Tuesday 4 February 2014

Easy EIGHT / Hard EIGHT

Name
Easy EIGHT / Hard EIGHT

Designer
Robert Aubrey Hearn. Bob maintains his here.




Manufacturer
Walt and Chris Hoppe. There may still be a few copies available from Bob.

Type & Classification

2D Packing

Dimensions
10.8cm (length) x 10.8cm (Width) x 1.5cm (Thickness)

Materials & Construction
I believe the tray is walnut while the pieces are laser cut cherry. Quality fit and finish is very good. The fit is just right (with the very slightest play between the pieces) which is necessary for this type of puzzle. Overall a nice size for handling.

Overview
I got this puzzle from fellow puzzle collector and blogger Roxanne Wong (who was selling a few copies on behalf of Bob) during the Puzzle Party at IPP33 last August in Japan.

This packing puzzle comes with two challenges. The object is to place the 5 letters "E.I.G.H.T" into 2 different frames which sit on both sides of the tray. The easier challenge is of course the "Easy EIGHT" side.

Difficulty Level
The Easy EIGHT is easy. I am not good at packing puzzles, but this one took me about 10 minutes or so and I figured it out. The straight edges of the square frame obviously were a great help.

The Hard EIGHT is hard! Hard enough that I gave up after sometime. Here's a continual oval shaped frame with no straight edges and corners to guide whatsoever. I checked the solution and it didn't appear to look that difficult; but aren't all puzzles like that only upon hindsight?

Summary
A nice challenging duo-packing puzzle using only 5 letters of the alphabet. There's another similar 2D packing puzzle but using 10 numbers instead, called Digigrams.

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