A couple more TICs

After my last blog post about Ken Irvine’s great designs, Bernhard Schweitzer let me know that we had a couple of new TICs (Turning Interlocking Cubes – Bernhard’s term) coming available, so I duly put in the obligatory order and a couple of days later a well-protected set of three new TICs arrived - two designed by Ken Irvine and a third by William Hu (he of first-base-fame?). 

Irene Alternate is another of Ken’s 4*4*4 cubes that consists of just 4 pieces … which require “only” 8 moves (by my count) to fully disassemble, but it’s a really tricky little so-and-so. 

Finding the first move is a bit tricky, the second move comes reasonably easily from there, but the third move is a right little sod and I only found it by a series of eliminations and deducing that there was nothing else that could happen, so it had to be that particular move, and it still wasn’t simple. You see, the tolerances on this cube (presumably from the New Pelikan Workshop guys) is fantastic, so there are no clues along the way and the moves only work if things are aligned properly. 

A few more moves separates a couple of sub-assemblies that take a few more moves to fully disassemble… 

Even with only four pieces, reassembling this cube is anything but trivial – you can work out how the pieces need to sit in their eventual solved shape, but getting them there will need some creative thinking. 

Keyhole is rather aptly named as once you’ve found the key, you’ll find yourself having to manipulate it to unlock the structure around it and then progressing dismantle the rest of the puzzle until you’re left with 4 rather oddly shaped pieces, and your key. :-)

Five moves to remove the first piece, and then they come apart pretty regularly from there onwards. 

The first few moves are bit tricky, but once you’ve removed the first piece, it’s pretty much downhill from there … and once again, as you’d expect from Ken’s designs, getting them back together is a grand little challenge – especially since my favourite piece of puzzling software can’t help much along the way. 

Two-Wheeled Cube is my first design from the Australian designer, William Hu. This one is particularly fiendish – it lulls you into a false sense of security because things seem reasonably straight-forward to start with – four pieces come out just like that, leaving you with a pair of interlocked wheels. 

Getting those apart requires a good few rotations and you’re all done…

…and unless you paid very close attention to the orientation of those two wheels, you’re in for one heck of a challenge – getting them back into the right orientation so they’ll receive the remaining pieces is a pretty stiff challenge… trust me!

Three great TICs – thanks Bernhard!

William’s Wonder

I picked up a lovely copy of William’s Wonder from Kayleb’s Corner earlier this year and I’ve been meaning to write about it for ages. This 4*4*4 cube was designed by William Waite and I’m pretty sure that this example was made by Pelikan. It looks like a nice honest cube, although some of the shapes around the outside suggest that it’s going to be at least a little unusual. 

Finding the first piece that moves is fairly easy – prodding and poking around randomly will eventually identify a piece that slides upwards (identifying the single void in the cube, in case you’re interested). From there, noting what’s moved you should be able to work out what should move next, right? After all, if this is a serially interlocking cube, then it must point you in the right direction ... except it doesn’t seem to! You can see where you’ve opened up a gap – you know the next move must then use that gap, but all the pieces around the gap don’t appear to move ... ratfink!

Sneaky chap that Waite guy – the way he’s designed the pieces, you’re virtually assured that for the first while you’re going to be tugging on either ends of the same piece, or trying to push two bits of the same piece toward one another ... and the crafty chaps who made this puzzle have added another layer to that by deliberately throwing you off the scent in the way that they’ve chosen to align (or not align!) various blocks that form the individual pieces.

Right, so once you manage to get over the not-so-obvious (to me, at any rate!) pitfalls and find the second move, you can expand the five bits of the cube until the fifth move allows you to remove your first piece. 

I know that I’m relatively new to these sorts of puzzles, but the designers’ ingenuity really amazes me – how they can come up with such unique, complicated interlocking schemes within the confines of a 4*4*4 cube is impressive. 

William’s Wonder is a delightful cube that draws you in by giving you a really simple, easy to find first move and then holds you hostage for ages while you try and find the second move ... highly recommended, if you can find one!

Trigo cube [Chain-Loop Edition]

I first came across Michael Toulouzas’ puzzles when I spotted a beautiful puzzle called Cross Windows on Cubic Dissection earlier this year. It was billed as Mike’s signature puzzle and didn’t take long to sell out all 17 copies. 

Roll forward a couple of months and I was loitering around Puzzle Paradise during one of their auctions (always dangerous according to Gill!) when I noticed a new addition to the listings, showing 5 Chain-Loop Edition Trigo cubes from the self-same Mike Toulouzas available on a Buy-Out basis for a rather reasonable price. A couple of quick emails between a few of my puzzling buddies established that these were indeed quite a find, when someone asked if Mike intended making any more of them in the future, the response was along the lines of “No way!, They’re far too difficult to make!”  (... my words - not his ...) “...so there will only ever be 17 of them” – that was about all the encouragement I needed, so I ordered one straight-away. 

This puzzle is based on Mike’s 2004 entry in the IPP 24 puzzle competition where the sides of the cube had 8 arrows picked out in different types of wood – hence 8 Arrows Trigo Cube. He’d been working on the idea of having a set of interlocking loops running around the faces of the cube and had worked out a scheme for doing this, and then turned his paper model into this puzzle. That on its own would make quite a nice puzzle ... but Mike decided that to do things properly, the loop patterns would actually be made up by laminating each of the pieces out of solid pieces of wood ... so when you see a Maple strip on one piece – it actually goes all the way through that piece ... which means that each of the bits of the cube is made up of a huge array of cubes, pyramids, prisms and the like, all perfectly cut and joined to make up the final cube with a pair of linked loops running around the faces. Oh, and if you’re thinking to yourself that the wood looks a bit weathered (or well-loved), that’s intentional – Mike specifically wanted that look and spent ages applying a beautifully ‘aged’ patina. 

Being  a bit of a perfectionist, Mike wasn’t entirely happy with the final results, saying: “I am not so satisfied of the result due to technical difficulties, but overall as a lover for how attractive a puzzle looks, I think it’s OK.” – personally, I reckon that’s a huge understatement!

OK, so you can tell from the pictures that this is an 8-piece cube assembly puzzle with a bit of a difference – not least of which, because of the whacky shapes of each of the unique pieces. Effectively the cube is roughly divided into 8 smaller cubes, each of which is further divided into a 3*3*3 cube – except that all the internal joins are on diagonals, and not necessarily within the 8 major cubes (some pieces straddle major cubes and others project into multiple neighbours). Getting three layers of diagonals to join up is one thing, but as you progress through the puzzle, you’ll invariably find that some of your careful work has blocked subsequent pieces from being added ... back up a few steps, lay the pieces down carefully ... add the offending bit and resume ...

It’s a nice, satisfying puzzle to play with – the interlinking of the cubes has been nicely thought through and the shapes of the pieces as they come out are often surprising. The chain loop pattern definitely helps in assembling the puzzle as you can eliminate some assemblies based on matching the colours of the loops in the outside faces... 

It’s in the details... 

When I first received the puzzle, there was a little yellow note, sealed with red sealing wax stuck to the top of the box the puzzle arrived in. Thinking it was the solution (sealed to prevent someone stumbling across it), I dispatched it to the solutions file in the desk and left it there. A couple of weeks later I was scanning solutions onto my PC when I opened the ‘solution’ only to realise that it was Mike’s handwritten certificate for the puzzle, listing all the puzzle’s details ... a personal touch from a craftsman who’s clearly proud of his work –nice one Mike!

Coffin Involute Cube

Unlike the previous puzzle, I had managed to find out a little about this one before I ordered it from Kayleb’s Corner. Bernhard Schweitzer helpfully has a short write up in his Puzzlewood Gallery here and the Metagrobology wiki lists it as Stewart Coffin’s design #214. 

From the description it sounded like it would be a challenging little puzzle, being a development of his well known Convolution Cube, that had itself brought a new twist to an old topic. This one was made chiefly of maple and has dark wood corner cubes – that’s got to help, right? 

OK, so first off there’s a coded clue in the description of the puzzle that suggests that Burr Tools isn’t going to be a whole lot of use ... Great! There goes the main tool in my attack! But I can take it apart without help, can’t I?

Good news – this one starts out a lot easier than the Seven Block – there’s a reasonably easy to find key piece that comes out relatively easily, which logically releases  some bits to slide across and disengage – so far so good...

Then me hits the usual little brick wall – and I spent a while staring at half a cube with one floppy piece moving around all over the place, but refusing to come free ... so a couple of times I rebuild it and try something different, reckoning that this is a blind alley or a red herring designed to lead the unwary puzzler astray ... and this little 4*4*4 cube is making me feel rather unwary!

OK so we go backwards and forwards on that track a couple of times, trying without much luck to find any other alternative moves – nada! And again this thing feels like the rest of the cube could well be glued together (but I’ve learnt my lesson on that one: Coffin wouldn’t do that, he’s too much of a gent!). 

Having convinced myself there are no alternatives to what I’ve already discovered, I concentrate on what I can do from there, apply a couple of the little grey cells and deduce (thanks Father William of Ockham!) what should happen, and it jolly does – this little A-HA! moment is terrific! Right, so you know there’s a twist in the tail, but that twist is beautifully disguised and requires things to be done just-so ... and when they are, a little magic happens ... and the rest of the pieces will allow themselves to be teased slowly apart... 

Putting it back together is easy if you keep the pieces all nicely lined up (see previous comments about second- rate puzzler!) – but actually those coloured corner cubes are quite useful ... and if you’re really stuck, you can always use Burr Tools (can you tell I’m a big fan?!) – of course it’ll quite rightly tell you there’s only a single assembly, but that, sadly, there are no solutions ... ! :-0

[...yes, I've kept the key piece out of shot again just to confuse you!] 

I’m quite new to Mr Coffin’s designs, but I’m already a big fan! Thank you sir!

Stewart Coffin Seven Block

One of the puzzles in the box from Kayleb’s Corner was a Stewart Coffin Seven Block puzzle. I hadn’t been able to find out anything about it in a brief search on the web before I ordered it and it’s always hard to tell what you’re in for when you get an unknown cube assembly / disassembly puzzle like this. I was hoping that I wouldn’t be disappointed, but the Coffin moniker should have been all the reassurance I needed...

 

The puzzle came in a cute little decorative box with no particular markings on it, and the puzzle itself is a reasonably non-descript 4*4*4 cube made of maple. There’s a little white sticker with the words ”Stewart Coffin Seven Block “ on one side, but other than that, it looks just like a simple cube construction. So you take it out of the box carefully, just so that it doesn’t fall apart (Yeah, right! Little did I know...) and start looking at the cube – no obvious easy ways in, no pieces trying to make a bid for freedom yet – looks nice. 

OK, so it didn’t fall apart – good start ... so let’s find a way in – start pushing and pulling at the most likely candidates, hmm, not much give at all ... OK let’s try some of the edges – nope, nothing there. Corners? Nope. Opposite corners? Nope ... Hmmm ... Ah!! I know, friction along the faces in many directions – maybe it’s one of those co-ordinated motion cubes ... 6 faces later, nope, not that either ... Retreats to think while placing the puzzle back in the box...

Thinks ... for a while ... comes back to it a while later (not quite so careful about taking it out the box this time!) and tries a few new theories – none of which do anything at all ... 

Hmmm, maybe it’s one of those in-jokes, you know the ones where the pieces are all actually glued together? Given how little movement there is between the pieces, this could actually be feasible! Puts it away to think some more ... and laugh at the fact that I was worried about it falling apart or not presenting much of a challenge!

 

A couple of sessions later I finally manage to work out how the key piece works, and it’s brilliant! 

It keeps its secrets incredibly well hidden, and even once released, the rest of the cube is slow to give up its secrets – it’s like peeling and onion until you eventually have the seven pieces apart – ah, so that’s where it gets its name from. [Yes dear eagle-eyed reader, there is a piece missing from that picture - the key-piece, just to make it a little more interesting for you...]

While I was writing up this post I got hold of Georges to ask him about the puzzle and it turns out it came from Bernhard Schweitzer and there’s a short write-up in Bernhard’s Puzzlewood Gallery.

It’s a cracking cube puzzle...


Late addendum: I had to smile when I noticed this... I'd used my favourite search engine when I was trying to find out about this puzzle, and turned up not a lot... so I had to smile when I noticed that one of the traffic sources for for my blog was in fact a Google search for "stewart coffin seven block" - and this is now the first page you get when you search for that... which just goes to show that not enough people have been writing about this puzzle on the web!

Jerry McFarland’s Burrcube #1

A couple of weeks back I plucked up the courage to drop a few leading lights in the puzzling community an email asking them whether they had any puzzles in stock – one of those was Jerry McFarland ... I’d come across his web-site some time ago and had marvelled at some the equipment that Jerry has in his workshop – clearly he’s serious about making stunning puzzles. 

As luck would have it, Jerry didn’t have the puzzles I was after (and in fairness that’s what his web-site was saying too, but I asked anyway!) but he mentioned that he was putting together a new puzzle of his own design and asked if I’d be interested.

Jerry’s Burrcube#1 (because it’s a burr, in a cube, the first one, and there may be more along ...) is described as a 3*3*3 cube in a box that’s made up of 15 pieces – it sounded interesting and he was offering it at a jolly good price because he was interested in some feedback ... I couldn’t turn down an offer like that!

About a week later a box arrived from Jerry containing a Lovely Burr (I’ll get to that one when I’ve worked out how the heck to get it apart!), a nicely made 5 sided cube and a bag of bits ... object of the Burrcube#1 is to decant bag of bits into box ... but there’s effectively only one way to do that, and the photo that Jerry had of the completed puzzle in the cube deliberately shows you the least useful side ... nice guy, that Jerry!

Usual disclaimer – I’d already told Jerry that I wasn’t the world’s best burr solver and that I wasn’t a big fan of packing problems that relied on brute force – when I said that, he added that someone called Cutler  (yes, HIM!) had played around with the first prototype and enjoyed it and solved it using analysis ... so I'm thinking I’m going to enjoy this...

First off, the bits are all beautifully made – just like everything else that I’ve seen from Jerry. When I initially said that I’d like one, Jerry was a bit apologetic that he hadn’t knocked up any boxes yet, so I got the impression that he was going to knock up something quickly on his table saw - the initial pics I saw had a ply box – which at the price point wasn’t out of place! I certainly wasn’t expecting a beautifully finished walnut box with Jerry’s initials stamped on the bottom along with the serial number 002 ... the inside bits are made in cherry, maple and walnut and are all finished beautifully and fit perfectly. There are a couple of unusual shapes in there. 

You’ll recognise a number of similar pieces and they’ll help you come up with the guts of the solution, and from there it’s really a bit of experimentation to find the right combinations of bits. Thankfully there aren’t any curve-balls like some burrs, where you end up holding the last piece with no apparent means of getting it into the remaining assembly! Right up to the end, you can go backwards and forwards and add in bits...

All in all, it is a lovely little puzzle – it took about 20 minutes of gentle playing and experimentation to find a solution and it shows some lovely patterns on the sides as a result of the three different woods – as I said, the most boring one is the one that Jerry’s using to display the puzzle so as to give you as few clues as possible to the solution...

After I’d solved it, I dropped Jerry a note with some thoughts and some encouragement to develop it into a small series of increasing complexity ... and then we traded emails on how he could give the puzzler even fewer clues to the solution while still giving a genuine photo of the puzzle. [He dismissed my suggestion of making an alternate set of bits in the wrong colours and using a photo of that one’s solution as being too mean ...] – swapping a couple of different coloured pieces that share the same shape might just fit the bill, and give a less symmetrical, but still rather pleasing solution... 

 

If he does start selling them, please encourage him to make some more and expand on his ideas... the world doesn’t have enough puzzles yet... :-)