Parallel Burr Cube #2

Designer: Osanori Yamamoto

This puzzle measures: 72 mm x 72 mm x 72 mm

Material: Bubinga/Limba

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“Another challenge from Osanori-san, this one consists of one made from Bubingo and a 6 piece set of plate burrs made from Limba. It is remarkably beautiful. Originally I thought it was just a framed burr of 6 boards but it’s not The boards are held apart by the frame to fully ensure they work together and are only caught by the end boards of each board There are a few possible moves at the start but the paths they are mostly blind 1 or 2 moves This means no big long barren paths to. It requires looking for something that leads somewhere and looking for the desired move that opened the puzzle for further exploration, which was fairly quickly after only 6 moves, allowing you to see inside and better understand how the pieces interact with each other after removing the first piece, it doesn’t get any easier and the puzzle turns into an almost unraveling puzzle – it’s like untying a knot inside, suddenly seeing only a small part of the knot. Sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes awkward because the boards can catch on the edges because there’s little room to move, but it’s always an enjoyable exploration. The turn count isn’t particularly high, but it’s still fun to explore and figure out at each stage how to make room for the next piece to move. After taking the puzzle apart in about an hour or so, I put the pieces in the order they were removed and remembered what position they came from. All this to facilitate reassembly without the use of Burrtools. I was pretty proud of myself when I put in the first three and then for some reason the fourth couldn’t be put in. What did I do wrong? A careful look at the shapes of the pieces revealed that the second piece was inserted upside down, followed by the third correctly, to leave room for the next one to be inserted. OK, after I announced it, take it apart again… except I couldn’t take it apart! Aargh! A minor panic sets in and I have to once again figure out how to unravel the inner unraveling puzzle I’ve created for myself. After a frantic 10 minutes I had all the pieces and admonished myself for being an eeejit and not following the orientation of the pieces and also the order. Then it went back together nice and smooth. This puzzle is amazing – it looks great, it’s kind of a burr and unravel puzzle at the same time, and if you’re good enough, it can also be a really challenging puzzle.”