutes figuring it out. This surprised me, since I had immediately discovered the solution, so perhaps it isn't as easy as I thought! One aspect that I like is that box pops open when you solve it, which is kind of a nice surprise when you figure out how to do it.

The next one that I unpacked was Irregular Twin Box by Akio Kamei (picture by Jeffrey Aurand). It looks very similar to Confetto Box, which was Hiroshi Iwahara's gift last year, so I was optimistic that this would be a fun box to solve. Still, I told myself that I would wait until tomorrow to attempt it, so I set it on my desk and went back to work.

After a few moments, I thought that I would just try to slide one of the panels a bit to see if I could get anything to move. After a minute or so of fiddling, I had a pretty good idea of how the mechanism worked, but I stopped myself before completely opening the box and went back to work. A few moments later, I couldn't resist and finished opening it.

In all, it probably only took me about 2-3 minutes to solve, but the mechanism is very cool! I was quite impressed. As you would expect from Kamei, the construction is flawless and the wood has a very nice appearance. I tried this one out with my family and they also found it fairly easy, but were also very impressed by the mechanism.

The last box that I unpacked was Four Direction Drawers by Hiroshi Iwahara (picture by Jeffrey Aurand). Like the name implies, there are four drawers, one on each side of the box. There was a card that came with the puzzle saying that the objective is to open all four drawers completely.

The woods that he selected make for a very nice looking box. He alternates between light and dark wood for each level, uses a reddish wood for the drawer faces and an almost black wood for the drawer pulls. (Sorry, I can't identify wood types yet). Because of its design, it doesn't really have a front, which would make it great for a coffee table or a desk.

Again, trying to exercise restraint, I told myself that I would just fiddle with it a little bit, but I ended up discovering part of the mechanism. I stopped myself for a while, but ended up working on it again a few minutes later. After about 5-10 minutes, I had solved it, which was quite satisfying. The mechanism is very cool!

This one has a number of moves, unlike the other two, which I found more satisfying since it took a bit longer. It is also quite a bit more difficult than the other two. I tried it out on some family members over Christmas, and it took some of them 20-30 minutes to figure it out.

This one is definitely my favorite of the three, though Kamei's is a close second! Overall, I was quite satisfied with my purchases and will plan to get more next year. I do wish that the first two were a bit more challenging, but the craftsmanship was superb. Kamei's and Iwahara's boxes had very clever mechanisms as well.

Green Revomaze

I got a chance to try out the Green Revomaze, courtesy of John Devost's puzzle library over at RenegadePuzzlers.ca. This is the second puzzle in the series of five. Check out my blog entry about the Blue Revomaze for more information about this series of puzzles.

The Green Revomaze is a bit harder than the Blue version, and incorporates an interesting feature that took me a little while to overcome. I explored the beginning of the maze for a while, but it seems like no matter where I went there was a trap! I was stuck at this point for a while until I discovered the way to proceed. Like with the Blue Revomaze, I had this revelation right after I woke up: perhaps I do my best puzzling early in the morning!

I found the next part of this maze to be somewhat less enjoyable: remember in my previous entry when I mentioned that it would be really annoying if you needed to cross a long winding bridge with traps on both sides? Well, there is one in this puzzle. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying this since you can't really help but notice it while solving it (there is no a-ha moment), but let me know if you feel differently.

Interestingly, this wasn't quite as annoying as I had anticipated: you can sort of feel when you are about to fall off if you move very slowly, so that helped me quite a bit. Still, it is not a feat that I could reproduce 100% of the time. Perhaps with practice I could get good at it, but even now I'd probably succeed much less than 50% of the time. I really hope that the next puzzles in the series aren't like this, because is could be extremely difficult/annoying!

Overall, though, I would say that this is a solid puzzle that is worth getting. In terms of difficulty, this is quite a challenging puzzle: it took me about 3-4 hours to solve it. Some folks who prefer shorter solve times may be put off by the long solve times in this series, but so far I have really enjoyed these puzzles. Since you have a sense of progress when you succeed in exploring further than you were previously able to, these puzzles grip my attention quite a bit more than many others.

I look forward to seeing what the Bronze will be like. I read that the Blue is like a trainer to build your understanding of how these puzzes work, the Green has a few tricks thrown in to build upon Blue, and the Bronze is really a whole new evolution of this type of puzzle. I agree with most people's advice that you should try the Blue before the Green, but it isn't necessary. The Blue is a bit more straightforward than the Green, but it is still a definite challenge worth trying to conquor.

In my previous post I had complained a bit about how my hand got sore when playing with these puzzles, and I think I experienced less of it this time around now that my hand is getting stronger and more accustomed to navigating a Revomaze. I find that I am most productive when I work in sessions of 30-60 minutes. Much more than that and the fatigue causes me to make mistakes, which is very frustrating and counterproductive.

Sorry I have been a bit slow on the updates recently: my computer's hard drive failed and I have been busy restoring things, and I've also been pretty busy over the holidays. Lots more reviews coming up: some hexagonal puzzles from John Devost (once I finish solving them...), my three Karakuri Club Christmas presents, and a few presents I got from my family from Bits and Pieces.