Wednesday 15 October 2014

Join The Club

Join The Club was Scott Elliot's Exchange Puzzle at IPP34 this year. Scott designs and makes his own puzzles using his 3D printer, For more about how he produced The Club and other puzzles, you can read more about it here



The Club is "printed" out of ABS resin and quality and fit is very good and precise. Scott coloured the puzzle black with red trim, something likely possible only with 3D printing, nice! (thanks to George Bell for highlighting this). It's solid, can flex a bit and won't break unless real brute force is used. But there is a bit of a stickiness to the puzzle (probably due to the type of material used) and being a glossy finish, finger prints will start to appear after a while of play. 

Like Scott's IPP33 Exchange Puzzle, the Peppermint, the object is to "weave", if this is the right word to use, the two pieces together to form the shape of the club. Not that simple as I found myself trying all manner of orientations on the two pieces to get them to "intertwine". 



However, IMO,it is still not as difficult as the Peppermint (which I still have not put back together). After several minutes, I found the "trick" and the two pieces slid nicely into place. Pretty elegant and no force whatsoever needed. 

The Club reminds me of a well known Hanayama Cast puzzle designed by a well known European designer which works quite on the same principle. Can you guess which one?

This is the sort of puzzle you can easily pocket around and astound your non-puzzling (or puzzling) friends. Contact Scott via his blog if you wish to purchase one.

2 comments:

  1. I don't believe the puzzle is dyed. I think Scott changes the color by switching materials in the middle of a 3D print. This is something you could do only if you own the 3D printer!

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    1. George, I think you are right, the colours are changed during printing. So the layering is nice, which is unlikely to be achievable via dyeing. Thanks for highlighting this.

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