FARMACIA

Designer: Dr. Volker Latussek

This puzzle measures: 70 mm x 70 mm x 65 mm

Material: Acacia/Padauk

Dr. Volker Latussek wrote about it: 

“Back in 2009, I wondered whether the 27 cubes that make up a larger cube could be connected to form a closed loop. You know that this is impossible, but I didn’t want to admit defeat and experimented with nine v’s, each consisting of three cubes. I found a beautiful position for the nine connecting elements in the closed chain where I only left out one cube in the middle of one side. [The only other possibility would have been a corner cube.] My first (unpublished) puzzle, “WAY” was the result. To this day it remains my most important puzzle construction set, and is unfortunately sold in a modified form by Popular Playthings under the name ROUNDABOUT. Perhaps Pelikan will publish my original puzzle construction set “WAY” one day.
 
With FARMACIA, I brought the original idea of interlinked cubes into my current world of packing problems. Working on this puzzle was a lot of fun. I had planned that the 9 v’s could only fill the box in one way and could only be assembled in this form in one way. That worked. I dedicate the puzzle to all pharmacists. The box represents the pharmacy and the pieces symbolise the inherent art of healing (Asclepios). Perhaps you will remember this text when you have solved FARMACIA.”

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“The Farmacia by Dr Latussek is absolutely gorgeous with a box made from Acacia and vibrant Padauk pieces to be placed inside. It arrived with the pieces formed into a cube that slotted into the box but did not fit flush to the bottom. The aim is to remove the cube of pieces and reassemble it into the box so that they all sit flush with the top of the box.

Only when I took the first few pieces out did I realise why it was standing proud – each of the packing pieces are L-shaped Triominoes. Each of these triominoes has a central cubie which is solid and attached at each end to two others. One end-cubie has a hole drilled into one of the faces and the other end-cubie on the other end has a protruding short dowel which fits inside the drilled holes (these are also at varying positions on the faces). There is also a single hole in the centre of the base of the box and a single dowel in the centre of one wall (pictured left).

This puzzle is not for the faint-hearted! Having taken the pieces out of the box for my photo, I couldn’t actually recreate the cube shape to get them all back in again. So far I have been experimenting with the various ways that these can be assembled into shapes and how to build up bigger shapes. I suspect that this will be a huge logic puzzle very similar to the Logical Progression puzzle from the late Eric Fuller which took me over a year to solve. This will require some proper thought and planning to solve. So far I have not managed anything yet but I will keep at it. So should you, it is beautiful and a very tough challenge.”