MINIMA FOR FREDERIC

Designer: Dr. Volker Latussek

This puzzle measures: 70 mm x 50 mm x 50 mm

Material: Oak/Wenge

Dr. Volker Latussek wrote about it: 
“A few years ago, Frederic Boucher wrote to me and invited me to contribute to his MINIMA series. To make my decision easier, he suggested that I didn’t have to fill the box’s internal volume strictly as 3x2x2, but could also consider using half-cubes and thus interpret the box as 6x4x4. I still remember well how I expressed my confusion to him about this; from my point of view, this offer – though certainly well-intentioned – contradicted the originally intended minimalist design concept of a 3x2x2 box, given the generous interpretation of the strict guidelines.

Now we all know what outstanding ideas Frederic was able to realise in his MINIMA series. Nevertheless, I wanted to resist this temptation and only agreed to the project under the strict conditions. I’m still pleased with the result today: MINIMA-FLOP, especially as I was able to completely fill the 3x2x2 box with four identical Tricubes and incorporate the FLOP moves – which were so important to me – into the solution. In fact, I was very satisfied with the result, and I think Frederic was too.
However, when I was recently playing with one of my 14-piece complete sets of building blocks of the same size, I checked whether six of these building blocks – each consisting of one cube and two half-cubes – could be used to fill a 6x4x4 box in an appealing way. I was pleased to find that, out of the 924 possible arrangements, only 13 filled a 6x4x4 volume in 50 different ways. For whatever reason, I then looked for suitable 3×2 openings – which I’m familiar with from my FLOPs – in order to offer a challenging and unique solution.

I was so impressed by the result that, despite my initial reluctance, I asked Frederic if he would sponsor it. To my great delight, he agreed immediately, and so Pelikan is now able to release this puzzle under the name MINIMA FOR FREDERIC. I’m very pleased about this, and I think Frederic is too.”

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:
“Oh, Yesssss! More Minima puzzles! By now, you will all have realised that I absolutely adore the Minima series and all its’ variants. Initially they were designed by Frederic Boucher to have a box with a 2x2x3 cavity and varying numbers of oddly shaped, but small, pieces to be fitted inside the box. Usually the aim was to make sure all the holes were occluded and at times the solution required interesting rotations of the pieces. Some of the puzzles had clever slots in the box to facilitate the rotations which did sometimes make the puzzle very confusing. One or two of them had extra “bits” attached to the pieces. Other designers jumped on the bandwagon with all sorts of interesting shapes and challenges. I have loved every single one of them so far. There is something very special about Volker’s brain – he sees shapes and movements that almost no-one else can see and produces challenges that are incredibly difficult and interesting to explore. He created the amazing Minima-Flop and I have been waiting with bated breath for another special Minima from him. Here we have, not only another fun Minima designed by Volker, but also a Minima which he felt was good enough to be named as a tribute to the originator of this series, Frederic. Jakub and team have manufactured it from a very beautifully grained Oak and Wenge.
 
The puzzle arrives in a special transport configuration which took me quite a long time to actually unravel from the box. It is so nice to have this extra challenge (both initial removal and also packing for storage. Having managed to unpack the pieces, I realised that the assembly was going to be a huge challenge. Especially when you remember the rest of Volker’s incredible rotational packing puzzles. I actually struggled to make the 4x4x6 cuboid for a while and when I did construct one, I placed it alongside the box and looked for ways the shape could possibly be taken apart through the holes. The cuboid could be arranged in 8 ways to try and interestingly, only 3 of them had even a single removable piece which was very helpful but to my horror, none of those positions would allow a second piece removal (even with interesting rotations). The constraints of the box just wouldn’t let another piece out. At this point I was worried that there might be dozens of assemblies of the pieces to then try and find a way to get them inside the box. Because of my time-constraints, I went to Burrtools to look for cuboid assemblies. There are just 2 and I had found the wrong one first. 
I used BT and constructed the correct assembly and looked again to see how it could be disassembled using the various holes in the walls. The first piece obviously has to just lift out the top hole but after that there is a sequence of clever rotations using the holes until there are just 2 pieces remaining. Those two pieces did look impossible to place inside but obviously that was going to be the main challenge that Volker had intended. Time to set to proper work…
 
At this point, I had my assembly order positions and then “just” had to work out how to get the first two pieces into position. I tried for days to get them inside and in position for the third piece to be placed but I just couldn’t get them into place. I went back to the cuboid several times to see whether I had missed an alternative assembly or orientation but it was correct. There is plenty of room in the box but those two pieces need a very clever and very specific set of moves around each other to get them into place. After 3 days of trying, I finally packed them into place and after that the rest rotated into the correct placements fairly easily.
 
If you like Minima puzzles then you must buy this. If you like Latussek puzzles then you must by this. Hell, If you Like puzzles then you must buy this! It is up there with the best Minima puzzle designs by Frederic – it is a very suitable tribute. Thank you Volker.”