The diagrams below, captured from BurrTools, illustrate these twelve arrangements.īack in February, Blair of Saskatoon emailed me seeking help to solve an interesting tanglement puzzle received as a gift several Christmases gone by. The two solutions differ in the orientation of this structure within the packing - in one, the belt is oriented along the length of the block, in the other it is oriented across the width. The remaining two solutions have at their core a three-dimensional structure composed of four pieces - two back-to-back, notches out, with two others in a "belt" around them notches inwards but grabbing two pieces each edge-on. In the table below, the first row shows these six variations and isolates the halves of the three plus signs, in situ within the solved block (irrelevant pieces hidden), to highlight the different permutations.įour more of the twelve solutions contain three such plus signs stacked across the middle of the packing - these variations are the four shown next in the second row of the table. Six of the twelve solutions contain three such plus signs, arranged asymmetrically. Now, you and I might call these basically the same, but BurrTools treats them as distinct. Two of those entail utilizing pairs of pieces arranged in a "plus sign" configuration - and you can form this plus sign by laying one piece notch up in a north-south orientation then covering it with an east-west piece notch down, OR by laying the notch up piece east-west and covering it with a north-south notch down. If you'd prefer not to see a spoiler for this puzzle, look away now!Īs others have noted, there are really only four fundamentally distinct solutions. I thought the results were interesting, giving insight into how BurrTools decides that one solution is different from another, and I thought I'd share my findings here. John Rausch's web site - here is his photo:īurrTools to find the 12 solutions, but it took some investigation to determine exactly how those solutions differ. I don't own a copy of the puzzle, but I determined that the puzzle was designed by Loren LarsonĪnd is also known as the "Eighteen Burr Pieces Packing Puzzle" or "Eighteen Pieces Burr Packing Puzzle." One solution to the puzzle in question, referred to as the "Notched Packing Puzzle," was shown on their page 122, where the reader is informed that it is one of 12 solutions.īud had been struggling in vain to find any of the other twelve. In late September, fellow puzzler Bud contacted me, telling me of his attempts to find a second solution to a puzzle illustrated in the book Crafting Wood Logic Puzzles Of course there are many other Hanayamas that would make great additions. To me, a quintessential "a-ha" moment puzzle, BUT it might be a little too bulky, and a little too lengthy a solve.Ī selection of Bent Nail type puzzles, in a drawstring bag. Splitting Headache - designed by Bill Cutler, With the bonus of other tangrammatic shapes to be made. The reason why so many puzzles nowadays say "no spinning required."Ī nice example of the classic T dissection, The reason why so many puzzles nowadays say "no hitting required." Impossible Dovetail - by Shop of Many Things Not quite as devious as the Bits and Pieces original (which I also have),īut at least here the barrel doesn't droop. ![]() I've bought the examples below to include - can you recommend others?Īrguably the best inexpensive intro to Sequential Discovery. I want to stock it with puzzles that represent many different categories - but all should be fairly inexpensive and easy to replace, robust, solvable within a reasonable period of time, and fun. Sure, us jaded collectors always want to bring and show off our, or get to play with someone else's, latest cool puzzle of the moment, but I think we overlook that even avid puzzlers who are nonetheless new to the community might not have experienced many of the "classics" firsthand.Īnd certainly you want puzzle-curious muggles to be able to try out interesting and approachable designs without risking anything invaluable. ![]() So, I am sure the idea is not original, but I have put together several iterations of a "Puzzle Go Bag" that I can grab and bring to the odd get-together if I suspect there will be some puzzle fun to be had. The pieces are identified with a strange numbering scheme - I map to my IDs in the table below:Ģ08 (half tray with wall on left) vs 64 (right) not incl ![]() The instructions give 19 traditional 6-piece burrs which use the key piece, and 4 which use 52 rather than the key piece,Īs well as several interesting larger structures to be made with the special long pieces. Which are used to assemble multi-burr constructs. The set includes 16 traditional burr pieces of length 8, and four special pieces of length 16 Onietoiy 20pcs DIY Puzzle - a burr set from Onietoiyĭecent enough, if a bit imprecise and tight in places.
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