The A Puzzle
Share
(Click to Enlarge)
PuzzleMaster has a great wide selection of Wire Puzzles on their website, manufactured by them, and The A Puzzle, from the brilliant mind of puzzle designer Jean Claude Constantin, is a good example of this.
The goal of the Wire Puzzles is always to disentangle or separate a part of them, whether it's a ring, a string or, as in the case of The A Puzzle, a handle. Good thing it doesn't have a string though, as those are a nightmare to solve, mostly because they can easily become quite entangled in the frame.
Besides the ring at one end of the handle, there are two others in the A frame. These two rings prevent the handle to simply pass to the end of the wire frame in the middle. Note that the ring found in the handle is the same size as the other two, so it won't be possible to just pass it through them. Also worth mentioning is that the two rings can't move much around the frame, so you have to find a way to get the handle past them.
For a 7/10 difficulty level, this one proved to be much harder than I was expecting. It took me a couple of days with constant fiddling to finally see the handle off the A. Nevertheless, it sure was a great feeling having solved it, after so much unsuccessful tries. One thing about this type of puzzles, at least for me, is that frustration kicks in pretty fast after I run out of ideas on how to tackle them. I have to take several breaks in between to refresh my mind before having another go.
I find that with Wire Puzzles it's always a bit difficult to explain the solving process in words, so I'll just give you a couple of pointers. Spoilers ahead: When thinking of a way to solve a puzzle like this, it's good to have an idea of where might be the exit for the part being separated. This exit is found in the middle of the right ring, the one that's attached to a little loop, in the gap between the loop and the frame. Another important step to keep in mind is that you need to make the left ring pass between the handle and in turn, make the handle go around the middle of the frame. There is another couple of similar steps, but after this it should be solved in no time. If you still need a graphical solution, download one here.
(Click to Enlarge)
Closing Comments:
Despite being a little harder than expected, and although not the most difficult I've tried, The A Puzzle was still a lot of fun to solve. Yes, it can be a little frustrating at times, but that's the fun of solving puzzles - they're a challenge and a test to our resolve.
.jpg)
2 comments:
I also enjoyed this one - it was one of my first wire puzzles (I bought it from Puzzleguru in the UK) at the beginning of my puzzling career. It is relatively straight forward but still a really enjoyable challenge. It even has good repeatability. I think it was one of the ones that stimulated me to buy the entire Livewire puzzles set! Look where that got me!!!!
Kevin
Puzzlemad
That was very courageous of you to buy the entire set. Some of them must be a real headache to solve, not to mention the amount of frustration they can provide.
Cheers ;-)
Post a Comment