Saturday 29 October 2016

Vivaldi Burr

Of all the IPP36 Exchange Puzzles, the Vivaldi Burr must surely be one of the most unique and unusual looking ones present this year! Very nicely packaged, it even comes with portions of a score which act as cushioning in the box!


Exchanged and designed by Rene Dawir of Luxembourg, the Vivaldi Burr was produced by Marcel Gillen, the latter who is most well known for his chess piece puzzles. 

As you can see from the photos, the puzzle takes, IMHO the shape and form more of a cello (than a violin). It is reminiscent of the Japanese Kumiki puzzles, that are interlocking puzzles which take on a familiar shape eg animal or object.



The Vivaldi Burr is constructed entirely of thick MDF board and the pieces are precision cut using a CNC milling machine. Stripped down, it is essentially a "board burr" type puzzle. Quality, fit and finish is very good and everything is nicely put together and all pieces slide and move relatively smoothly.



The object is the disassemble and re-assemble the burr. Make no mistake here; while it doesn't look anything like a traditional burr and you can see everything you are doing, the Vivaldi Burr is not that easy to take apart, even though it may appear to be so. I don't have the exact solution steps but based on my own rough count, it takes about 9 steps to remove the first piece and approximately a total of 24 steps to dis-assemble the entire puzzle completely +/- a couple of steps. The first two steps are obvious. The steps are sequential and if one is missed, it may mean starting several steps from behind again. Putting it back to together is the exact reverse. It took me a good forty five minutes to take apart the thing apart and re-solve.




Moderately challenging to solve, overall a very nice design and well executed "burr" to collect. And something certainly very different from the usual.

No comments:

Post a Comment