allard shops at Shapeways...

On my recent little foray into Shapeways-world I also picked up a couple of George Bell’s puzzles (again, it would have been rude not to...). 

Diagonal CubePuzzle: this was Stewart Coffin’s design # 58, first released in 1981. While most copies of this puzzle are made in wood (and cost a lot more than this version), George published this one on Shapeways in October last year and for the princely sum of $26.50 you get a classic little puzzle with a whole lotta pedigree. 

It’s hard enough trying to figure out where to place the dissimilar pieces to create a solid cube, but then you need to work out how to actually assemble them in a co-ordinated motion along the right axis. The pieces are nice and solid and interlock neatly – great little puzzle. 

 

Stan’s Tetrahedron (invented by Leonard Gordon in 1988) is a very interesting assembly of a tetrahedron using two mirrored pairs of identical pieces. The unusual angles used in the pieces, and interesting shapes of the pieces themselves make this an interesting little challenge... with the last piece locking the assembly together rather neatly. 

Octahedron with child consists of 4 pieces – 3 of which are similar and rather unusual in their shape, whilst the fourth is a tetrahedron made of 4 rhombic dodecahedrons that serves as a locking piece to keep the assembly together. While I’m ready to admit that I’m no expert on these sort of puzzles, I find the angles in working with rhombic dodecahedrons rather confusing and more than a little challenging – but finding the right way to get the first three pieces to make the guts of the octahedron ready to accept the child-piece makes for good, rewarding puzzling.

 
Kuball Puzzle was designed by Viktor Genel and modified a little by Tom Lensch, who added the cubes between the balls when he made the puzzle in wood. This is the simplest of the puzzles I got from George’s shop, but again the angles and the interlocking of the pieces makes for a satisfying little puzzle ... very cute.