One of Wil Strijbos’ recent
emails contained a couple of new puzzles: a new variant of an impossible
dovetail joint and a blue box that sort-of resembled a tardis from Doctor Who –
called First Box.
First Box as you might expect from
the name was the first puzzle box that Wil designed many moons ago. When I visited Wil last year, he'd pointed out a black and aluminium box on one of the puzzle shelves that housed several other Strijbos originals and he'd mentioned that it was his first puzzle box and that he was hoping to have some produced in the future. He wanted to give me a shot at it, but sadly whoever had played with it last hadn't locked it up properly, so it was placed back on the shelf...
Since then Wil has taken the opportunity to improve on the design (read: make it harder!) and has also found a neat solution to an aspect that concerned him about the original version. The original came with a separate tool - which bothered Wil a bit - so he toyed with the idea of not including it and suggesting that puzzlers make a trip to their local hardware store and buy whatever tool they thought might be useful to get into the box - however recurring nightmares of puzzlers merrily heading off to their local ironmonger and purchasing a large hammer stopped him from trying that. So the new design dispenses with the external tool... :-)
Father and son |
My copy arrived literally days
after I’d ordered it and first impressions were that this was a really heavy
little puzzle – it’s very clearly not a box with a lot of space inside it …
which probably means that it has a lot of gubbins inside there making sure that
it stays locked closed. The lid has very little play in it to start with and
has a large nut screwed into the top of it. The front of the box has Wil’s
signature and a production number in the bottom right hand corner. There’s a
small dark hole in the middle of the back of the box and a hole in the bottom
that lets you see a small steel cylinder – which Wil has helpfully told us we
are to get out of the box – although rather unhelpfully, that hole in the
bottom of the box is too small to allow the cylinder out…
OK, so you have a seemingly
impenetrable blue anodised box – you can see the lid has a little bit of play
in it – there’s one obvious thing to try, so you do, and that’s not
spectacularly useful, so you think for a while and explore a few more avenues
before finding what one might loosely call “some tools”. Trying out various
things with the tools you’ve discovered leads to some further discoveries –
among them that sometimes the lid of the box feels a bit looser, sometimes
there is a pin across that hole in the base, and sometimes there’s a pin across
another hole.
First First Box opening |
Wil’s helpfully told us in his
email that there are no magnets and that no bashing is required – yet I suspect
that most folks will be tempted to try that, if only a little every now and
then…
During the course of your
explorations you can start piecing together some of what must be going on
inside there – part of the clues come from the sounds inside when you
tilt the box this way and that – but the confusing thing is that those sounds
don’t always appear to behave the same way! [Pixies!]
Add in the interaction of the
tilting with the use of those tools and there is more than enough to try and
keep track of – and if I’m honest – the first time I opened the box there was
more luck than skill involved and I ended up spending a long time examining the
innards to work out what I was doing… and then even longer to work out why my
method actually works! (There’s something a little disturbing about finding a
method that works absolutely reliably- but realising that theoretically it
really shouldn’t work …and it took me a couple of days to work that one out!)
Solved! |
This is a really good little
sequential discovery puzzle – the tools are nicely hidden; the internal
mechanism makes it virtually impossible to fluke a solution – the machining is
really superb so everything fits beautifully (and slides around like steel on
wet ice) … but once you’ve worked it out, everything is totally predictable –
definitely a well-behaved puzzle – doesn’t leave anything to chance and doesn’t
let you do anything you can’t undo … although I realise that until you’ve
opened it, you might disagree with one or both of those wild allegations!
[And you don't have to take just my word for it - you can read what Jerry thought about it over here...]
I think amongst all of Wil's puzzles I have, this has to be my favourite so far...I really like sequential discovery puzzles and I hope he can create more boxes identical to the First Box but with different mechanisms...something along the lines of Eric Fuller's Havana Cigar boxes.
ReplyDeleteAllard, since you are pretty close to Wil, maybe you can persuade him to make more of these, the next ones could be in different colours eg Red, Yellow etc...can become a set...
How can I get one of these? Are they still available?
ReplyDeleteChris
Wil's getting a second batch made up and will have some more for sale soon - drop him an email (and if you don't have his email address, drop me an email: my first name followed by a period - you're American, right? followed by my surname which is "walker" at Google Mail's main public domain - which is hopefully enough to give a human a fighting chance and oblique enough that I won't get spammed!) - allard
DeleteI have been trying to solve this for days now!!! I've found the tool and used it in the appropriate receptacle! Have found several interesting things moving inside which may or may not make sense. But not found any further tools and certainly not come close to opening it!
ReplyDeleteDamn!!!!!
Kevin
PuzzleMad
Keep trying - it's easier than that Bat thing you've got!
DeleteGee! Great! I'm stuck on that too! I can see the tool I want to get out but it won't come out!!!!
DeleteKevin
PuzzleMad
I'm waiting for the second batch of these. I blinked and missed the first lot....
ReplyDeleteYou and me both :-D
DeleteI don't know if I can get one any time soon but I have to say that this one caught my eye.
ReplyDelete...it's definitely worth throwing some money at Wil for one of these... :-)
DeleteI luckily got this one for a song in the last cubicdissection auction.... Arrived today... so far, not a lot of progress, but a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteGood catch that man! I'm sure you'll enjoy it... did you get the sad / smiley face rods?
DeleteJust received the First Box days ago... Puzzling over it on and off. Everything up until now totally makes sense, and my illustration of the insides is fine as well, but I just can't find what is preventing the lid from opening! Certainly frustrating...
ReplyDeleteHi Allard. I've just recently learned about Wil Strijbos' puzzles and was wondering if he is still making them, or even new/different ones? Thank you kindly, for your help. Kurt Dschida
ReplyDelete...drop him an email at puzzle.strijbos@wxs.nl and ask... :-)
Deletewhere can you buy one?
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that you can see the comment directly above your question and you're having a laugh... good one! :-)
Delete