Looking for a puzzle of a puzzle? 3D Puzzle!

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I played with this puzzle at our local science center and had so much fun with it I knew I had to make one!

This was designed to be used with 0.14" Corrugated Cardboard. (If there is interest, I can redo the design for different material widths.)
8 Piece Block Puzzle - All Pieces (0.75 @ 0.14 - optimized)
(Black is Score; Blue is Cut; Green is Cut!)

The first puzzle is actually 8 puzzles! Building the eight puzzle blocks. (This was really hard for me the first time, only because the pieces were wrong, but they have been corrected now!)

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I used Elmers glue to hold the blocks together. My kids asked if I was working on a school project (apparently, you only use that glue if you are doing something for school.)

Once you have the eight pieces completed they should look like this:

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Now the goal is to fit these pieces together into a 4x4x2 block configuration!
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I think there are several solutions (or just many variations on the same solution.)

(Edit: Added a smaller version designed for medium :proofgrade: Draftboard.)

8 Piece Block Puzzle - All Pieces (0.60 @ 0.125 + kerf - optimized v2)

Wow, these are so much better made out of wood!

[Edit: This has now been incorporated into Cuttle so you can specify your own size, material width, and kerf settings!]

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One note to those that may attempt this!

If a piece seems to long/short or backwards, you have the wrong piece. :wink:

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This looks like loads of fun. My granddaughters love puzzles! I have some 0.12 mdf, do you think there’s enough allowance to use it?
Thank you for the share!!

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There might be, but here is an “un-optimized” version for 0.12" width material:
8 Piece Block Puzzle - All Pieces

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Looks like fun. I know just the person to make it for.

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Almost all of my wood & cardboard projects have been assembled with Elmers Clear.

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I might have to rework this to make a version for chipboard (1.5mm nominal) for my daughter. Let her assemble the thing from scratch. :thinking:

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If you included the pieces of scrap from the inside it would increase the challenge :smiling_imp:
Perhaps some photos included on the pieces as well?

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Don’t forget you can simply scale the entire design for a new material width, (desired)/(given)=(scale).

This presumes the new design size is suitable, so there are limits.

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Not quite sure if this is close enough (0.0625"):
8 Piece Block Puzzle - All Pieces (1)

I included photos of the pieces apart and assembled in the original post. Are they not loading? (I did not yet share of photo of the solution. I don’t just want to give it away!)

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This puzzle looks like a fun challenge for everyone in my family, from my 99 year old dad to my 9 year old granddaughter! Thank you for sharing it with us!

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ha! I did the first three pieces (by hand) after I posted, planned to print them to test the fit this morning before doing the rest. I first scaled it to fit onto a single sheet of chipboard - which are 12x12 (I made it 11" wide), your design is a bit wider…

Did you write the algorithm to create these?

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change the square piece to a short angle (green in picture). and omit the long piece 4 unit straight piece, and you’ve got a SOMA cube

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I was thinking in terms of a photo cube :laughing: like a photo of friends or a landscape on the sides of the cube :laughing:

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That would make it too easy, in my opinion.

I’ve made at least a dozen puzzles, geometric and unusual shapes that can only be assembled one way. I have to re-arrange the pieces before cutting so the grain of the material doesn’t give away clues - or make from different types of material to mix things up. The best ones are from acrylic because you don’t know whether a piece goes in one way up, or the other.

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Oh, very cool—thank you!

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Perhaps make it a puzzle for yourself, that putting it together in different ways make different pictures. The puzzle becomes how to create the different pictures that would work that way. :smiling_imp:

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nah… I just make them to frustrate my daughter and friends.

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Make it with the photos on the materials before cutting them up then. That way they can be frustrated trying to make them go together as photos.

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That’s my point. Photos make them too easy. Jigsaw puzzles are a breeze.

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