Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

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Pio2001
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Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by Pio2001 » October 5th, 2015, 9:42 pm

Hi,
I've just got the Gordian Knot / Extreme Torture puzzle from MrPuzzle. I've got the plastic version made by ThinkFun.
http://www.puzzle-place.com/wiki/Extreme_Torture

I found a rotation while taking it apart. It is a perfectly legit one (a square bar rotates into a T-shaped space). It shortens the solution from 28 to 21 moves. It takes place after the move 18 of the booklet : at step 19, instead of moving orange, blue and yellow left, move blue and yellow right. The yellow piece can now rotate (move 20) and get out (move 21).

Then the rest is noticeably easier : 5 moves for the second pieces instead of 21.
It is possible to go on with the next pieces in less than 6 moves per piece, but it then involves a very complex rotational move of several pieces at once.

Given that this puzzle is actually level 21, does someone know the current highest number of moves for this shape, including rotations ?

Donald
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Joined: June 24th, 2012, 6:51 pm

Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by Donald » October 7th, 2015, 1:04 am

Hi there.
I have come up with a puzzle named "Contortion" that is of the same shape and of level 29.
http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/6BoardBurr/Contortion/
It is untested in the real world, though.
It would be nice if someone could make one and test it for rotations :)

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bluesign2k
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Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by bluesign2k » October 7th, 2015, 10:51 pm

Nice! If I get time tomorrow I'll run a copy off on the laser cutter and have a play :D

Extreme Torture is one of my favourites. It's one of the first burrs I played with quite a bit when I first got into puzzling. I learnt the solution by heart and used to time myself on disassembly and reassembly. I still pick it up everey so often just to make sure I can still remember how to solve it :D

Donald
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Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by Donald » October 9th, 2015, 3:52 pm

To be clear:
I don't expect Contortion to actually be a level 29.
I've looked at how Burrtools does it and it looks like a 22-23 or something like that, but I'm not sure since rotations are difficult to envision in one's head and thinking of all possible states with all possible rotations is impossible.
The only reason I published Contortion is because it uses relatively easy pieces for a unique high level solution.

BTW: I made a little tool to quickly assign ranges of pieces in Burrtools.
If anyone's interested in it, let me know as I'm happy to share it.

Donald
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Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by Donald » October 24th, 2015, 8:47 am

Any news on this?
Did you manage to make and test it?

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bluesign2k
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Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by bluesign2k » October 31st, 2015, 11:52 pm

Sorry this has taken a while... due to lack of time and having suitable acrylic offcuts to produce all the pieces I didn't manage to get this laser cut. So I printed it instead ;)
Contortion.jpg
Contortion.jpg (318.75 KiB) Viewed 14151 times
I used BurrTools to get it together just to check that all the tolerances allow the pieces to assemble. It all seems pretty good so far, but tomorrow I'll have a stab a solving the disassembly :crazy:

I printed the pieces in a a bunch of colours just because I thought it might look nice, but after I put it together I realised the colours are not far different from Gordian Knot :D

Donald
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Re: Gordian knot / Extreme Torture

Post by Donald » November 6th, 2015, 8:17 pm

It turned out nicely.
I am awaiting your review :)

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