Month: July 2019

ODD Packing Puzzle – Hirokazu IWASAWA

Today I have ODD packing puzzle. The name comes from the shape of the pieces which in fact spell out O D D. This puzzle won the Puzzle of the Year award at IPP28 and I am very excited to see what it is all about.

Holy shit these are big pieces! That was my first thought upon unwrapping this latest puzzle from Cubicdissection. And indeed, the pieces are big. Each of the “Square-ish are almost 2″x2″ and the box itself is 4″x4”. The rectangular-ish piece is almost 3″ long too. Those are some big pieces to cram into this big box. Is the large size a bad thing? Nope. I don’t think so. Does it enhance the puzzle? I don’t know yet – lets find out!

Huge puzzle pieces! This is going to be fun!

The first thing I notice is that the Square-ish pieces are in fact not square. The will slide into the box in certain orientations, but not others, thus one side is longer than the other. This will likely matter when solving and I’m certain that there will be a fair bit of manipulation and/or rotation going on when solving. Ok, time to put in a little work and see what can be discovered.

Ok, ten minutes in and I haven’t gotten very far. It has become quickly apparent that dimensions matter. Those 2 little square-ish pieces have very strategically bevelled edges and very precise dimensions that have made this puzzle anything but trivial to solve. At this point, I can get any 2 pieces into the puzzle, but not all 3. It took a few tries to figure out how to get the 2 squares inside, but it is then impossible to get that last large piece in. Seems reasonable that one of the squares will be the last piece to enter. But, that isn’t really helping me any. Lets see if another 10-15 minutes will yield any further results.

The pieces don’t seem to fit… at first.

Yes! Yes ! YES! Boom! I’ve done it! And with a verbally shouted “YES!!!!” that awoke the dog from her slumber, I stand triumphant! Whew, that was pretty fun.

I went back to the puzzle for another 10-15 to see what I could see and I quickly discovered something about the large block and a previous assumption. Once I had this piece of information, I knew what had to be done. Suddenly the puzzle looked achievable and it was only a matter of time.

Beautiful wood specimens make this puzzle special.

I now knew the order in which I had to insert the pieces, I just had to figure out how to get the first 2 pieces into the correct place. I tried and failed and tried and failed again. I used the bottom of the box to try to figure out this tricky move and still couldn’t do it. I decided to just sort of “brute force” the solution and was sticking the first two in at various orientations to see if something would budge. When it didn’t work, I’d try a different orientation. At some point, I remembered lessoned learned from a particular Pit Khiam Goh puzzle and tried again. This time, things moved the way I wanted them to and that final piece was inserted and BAM, it was solved.

What a fun puzzle! I can’t wait to share this with some friends and family and see how they do! While not overly difficult, this puzzle definitely requires focus and thought and feels great when that “ah-ha” moment arrives.

I can now adequately, judge the size of this puzzle and have to say that I am very happy with the choice to make this one “big”. It is very satisfying to manipulate these big pieces and I imagine that a smaller sized version wouldn’t have the same appeal. The loud “thunks” of these pieces falling into the box is very satisfying and given that there are only 3 packing pieces, this was a smart choice.

Look – it spells O.D.D.

Zebrawood is an excellent choice wood for the pieces and it is joy to handle and manipulate these pieces while solving. The large size adds a nice heft and also provides a larger canvas to really appreciate the striking grains in this beautiful wood.

Overall, a very pleasing puzzle to work on and solve that I am very happy to have in my collection. I will definitely hand this one over to friends and family with confidence that they can solve it if they put their mind to it.

LunaTIC – Andrew Crowell

Well, after a fairly long break, I’m back in the saddle again! This time I have LunaTIC. This is the last TIC from the recent order from Woodwonders. Have to say – these have been extremely fun puzzles and I’m super excited for more. It sounds like Eric Fuller will be building some soon, so I’m definitely looking forward to those.

This puzzle is made up of 5 rather complex looking pieces. They are beautifully crafted and I’m bursting with anticipation. I see one pin placed to increase the strength of one particularly vulnerable looking finger of wood. The interesting thing here is that none of the pieces are obvious frames – as is the case with a lot of the TICs that I’ve played with. This one looks to be really exciting, so let’s get going.

The challenge is to fit these pieces together into a cube. I found this puzzle quite difficult.

10 minutes in and I’m having a great time. I got some chill music on, I’m sipping’ some tasty beer and just enjoying the exploratory process of a new puzzle. I must admit that I felt a little lost at first – trying to figure out how the 5 pieces fit together is not easy. There are no obvious signs or indications as to what goes where. So, it just comes down to some fiddling with 2 pieces to see how they interact, after I’ve worked through all the positions, I drop one of the pieces and pick up another. I just keep working combinations, waiting for that moment where everything fits together correctly. And about 10 minutes in, I have 2 pieces fitting together with a promising orientation and I’m ready to see if I’m on the right track or not.

Bah. turns out those 2 pieces were not correct. I grabbed a third piece and quickly realized it was impossible to fit in there, so I’m back to the drawing board.

So far this puzzle is kicking my butt. I’ve had a few more moments where 2 pieces went together in a promising way, but each time I can quickly determine that it’s not gonna work. This TIC is really throwing me off and I love it.

Eventually, I gave up and put this puzzle back on the shelf to settle in for the long haul. The plan was to pick it up occasionally, work on it when I feel motivated and just enjoy the ride.

At some point, while fiddling with the pieces, I finally got it right and now know where the pieces fit. Whew, that phase took a lot longer than usual with this puzzle. But I’m feeling good now. Once I know the position of the pieces, its just a matter of time before I figure out the sequence.

The thing is, this puzzle is really testing me. It just doesn’t seem to be working like other Crowell designed TICs that I’ve worked on. My process is as follows. Put 4 pieces together and then manipulate the puzzle to see if I can get the 5th piece in. When all options fail, then I try again with 4 different pieces. I keep rotating through all the pieces, but a solution is not presenting itself. Furthermore, none of the configurations feel very promising.

After several days (or weeks) working with this methodology, I decide to change it up. What if this is one of those puzzles where you build 2 halves and then fit them together? So, I try this out for a while. It seems more promising, but I’m still not able to get this darn thing together.

All Right! I’ve got the 2 sub-assemblies built – now how to get them to mate?

Then, one night, the magic happens..

Boom Hell Yes! Aw man, I finally, FINALLY got this one together! Its such a good feeling when puzzles go together. Those final moments where you’re not quite sure if its gonna work, but it seems to be going in the right direction, so you’re cautiously optimistic, and then whammo! It goes together! Ahhh yeah. I’m just basking in the afterglow right now and it feels good. This puzzle has really stumped me for a long while. It’s really quite clever and I can’t wait to slowly disassemble it to figure out just how it goes works.

One of the many confusing configurations of this puzzle.

In the end, I was working with two halves of the puzzle. I tried to put this together one piece at a time, but it just seemed impossible, I was ultimately left with trying to force these two halves together through any method possible. I’d move a couple pieces in one half, then move a couple pieces in the other half and see if that then allowed them to fit together. Each attempt, I would move different pieces into different places, just hopelessly searching for something that felt correct. And then finally, after several weeks of on/off attempts, I nailed it tonight. The two halves combined into a unique piece and then it only took 3-4 more moves and the puzzle was complete. Those final 3-4 moves really were special though. The moves were simple, but my excitement was growing as I wondered if this was really happening. Such joy can be had from simple wooden shapes!

The solved cube is so nice! Amazing what challenge lurks inside this simple looking cube.

And there you have it! Another solved TIC. I really enjoyed this one because it was very different from other TICs I’ve worked. Mainly, there are only 2 rotations – and the rotations aren’t what makes this a good puzzle. Usually those rotations yield a great “a-ha” moment, but with this puzzle, the rotations are almost trivial. Yes they are tricky, but they are only used to put together the sub-assemblies. The final moves don’t involve any rotations, just a few very clever moves that are not at all obvious.

Highly recommended for all!