The GyroTwisty comprises an ABS plastic (the stuff for 3D printing) circular shell frame l which holds an inner ball. The object of the puzzle is to take apart the pieces and put them back together again. As with the previous Namdarian puzzle Sewing Box, the quality of the 3D printing and finishing here is very good. Tolerances are just right allowing the inner ball to rotate smoothly inside the outer circular frame. My copy of the puzzle looks really cute with a contrasting yellow and blue colour. Physically the puzzle is a nice size for the hands at around 8cm in diameter and about 6.5cm tall. Mine also came in a pinkish drawstring cloth pouch with leopard print.

This puzzle reminds me of Hanayama’s Cast Marble (which I don’t own nor have I played with) and also Peppermint designed by Scott Elliot. While the three puzzles share similar design cues, the solves have their own characteristics. Unlike Sewing Box and Peppermint which I struggled with it, I managed GyroTwisty pretty well. I took apart the puzzle in under 10 minutes and got all four pieces back together in a lesser time. Or maybe I just got lucky. I won’t say its very difficult but its certainly not an easy puzzle either. But I suppose with some persistence, it will pay off in the end as you fiddle the pieces.

There is a technique to the solve. Once I managed to line up the outer shell with the inner ball, which itself splits into two, the puzzle came apart quite easily. Really no force whatsoever is required.

For anyone interested to get a copy,  you can email Diniar via the IPP38 Puzzle Design Competition webpage. Yes, the GyroTwisty was also an entry to the competition. The puzzle costs a very reasonable 15 Euros plus S&H.

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The Sewing Box consists of an ABS plastic (the stuff for 3D printing) circular frame which holds six different coloured rods in place. Each of the rods consists of two parts split at varying lengths. The object of the Sewing Box is to remove the rods from the frame. Quality of the 3D printing and finishing is very good. The puzzle looks really nice with all that colour around the sides.

I think everyone would agree that the puzzle is very intriguing and enticing looking and begs to be played with. But the solving is a whole different ball game. I struggled with it for quite some time and got nowhere. The rods can rotate on their own axis and all six rods can also rotate around the frame. Eventually I asked Diniar for a clue. All he told me was that the rods are split at different heights (something which I already knew). Anyway, I persevered on. And through a rather painful process of trial and error, continuous sliding and twisting, I finally manage to dislodge the rods. I say dislodge because it seemed that several of the rods all came apart almost at the same instant. It was only then that I saw the “internal mechanism” of the Sewing Box. I like to think I got the rods out more by chance than systematic skill.

I took a fairly long time to solve, like nearly maybe an hour. Diniar mentioned that three other puzzlers, Jim Strayer, Kevin Sadler and Goetz Schwandtner all had taken apart the thing in only 15 minutes or so. Hey, these guys are experts…what do you expect?! Overall, I would say that the Sewing Box has quite a clever and rather very unique design concept, well executed via 3D printing production. Very challenging would be a bit of an understatement. Solving requires a fair bit of (lateral) thinking. And certainly quite a handful to be juggling so many pieces. I saw the official solution from Diniar. And yes, there is a “method” or rather technique to solving but it is difficult to discover. More suitable for the hardcore puzzle enthusiasts.

For anyone interested to get a copy (15 Euros plus S&H) and I would highly recommend the Sewing Box to those who relish a good challenge, you can email Diniar via the IPP38 Puzzle Design Competition webpage. Yes, the Sewing Box was also an entry to the competition, and the most colourful one!

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Unlike the IPPs with hundreds in attendance and a planned 3-day agenda and side tours, our little SPP was just a small gathering over dinner with just 8 of us, including Oskar! David Ang of Cubewerkz came with his gang of twisty enthusiasts and speed-cubers (all students by the way – Bin Jie,, Seung Ha, Ryan Peh and Daryl Tan) plus the two of us from the non-twisty domain, Goh Pit Khiam and myself. As you might imagine, given such a small group, the number of puzzles that went around were rather few. I showed off to Oskar some of my recent designs and prototypes such as my Handkerzzle, L(8)tice-2, Micro-Hex and a 2014 design but recently reproduced-Ball In Cylinder #2.  David brought a number of twisties he was currently selling on his new site and Pit Khiam took out a couple of his own designs and also displayed his Android platform digital puzzles. Oskar had a number of goodies in his bag, mainly his 3D printed and incredible looking gear mechanisms and twistie-style puzzles. All in all, it was a pleasant evening of catching up with Oskar and the rest of the gang  and a chance to handle some of Oskar’s newest toys!

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My CrossFit puzzle was inspired by two puzzles. First, it was Goh Pit Khiam’s Number Blocks which appeared at IPP35 in Ottawa, Canada. That puzzle had four pieces which danced in and out of a tray with an overhang which made it into an interlocking packing puzzle, which requires a certain number of moves in proper sequence to solve. Not quite your usual 2D style packing puzzle. The second puzzle is Tom Jolly’s Square Dance which has 9 pieces and has a level 1.8.5.3.4 solution.

I was looking to design something that was somewhere in between the two and for the sake of achieving a symmetrical shape, settled in the end for a “cross” shape. And you need to fit 5 odd-shaped pieces into the tray… hence the name CrossFit (which is also the name of a type of high intensity gym workout). Designing wasn’t the problem and my basic design was very kindly scaled up by fellow puzzler Stanislav Knot of the Czech Republic.

I asked Tom Lensch (who had produced copies of my IPP36 Design Competition entry “Magiq #8”) to cut a prototype for me. I was hoping to enter the CrossFit for the IPP37 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. Tom kindly agreed to do so, but said he couldn’t do so in time for the competition. And while he was very busy with making puzzles for IPP37, he still managed to produce a single prototype copy and passed it to me at IPP37 in Paris. As you can see from the photos, Tom did a great job making the puzzle, even for a prototype.

The goal of CrossFit was to re-arrange a scrambled set of digits into the correct order. To assemble the pieces to the solved state requires 21 moves with a level 1.2.10.5.3 solution. On paper it seems to be a nice challenge of slightly above moderate difficulty. And Tom himself found it pretty difficult to solve too. However, when Tom passed it to Gary Foshee (designer of Lunatic Lock and Open Transparent Lock), Gary shifted the pieces here and there and solved it under 10 minutes. So maybe it wasn’t as challenging as I had hoped. Well, I will see if I can improve the design to a level where I think its good enough for the design competition. Meanwhile CrossFit will remain a nice well-crafted prototype.

Micro Hex

Again here I was inspired by someone else’s design…that of Wil Strijbos! No need to mention the many (metal) puzzles he is well-known for. Just google Wil Strijbos and you can his puzzles and (even get his contact details, I am told). The puzzle of inspiration was his Heavy Metal Triangle Puzzle. Wil’s was a 3-piece puzzle which forms a triangular shape. I was hoping to produce a 6-piece puzzle to form hexagon shape. After much effort with Burr Tools, I managed to come up with a unique solution design for what I thought could work quite well. All 6 pieces were identical and nicey formed the hex version of Wil Strijbos’ Triangle Puzzle. And it required a minimum of 8 moves to remove the 1st piece.

I sent my design to Steve Nicholls who does a lot of 3D printing work including puzzles of course. He has been a great help in 3D printing several other puzzle prototypes for me in the past and his work is very good. He 3D prints all his puzzles for exchange at IPP. In the meantime, I also scouted around for a CNC fabricator that could CNC mill my Micro Hex. There were a several vendors who could do the job but all were prohibitively expensive when it came to just making a single copy. I also contacted and told Wil of my design and asked if he would like to get his fabricator (who had manufactured the Triangle Puzzle) to make my Micro Hex. To my surprise, Wil told me that a long time ago, he had already produced a Hex-shaped metal version with 6 pieces!..but just not as many moves to solve as mine…oh well!

Like Tom, Steve was also busty preparing for IPP but did manage to pass me a yellowish 3D printed copy of Micro Hex in Paris as well as another Hexagon shaped design I called Hexagonal Shift. Steve did comment that Micro Hex did have piece(s) that could rotate during play. Now this is dreaded because rotation means a solver can short cut a move to solve the puzzle in an unintended way by twisting or rotating a piece out of the puzzle easily. I tested out the puzzle myself and found that indeed I could rotate some pieces but only with a bit of force. On hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise that I didn’t proceed with any expensive CNC machining given the rotation problem. As of this writing, Steve will try to make adjustments to the height of the puzzle in the hopes of eliminating any rotational moves. Let see what he comes up with.

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Scott has his own 3D printer and produces all his suit puzzles in his home workshop. Like all the previous suit series puzzles, S’Paid In Full comprises two pieces and the object is to put together the pieces to form the spade. Quality of construction is good and the 3D printing is pretty tough and resilient and stand up to some abuse.

And like all of Scott’s previous puzzles, there is a point of entry or the sweet-spot where the pieces would meet just nicely and slide into the proper position. Puzzlers who have played with the previous puzzles in the series would not find it too difficult to solve S’Paid In Full. Not difficult but can be a bit tricky and delicate to find the right entry point and it took me a bit of trial and error to get the solution.

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But this year at IPP37 in Paris last August, I received a pleasant surprise. His exchange puzzle HOPE was not a sliding block puzzle but an interlocking caged burr!

At first glance, the HOPE appears to consist of a cage and 4 separate burr pieces. But actually the entire puzzle is only made up of 3. Typically 3D printed puzzles do not have that sort of sharp and precise lines and edges found on well-crafted wooden puzzles. But the copy I have I must say, the quality is really very decent and well made (printed). The slightly shinny shade of blue chosen by Diniar for the pieces really stands out; a nice contrast against the white cage holding them. And if there’s one thing I really like about this puzzle is the colour and aesthetics. The puzzle measures 7cm x 5cm x 5cm. Pretty sturdy and tough too.

The object of course is to remove the pieces and then put them back in the cage. This is where the 2 pieces bring the level of difficulty down a couple of notches. The “H” and “P” pieces are fused together as in the “O” and “E”. While there are only 2 pieces, this burr is still (as far as my counting tells me) a level 15 or 16.1 solution puzzle. This means it takes 15 (or 16) moves to extract the first of the 2 pieces out of the cage. Not a walk in the park for novices.

I am usually hopeless at this sort of interlocking puzzles but I did manage this one pretty well and didn’t have to resort to Burr Tools! A bit of practice here and here I was able to repeat solve the HOPE a couple of times even. Not too difficult once you commit the moves to memory and frankly, for this puzzle it is not that hard to do so.

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The Non-Void Cube is from Andreas Rover- yes, the ONE who created and free-shared with the world Burr Tools; the indispensable and holy grail of puzzle design tools (no pun intended) for designers everywhere. Without Burr Tools, I am pretty certain that 99.5% of the designs on www.puzzlewillbeplayed.com would not be in existence today, we would not have the huge number wooden and other interlocking puzzles we have now and Eric Fuller would probably still be a professional soldier in the US Army.

At first glance, the Non-Void Cube, with its plastic appearance, looks very much like an ordinary Rubik’s Cube without any of the coloured stickers. In fact its a 3D printed interlocking burr designed and created by Andreas. The Cube is very nicely printed and the tolerances between the pieces sufficiently tight. Notwithstanding, the pieces move and slide smoothly and I experienced no jamming whatsoever. Size-wise, the Cube is 6cm all round, the size of a normal Rubik’s Cube.

And what is unique about the Non-Void Cube is that it has got no voids (holes) within the cube, yet it has a Level 4.3.3 solution, something that is impossible to achieve with a typical burr design. Andreas managed to create this puzzle by attaching the cubes of the 4 pieces not by joining the faces of the cubes, but via their corners (see photo above). In this manner the pieces can slide in the various directions even without the voids or voxels necessary.

While it takes only 4 moves to remove the first piece (and with some effort not too difficult to figure out) and 3 moves each to remove the next two, the design is not without some trickiness. If you scramble all the pieces after disassembly, and unless you have a very good memory, you may just forget the orientation of the pieces (like I did) and find yourself in a bit of a bind trying to reassemble the thing. Again with some persistence and time, it is do-able. And Burr Tools would not help you here if you can’t solve it, Haha!. Is Andreas hiding some features of the software which he is only keeping to himself?

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