Oli's Packing Puzzle

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TheJuggler
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by TheJuggler » March 15th, 2013, 7:07 pm

Given that I have a couple of new tools appearing in my workshop, I've offered to make a few of these in wome nice woods for Oli if he'd like ....

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bluesign2k
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by bluesign2k » March 15th, 2013, 8:25 pm

Cool! Tray packing puzzles are some of my favorite.
If you do make any then I'd be interested in one... assuming it's okay with Oli of course :)

allardwza
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by allardwza » March 17th, 2013, 8:08 am

Ooh. That sounds interesting... If there's a copy going, and the designer agrees.... Me too?

Allard

TheJuggler
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by TheJuggler » March 18th, 2013, 3:19 pm

Well the designer has been remarkably silent, and hasn't responded to me .... so ...

allardwza
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by allardwza » March 19th, 2013, 12:49 pm

...perhaps he's gone into hiding ahead of his nuptials - to avoid spending honeymoon money on puzzles! ;)

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Paradox
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by Paradox » April 3rd, 2013, 11:51 am

Oh dear! Hiding probably is a good way to describe it. :?

I'm sorry for not replying. I should've really but things keep slipping my mind recently.

The design as it was ended up being a bit flawed, and was far too restrictive when it came to piece placement. I'm going to have to either tweak the design quite a bit, or (more likely) come up with a new and superior design.

I intend to design a puzzle of my own eventually...even if it takes forever! How I envy those puzzle designers who can think up designs by the hundreds. My mind seems to be geared for solving more than design.

TheJuggler
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by TheJuggler » April 4th, 2013, 4:57 pm

It's funny ... once you start the ideas keep on coming. It's often difficult to get everything down!

Currently I have designs on paper for:

A modification to Wils First Cylinder which should be interesting
A puzzle box based on my table saw (prototype stage)
The Juggling box - puzzle box that was prototyped and shown at IPP (needs work!)
A puzzle box with multiple locks, simple design possibly jewelry style box (prototyping soon)
A cube based Burr (Lock cube 1 - prototypes done and verified)
A Cube based burr with a twist (Lock Cube 2)
A four piece sliding joint puzzle. More of a locking joint test than challenging puzzle, but pleasing none the less
A co-ordinate motion puzzle that I'm still working on as it has issues
The Mega Puzzle Chest (scale of Roberts Pirate chest, fully geared lid with mechanism revealed when open)

Don't give up. I'm sure you'll get something which works. And what do you mean by 'too restrictive'? Isn't that the reason packing puzzles are so frustrating?

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Paradox
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by Paradox » April 15th, 2013, 3:21 pm

I'm still really looking forward to your first puzzle box Neil. You'll have to keep us posted with how you're getting on with that once you start the project.
TheJuggler wrote:...what do you mean by 'too restrictive'? Isn't that the reason packing puzzles are so frustrating?
I think that with a packing puzzle you want the pieces to be as free as possible, meaning that they have the ability to be packed in many positions, but with only one solution. The fewer the pieces the better as well.

My design was too restrictive in that it looked fine on the computer, but in the real world it was far too easy to notice that certain pieces could only really go into certain places.

I won't give up though. I'm determined to have something of my own design eventually!

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Stickman
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by Stickman » October 23rd, 2013, 9:07 pm

Oli, I am late to the party, but awesome. I want to see, I want to see.

An issue I have hear of with packing puzzles, and burrs for that matter is coming up with a unique design that actually had been done before. I wonder if there is a data base to compare against.
The meaning of life is 42.

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Pio2001
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Re: Oli's Packing Puzzle

Post by Pio2001 » October 23rd, 2013, 10:42 pm

Hi Stickman,
To find a puzzle without knowing its name or designer, you can browse http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/ "by shape". 3301 designs are currently listed.

It is more difficult to search the Puzzle Place wiki for an unknown puzzle, but you can try entering bits of wiki code between double quotes in the search field. For example, if you are looking for 6 piece burrs, enter "Pieces = 6" "Type = Burr". The search returns all pages where the code contains Pieces = 6, and Type = Burr.
The wiki currently contains 1464 puzzles.

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