The U-Sockel came to me courtesy of fellow puzzle collector/designer Goh Pit Khiam. He had dropped by my place last Sunday to take a look the 77 new puzzles I had brought home from the IPP38 Puzzle Exchange in San Diego, USA this past August.

The U-Sockel consists of a wooden stick affixed to a base and a ball permanently attached somewhere towards the top. Two U-shaped thick wire rods “interlock”t themselves around the wooden stick. The object is to get the u-shaped wire rods off the wooden rod.

It looks simple enough, unfortunately is anything but! Pit Khiam had told me that he also couldn’t solve and had to resort to a YouTube video solution (which incidentally was uploaded by Nick Baxter). There is one or two others non YouTube as well. I told Pit Khiam I will try to solve it without the help. But I struggled for a whole Sunday afternoon and night but got nowhere as well. Finally I threw in the towel and watched the video. Anyway, I couldn’t have solved it without the solution.

The U-Sockel is really a tough one. But I am really in not much of a position to comment. I generally don’t fancy entanglement or wire type puzzles and hardy play with any. There is a sequence to follow. Once you memorise the steps, its quite easily re-solvable. As I followed the instructions on the video, I also found myself having to use a tad bit of force to move the u-shaped wire rods the way they were supposed to move. I thought for puzzles of this nature, no force was necessary. Apparently not in this case.

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This rather unusual disentanglement puzzle came to me courtesy of Roxanne Miller during the IPP37 Puzzle Exchange.  For those who attended IPP last year and did an exchange with Roxanne, you will have realised that there is a certain sort of theme going on. Planned by Roxanne (and George Miller) of course. This theme runs through the outfits (or lack thereof) which Roxanne and George wore during the Exchange, right through to the puzzle itself and its packaging.  Rather devilish you might say!

Where’s the serpent?

The object of Adam & Eve is to “get the heads of Adam and Eve together”. At the starting position, Adam & Eve are joined somewhere around the lower limbs. The trick is to be able to navigate the two parts around and “along” each other to the final position as shown. It might have been relatively easy if the two circular metal rings and the red apple on the chain had not been present. The way the metal part have been bent and cut also causes some restrictions of movement.

I spent a while experimenting how the two figures interacted with each other, how to move Adam and Eve and so on. Not easy but later I figured out that I had to “dump” the apple to progress. It looks impossible to do so but like all good disentanglement puzzles, there is way of solving which is not obvious. Eventually with further trial and error, I got the two heads to lock together.

If I can solve this one without help, I would imagine that wire and disentanglement enthusiasts would not have a problem with this one. Its challenging no doubt but not frustratingly difficult at least IMHO. It will not get you into knots which you can’t extricate yourself, unlike some types of really complicated wire and rope puzzles. If that really happens, you can always dismantle the chain holding the apple. The Adam & Eve is one of those puzzles with just the right level of difficulty for an Exchange Puzzle. And did I mention that it was pretty fun to play with too? Nice design theme and concept, great to look at and a must-have for collectors.

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I have never been good at nor too interested in disentanglement puzzles, hence my collection is very small as I generally don’t buy any. As far as I can remember the only one that I have ever bought was the Tricky Dick puzzle. Those in my current collection come mainly from Puzzle Exchanges over the last several years.

Anyway, as I was rummaging through my Exchange Puzzles looking for something interesting to solve this week, I couldn’t help but notice this large zipper bag. Inside was the Simplexity designed and made by the late Markus Gotz of Germany. This disentanglement puzzle was Markus’ IPP35 Exchange Puzzle in Ottawa, Canada in 2015.

Unusual Design & CHOICE OF Materials

Disentanglement puzzles come in different varieties and choice of materials. There are the metal tavern type puzzles and wire puzzles (usually thick heavy wire twisted together). Then there are the wooden ones with ropes and/or combination of ropes and wires. There are also those made frombamboo which I call jungle puzzles. What is unusual about Simplexity is the materials used by Markus. His puzzle “uses wood in its natural form by using a forked branch” This is in combination with a rope and a looped wire piece. I do not know what tree the branch came from but it must have been quite a feat to find about 100 similar looking fork branches to make the minimum 100 copies for a puzzle exchange. Moreover the branch of my copy is smooth, so Markus must have debarked and sanded the surface as well. Loads of work no doubt.

Another difference is the goal of the puzzle. The aim is not to remove the rope or any other part of the puzzle (like most other disentanglement puzzles). Rather the objective here is to “reposition” or move the rope from one side of the wire loop (where the longer fork is) to other other side (the shorter fork). The rope is permanently attached to bottom end of the branch and cannot be removed. However it can slide back and forth through the hole it is in.

still in a state of disentanglement

Markus did warn puzzlers to be careful not to entangle  the rope around the branch or wire piece, otherwise there would be loads of problems. Well I didn’t encounter this state of affairs. In fact I managed to disentangle the rope “off” the wire loop…which for me was quite an achievement. However, I was stuck at this stage of the solve for quit a few days and as of this post, I still have not figured out how to “reposition” the rope. Frankly, it does not look as difficult as it would appear. But here’s a classic case of a deceptively simple looking puzzle  but damn difficult. Apparently, according to Markus there is a “trick” to it and once discovered, the solution is very simple! I have yet to see the trick. Let’s see if I can do better over the coming weekend.

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