I love simple puzzles – so here’s a nice simple one for you
that I rather enjoyed fiddling with at IPP earlier this year: Peamaru was designed
by the rather prolific Volker Latussek… and while he’s usually renowned for his
packing puzzles, this one’s also pretty awesome.
You have four L-shaped pieces – two big L’s and 2 smaller
ones. Each has a couple of red dots on them and your challenge is pretty
straight forward: arrange the pieces so that all of the dots are paired
face-to-face, and the structure is stable.
 |
| Nope! That's not it... |
The nice thing is that just seeing the pieces, you know
right away what you’re trying to do so you can dive right in. Pairing up most of
the red dots is really easy – however getting the last pair to come anywhere
close is pretty much impossible…
As is my usual process for “solving” these sorts of puzzles,
I spent a long time doing the same thing over and over again, often while
chatting amiably with another puzzler having much more success at another much
harder puzzle on the table. I’d pretty much convinced myself that it was in
fact impossible when I headed off in another direction, so to speak, and that
turned out to be the break I needed.
Neat little “A-Ha!” moment when everything really falls into
place perfectly – all of the red dots are face-to-face – all in a neat little structure
on the table.
Four simple pieces. One serious puzzle.
I was very chuffed when Pelikan made a number of copies
available recently and I was able to add a copy to the hoard… they still have a few copies left if you’re tempted.
I haven't tackled this one yet, but I loved his similar CubeMaker puzzle from a year or two ago (Pelikan did a version and Rombol has one, too)
ReplyDelete...suspect if you enjoyed that one, you'll enjoy this one too, Mr Cube, sir.
ReplyDeleteAllard, I too am lucky to have a copy of this from Mr Dvorak. This is a great puzzle , and a good example of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing.....
ReplyDeleteThought I had used my mathematics background to easily show there is topologically only one solution which brings all the dots together; the little square building though was not stable in any dimension pitch, roll or yaw....
Ha! Thank heavens for flushing the maths down the toilet and getting the AHa! kindergarten building moment....
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ReplyDeleteHello, I can´t find this puzzle in my country, so I´d like to build it, but I can see where is de other red dot in one of the smaller piece. Can you help me?
ReplyDelete