Today, my review is for something quite different. The beautiful sculpture you see in the picture is actually an assembly puzzle as well.

Designed by George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) and produced by Artifacture Studios, the Frabjous puzzle is made from 30 laser-cut S-shaped pieces in frosted acrylic. What makes the puzzle so interesting and fascinating is that all of the pieces are identical. After assembly, the sculpture represents a great rhombic triacontahedron (thirty rhombic faces). Notice the star-like shapes when looking down at one of the vortices.

The design of the pieces looks very simple, but when joined together, they form a strong bong that will make the overall structure very stable. Each piece has on both ends a pin and tail, sort of like the dovetail joints you see in woodworking, and it's this clever mechanism that allows the pieces to create this beautiful swirling pattern. The two openings found on each piece will also create a nice hollow effect throughout the puzzle, and provides a slightly different view as you rotate the puzzle in a flat surface.

Looking at all the pieces before attempting the assembly task, could be a little intimidating, as it can be quite difficult to grasp how to connect all those pieces in order to complete that complex structure. The important thing, however, is to think one step at a time and you'll have it finished in no time. It took me approximately half an hour to complete the assembly process.

Always keep in mind that the pieces have all the same orientation. In other words, they all connect when viewed from an S-shape, not a backwards S. The hardest part for me was to connect the first ten pieces. Because I was basically relying on the picture to see the actual finished result, it was very hard to see how the first pieces would fit in the whole structure. When you start to see the pieces form something you can finally recognize, that's when the fun part begins.

Although the later stages can be a little trickier, especially when you're left with very little space to maneuver the pieces into place, by then, you'll know how it works and the process becomes very intuitive, because most of the final shape is already assembled. During assembly, I only had to reconnect two or three pieces that were overlapping, so my advice is: don't make the connections in the pieces so tight until you have the assembly finished. After finishing it, you can then do the final adjustments in the joints.

My copy of the Frabjous puzzle came from Artifacture's Etsy store, the actual producers of the puzzle. Also available in their store is another beautiful version of the puzzle, a special edition made of dichroic acrylic, that changes colors when viewed from different light angles.

(Click to Enlarge)

Not used to this type of puzzles, I wasn't sure what to expect from such an object, other than the fantastic appearance. After having finished it, I can honestly say that it's not as difficult as you may think and it'll certainly give you a very satisfying experience. When assembly is completed, you're left with a gorgeous sculpture that will make a random desk look extraordinary.

The Tetraxis puzzle is an invention by John and Jane Kostick. It's a magnetic puzzle designed to stimulate the brain's ability to recognize symmetry and color combinations.

There are twelve sticks shaped like a triangular prism, divided in four colors (yellow, green, blue, red). Each piece has four magnets, two in the parallelogram base and one in each of the prism's other two faces. Building shapes is easy and intuitive, as the sticks only connect in a way that feels just right.

(Click to Enlarge)

To build the puzzle in its original shape, you can start by joining two pieces together. Add a third stick to form a pinwheel. Now build three other ones and you're left with four identical pinwheels. It won't be much harder to join them one by one until you have the final shape built. After that, just make sure if the color combinations are right, as you might need to swap a couple of sticks to get the desired combination. Tip: try to build each pinwheel with three sticks of the same color. You'll end up with another cool color combination.

The Tetraxis comes boxed in its most recognizable shape already built. The color combination that you'll see right away is three sticks of the same color, pointing at the same direction in a triangular orientation. However, there are other several combinations that you can try yourself. For example: try to have only one of the three colors pointing at a particular direction for the entire original shape (image below). For other challenges, visit the Tetraxis'  image page (Scroll down).

(Click to Enlarge)

You can also use the sticks to assemble the puzzle in different ways other than a closed shape. Some can be magnetically linked (right image below), while others you can use a mixture of magnetically linked and just touching each other, like the four pinwheels below at the left. The pinwheels are linked together by the magnets, but they're only touching each other in a plain surface.

(Click to Enlarge)

You can also see in the Tetraxis' image page, other shapes you can build with more than one puzzle. There are countless possibilities, only limited by your own creativity and imagination.

Closing Comments:

If you're into the type of puzzles that can yield the best of your creativity, then the Tetraxis is a recommended toy for you. Whether you'll get one or more puzzles, you can be sure to have many hours of plain fun with the building possibilities that the Tetraxis can offer. It's also great to have one in the workplace to refresh your creativity.

The creators also do exquisite hand-crafted artwork, with similar structures and a few more complex shapes. If you'd like to know more about these products, you can go to the creators website and take a look at the great collection available. You can contact the designers if you want to buy anything from the site... Here's a video that shows one of these fine sculptures.

Also available from the MoMath website.

(Click to Enlarge)