Here are some of my plastic jigsaw puzzles.
Sometimes it can be useful to divide the problem
into two subproblems: (1) Find the right position of each piece and (2)
Find a strategy to assemble them. The puzzles below are not
essentially difficult, except for the batons puzzle.
Batons Puzzle
The batons puzzle consists of 10 carved plastic batons which have to
be pushed into holes in a plastic cube. It is not easy since
the batons paths overlap and all batons are different.
4×4 Soma Cube
The 4×4 Soma cube (called Abraxis) is an extension of the popular 3×3
soma cube. It consists of 12 different pieces,
each consisting of 5 cubes glued together and one piece made of 4 cubes
(see right picture).
It is a quite non-trivial task to assemble them to a big 4×4 cube.
The left picture shows the result with two pieces taken out.
Egg Puzzle
The egg puzzle is the most similar 3D variant of the classical 2D
chilren's jigsaw puzzle made of paperboard with an image to assemble.
The egg differs in that there are several
layers glued together and the overall shape is an egg.
Minor differences are that it is made out of plastic and there is no image.
Sticky Colored Tetrahedron
This tetrahedron consists of 10 small tetrahedron-like pieces.
The allowed moves are to detach the lower plane(s) or tip and rotate
them.
Star Puzzle
The star puzzle consists of 6 carved 3D pieces which have to be assembled to
the depicted star. It is one of the more easy ones and equivalent to
the wooden ball.
Lotto Pen
The original use of the lotto game is to draw some lotto numbers,
just for fun. It becomes a game if you want to shake specific numbers
into the pen shaft, e.g. 1 2 3 4 5 6.
The lotto pen needs more physical, rather than brain skills.
