Holey 6 Board Burr - Juno by Brian Young (2012)

I received this puzzle recently, it’s a really cool design by Juno and of course very nicely crafted from Tasmanian Oak with Tasmanian Blackwood centre by Brian.

This copy is #24 from a run of 30.

I was quite surprised to see how large this puzzle is, it’s 8” long!

You can still purchase an acrylic laser cut version at 

Mr Puzzle 

Here’s the original description:

“With 540 false assemblies and only 1 Level 3-3-10-9-2 solution, this puzzle is a good challenge. Lucky the puzzle is being sold assembled because we have doubts that there are many puzzlers in the world who could assemble it from scratch.

When Junichi was about 20 years old he knew that the standard 6 piece burr had already been fully analysed by computer by Bill Cutler so he set about creating a different type of 6 piece burr.

He knew that the end profile of the assembled 6 piece burr was a 2 x 4 grid and he realised it was possible to divide that grid pattern in different ways. Hence, he designed his first board burr back then in 1990.

That makes it more than 20 years ago since he designed his first board burr and to our knowledge, this may have been the first time the concept of board burrs had been thought of.

Eventually, the board burrs were also analysed; work done by Frans de Vreugd and Bill Cutler in early 2002. So in 2009 Junichi again added a completely new feature to one of his designs to make this very unusual puzzle.

The holes in the end of the burr are this feature and they are an integral part of the working puzzle.”

Squares and Triangles by Igor Prelutskiy - IPP 28 Prague Exchange- Made by OKSVA

There are three goals to this tray puzzle:

1 - Put together the 12 pieces into the circle hollow.

2 - Take 3pieces of one colour and assemble them into a regular hexagon + a regular dodecagon figure.

3 - Take 3 pieces of another colour and assemble them into a figure with two lines of symmetry.

3 Colour Problem V-27 - Andrej Cibulis - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

 

This is an elaborate tray packing puzzle with 28 different challenges.  It consists of 27 well know pieces of V-trominoes with a tray size of 9x9.

The main problem is to fill the tray so as to minimize the number of contact points.

The main task is to fill the tray so that each color meets exactly in one point.

This puzzle was inspired by Vee-21 which can be seen at Kate Jones website Kadon.

Schickspiral - Andreas Schicks & Svenja Schicks & Stephan Schmulling - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

 

This is a cool puzzle/game that is very well made.

There are many challenges with 3 different game objectives.

I’ve also added photos of ‘the making of’ this puzzle from Andreas’ gallery page:

You can see more at Andreas’ website.

Rota Box - Lucie Pauwels by Bruno Hemon

Lucie designs some really cool puzzles but this one literally stopped me in my tracks!

These (restricted opening) packing puzzles are not to be taken lightly, they are some of the most difficult puzzles to solve.  

I typically start by finding an assembly outside of the box then continue on to figure out the best way to insert the pieces in the box.  If did take quite a while to find the assembly, fitting the pieces in the box didn’t take all that long.

Be sure to drop by Bruno’s Etsy Shop to see what’s available:

You can read more about Bruno’s 3D printing journey in relation to this particular puzzle here at Bruno’s Blog.

Jungle Puzzle Part 1 - Back to Nature by Raman Bah Tuin - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Yee Dian Lee

Dissentanglement puzzles can be some of the most confusing that you’ll ever come across and this one certainly fall under that category.

As you can see from the background description in the photo, these puzzles are traditional playthings in Malaysia.

Obviously your goal is to remove the string and subsequently replace it on the cane..

Hooked Cube by Vaclav Obsivac - IPP 28 Prague Exchanged by Patrick Major

This is another great cube design by Vaclav.  His puzzles are just so much fun to play with, if you don’t have any in your collection then you’re missing out.

I gleaned the following from the internet that pretty much sums up this style of cube puzzles:

“A strict definition of a half-cube is one part of the dissection of a cube into two identical parts. Both parts have the same shape and volume. The dissection may be a single cut along a orthogonal  or a diagonal reflection plane or a more elaborate combination of cuts resulting even in half-cubes separating along one axis only. Puzzles made from half-cubes separating in many directions are in general assembly- or box-filling puzzles; but puzzles from half-cubes separating along one axis only are interlocking. We can broaden this definition by allowing cube dissections producing mirror images as half-cubes as well.  Designing puzzles on the basis of half-cubes involves changing them so mutants are created that no longer have the volume of half the cube. The definition of a pair of “mutant half-cubes” is any dissection of a cube in two pieces. Here both shape and volume may be different, the only condition is that the two pieces combine into a cube. This definition allows many different pairs of mutant half-cubes.”

Wedge Cube Too by Vaclav Obsivac - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Tim Udall

All of Vaclav’s puzzles are terrific this one is one of the coolest I’ve come across in quite some time.  

This is a difficult assembly cube with 10 solutions but finding just one will require some thought.

One can be found that assembled by joining two halves while there are two solutions using co-ordinate motion!

This little cube packs a punch.

Twin Pyramid - Marcel Gillen - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Alain Zalmanski

Much like Marcel’s ‘Pyramid of Cheops’ this puzzle requires not only one pyramid but two!

Yeah as you probably already figured out it’s a very difficult assembly puzzle with one unique solution.

As I mentioned previously these type of ball type puzzles are of a type that are quite mind bending as they just don’t seem to want to fit together.  It’s another awesome puzzle.

Pieces are from Kubi-Games.

Soccer Ball Path - Marcel Gillen - IPP 28 Exchange by Carlos Gitt

This is an extremely difficult puzzle designed and crafted by Marcel.

Obviously the goal is to not only form a continuous path on the exterior of the soccer ball but simply assembling it into that shape takes a lot of trial and error to fit the two different sized pentagon shaped pieces.

The glass bowl with the styrofoam ball at the centre certainly helps but..

Whenever I see puzzles my mind instantly goes to how someone would make the pieces and this one has me stumped?

It’s a very cool puzzle!

Old Dog, New Trick by Peter Hajek - Handcrafted by Master Potter Petr Kabat - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

I was unaware of Puzzle Vessels until I noticed this category described by John Rausch on Puzzle World:

“Puzzle vessels are the oldest known mechanical puzzles. Several Phoenician puzzle vessels are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They have been made throughout history and reached their peak in ninth century Turkey. 

 

The puzzle part of these vessels is to drink from them without spilling the contents. They have holes all over the place! There is usually a hidden or disguised hole that must be drunk from like a straw while covering selected others with your fingers. Often, the liquid is designed to be drawn up through the handle and around the diameter of the vessel to the drinking hole. 

 

Many of the vessels are beautiful examples of the potter's art. I wish I had more photographs to include because they are certainly examples of high-quality handcrafted puzzles.”

Peter included this on the information card:

“Despite their ancient origin, puzzle vessels did not run out of innovation just yet (see William Waite’s creations).  This jug is a modest contribution to the genre, adding a variation to the most common design - though I just heard that a related idea may have been used in a Victorian jug.”

Cairo Cork Coaster Puzzle by Sjaak Griffioen - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

This is a really cool puzzle set that features some finely cut cork into non-regular pentangle shaped pieces.

Instruction sheet offers 6 challenges and includes 12 different cork pentangles with all possible combinations of inside and outside curved long sides.

It looks as if two hexagonal patterns cross each other so this tiling can be found in the streets of Cairo, Egypt, hence the name of this puzzle.

Made by LaserExact - Hans van der Zon

Pyramid of Cheops by Marcel Gillen - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Rene Dawir

You would think that balls attached in various configurations would make for an easy pyramid assembly but I’m here to tell you that you’d be wrong, I’ve found this type of puzzle to be very, very difficult!

Here’s Marcel’s description:

“This pyramid puzzle was René Dawir's contribution to the Edward Hordern Puzzle Exchange that was held at IPP28 (International Puzzle Party) hosted in Prague in August of 2008.

The goal of the puzzle:
Build a 5x5 square pyramid using the 16 elements. The pieces are not allowed to touch each other with their inner angles. There are 3 different types of elements that include either 3 or 4 balls per element.”

Ball in Maze by Rik van Grol - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

 

This is an intricate maze puzzle that is a lot of fun to play with.

The centre maze rotates and leads to many false paths along the way, so not an easy task and requires some planning to retrieve the ball.

Daily Calendar - Oskar van Deventer & Wei-Hwa Huang by George Miller - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Tanya Thompson

Apparently Oskar originally came up with this idea back in 1986 using five plates, then in 2003 Wei took on the design and created this version with only four plates.

George made a prototype in 2007 and then made this version for the 2008 exchange in Prague.

The object is to combine the plates to correctly display the current day..it’s a fun one!

Colour Cube by Steve Kemp - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

This neat puzzle uses magnetic tiles that need to be placed on the cube by following the objectives below:

Goal: 
1. Place the 24 magnetic tiles on the base cube so that all the edge colors match.
2. Place the 24 magnetic tiles on the base cube so that the edge colors do not match (ignoring diagonals).

Materials: Polystyrene, tinplate, plastic film, card and magnetic rubber sheet.

Pack the Ropes - Timo Jokitalo - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

When I first got this packing puzzle it immediately brought me back to my construction days of packing things into my toolbox.

This unique puzzle uses actual rope lengths that need to be packed into the box and complete shut the lid, yeah not as easy at appears..

Flower Power by Marcel Gillen - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

This tray puzzle is probably the coolest I’ve ever seen!  The feel of the pieces are unlike anything I’ve encountered before and of course the design is superb.

The instruction sheet shows other challenges that can be accomplished outside of the tray.

Air by George Hart

This is another 3D Printed puzzle similar to George’s ‘Fire’ design but with more pieces.

Here’s George’s description:

“This puzzle consists of four identical components that screw together. 

It is made of nylon by selective laser sintering. The name comes from 

Plato's association of the octahedron with the classical element of Air. 

(I previously made a 2-part Fire puzzle and a 3-part Earth puzzle,

so guess what I'll be making next year.)

I made 105 of these as my IPP31 exchange puzzle. 

Separately, the pieces look like this.  It is tricky to put them all together.

Here is the text on the sheet inside the box:”

Air is a screw-together octahedron made of four identical nylon parts, dyed red, yellow, blue, and green. The name is taken from Plato’s proto-chemical mysticism, in which the octahedron represents the classical element of Air. It is split along four helicoid surfaces whose axes are aligned with a four-fold, long diagonal. I chose the helicoid pitch to make 1.5 revolutions.  It is in the series with my earlier Earth, and Fire puzzles. This is one instance within a family of related screw dissections that others have also explored. Martin Gardner credits a related three-piece cube dissection to John E. Morse. [The Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix, Prometheus Books, 1985, p. 319]  William Huff describes related forms used as exercises in an architectural design class. [William Huff, “Trisecting the Cube”]  Another three-piece screw-together cube, designed by Robert Reid in the 1980s and recently realized by Oscar van Deventer and George Miller, can be seen at puzzlepalace.com.  I came to appreciate the elegance of this family of forms after seeing a two-piece screw-together tetrahedron that Rinus Roelofs designed and brought to the 2005 Bridges Conference [www.bridgesmathart.org].

Fire by George Hart for IPP 28 Prague

This of course is an early example of 3D Printing and very reminiscent of similar printed puzzles I’ve had from Shapeways.

Here’s George’s description:

“This puzzle consists of two identical components that screw together. 

It is made of nylon by selective laser sintering. The name comes from 

Plato's association of the tetrahedron with the classical element of fire. 

I made 100 of these as my IPP28 exchange puzzle.

Separately, the pieces look like this.  It is tricky to put them together.”

George W. Hart

Oval Trick Box - Jean Claude Constantin - IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Nancy Alliegro

This is a neat PuzzleBox that will keep you guessing for a while..

Beautifully made and uses a trick that I have never seen before but I’m not that familiar with puzzleboxes.

NZ Double Decker - Tetsuro Kawahara by Puzzland Hikimi - IPP 28 Prague Exchange

This is a nicely made Domino style tray puzzle.  As you’ll notice the symbols etched on the tray bottom guide you to domino piece placement, however unlike domino’s you must avoid matching the symbols and they also must not be placed alongside one another so quite the conundrum indeed!

Ménage a Trois - Koos Verhoeff & Jan de Koning by PS Zituaction for IPP 28 Prague Exchange by Jan Grashuis

 

This puzzle is very nicely made using multiple magnets that as you can guess have been placed in different polarities.

After a lot of trial and error you’d think it would come together but it does take a bit of time to sort it out.

The sheer volume of magnets is just incredible!

Prague Six - Jeremiah Farrell by Walter Hoppe/Laser Perfect

This is a really cool tangram style puzzle with multiple challenges.

There is a total of 16 pieces, 8 triangle pieces with another 8 irregular pentagon pieces that can be mixed and matched together to form one through six squares.

It’s a very nice design by Jeremiah and perfectly laser cut by Walter!