Welcome to the third spotlight of the Lilly Library’s Mechanical Puzzle blog series, written by Andrew Rhoda, the Lilly Library’s Curator of Puzzles!
The third mechanical puzzle category that Jerry Slocum included in his taxonomy of puzzles is “interlocking puzzles.” Interlocking puzzles are a combination of the first two categories. Here, you must both take apart the puzzle and put the puzzle back together. These puzzles take on a variety of forms, some taking the shape of everyday items and others taking the form of platonic solids. They can also take the form of “burr” puzzles, named after their similarity to seed pod burrs. They can be large or exceptionally small, but all have an aspect of the pieces locking together to achieve the solution.
Examples of Interlocking Puzzles
One of the sub-categories of interlocking puzzles is “figural” interlocking puzzles. As the name suggests, these puzzles take the shape of objects. They can be as simple as a barrel or an apple or as elaborate as an airplane, a castle, or the Seattle Space Needle. You can find interlocking puzzles, including figural interlocking puzzles, in various places around the world. However, the style of puzzle design from Japan called kumiki has a notable tradition of figural interlocking puzzles. In Puzzles Old and New: How to Make and Solve Them, Jerry Slocum and his co-authors give the origin point for kumiki puzzles with the work of Tsunetaro Yamanaka, who lived from 1874 to 1954, and began making puzzle models of buildings in the 1890s (64). The Yamanaka family has continued the tradition of kumiki puzzle design through the generations (Slocum and Botermans 1994, 81). The Yamanaka Kumiki Works is still in operation today, also making puzzle boxes, which you can see on the Yamanaka Kumiki Works YouTube channel.
Another type of interlocking puzzle is the “geometric solid” interlocking puzzle. These puzzles take the form of a three-dimensional polyhedron, which is separated into pieces to create the puzzle. Then the goal is to dismantle and reassemble the original geometric form. A famous designer of geometric solid puzzles is Stewart Coffin. Coffin would often make his puzzles using distinct types of wood, which adds the element of color symmetry to the puzzle. Not only do you reassemble the puzzle in the correct shape, but you also must find the various symmetrical patterns that the pieces in that polyhedral shape can create (Coffin 2007, 94-95).
One of Coffin’s famous examples is the Jupiter puzzle. As Stewart Coffin writes in his book, Geometric Puzzle Design, “The triacontahedron can be completely enclosed by an arrangement of 30 sticks of 36-108-36-degree triangular cross-section […]. If these triangular sticks are split longitudinally into two identical halves and then joined in fives to make 12 identical, symmetrical pieces, an interlocking configuration is obtained that is directly analogous to Scorpius” (148). The Scorpius mentioned here is a similar, earlier puzzle that Coffin designed with “24 sticks of 30-60-90-degree cross-section. These sticks are then joined in fours to make a simple but intriguing geometric puzzle” (Coffin 2007, 129). In addition to being the inspiration for Jupiter’s design, Scorpius also will fly apart in dramatic fashion when tossed into the air (Coffin 2007, 129-130).
In that same book, Coffin recounts a story about how the Jupiter may seem complex and intimidating, but is quite straightforward to solve. Coffin writes:
“Most persons will not even attempt to disassemble and reassemble this intriguing polyhedral dissection – so forbidding it looks – yet it really is quite easy. Years ago, when we worked the rounds of craft fairs, we used Jupiter as the centerpieces of our display. When a crowd had gathered, I would toss it gently so that the pieces all fell in a heap. Then I would announce that anyone who could put it back together could have it. Usually no one would try. Our youngest, about age eight at the time, would be planted in the crowd, and you can probably guess the rest (Coffin 2007, 149).”
As you may have guessed, Coffin’s youngest daughter would solve the puzzle quickly, demonstrating the relative ease of the puzzle’s solution. To add challenge to the reassembly of the puzzle, Coffin designed Saturn. He writes, “To convert the Jupiter construction into an assembly puzzle – its derivative, Saturn – has two identical halves of six pieces each […]. The six pairs of puzzle pieces are all dissimilar and non-symmetrical (Coffin 2007, 150). Coffin goes on to note that while the reassembly of the puzzle has multiple solutions, if pieces with different colors are used, there is only one solution with color symmetry (Coffin 2007, 150).
Another type of interlocking puzzle is the “burr puzzle.” In The Book of Ingenious and Diabolical Puzzles, Jerry Slocum and Jack Botermans cite the work of Edwin Wyatt as the origin point of the term “burr puzzle.” They write, “Wyatt, in Puzzles in Wood, applied the term burr to the interlocking puzzles that resemble a seed burr. Now the name is commonly applied to almost all interlocking puzzles” (Slocum and Botermans 1994, 71). Wyatt published his book Puzzles in Wood as a supplement of interesting projects that carpentry teachers could include in their courses (Wyatt 1956, 3). These puzzles consist of notched pieces, commonly but not always rectangular, which combine into a three-dimensional shape (Slocum et al 1986, 66). Or as Coffin writes, “In puzzle nomenclature, burrs are assemblies of interlocking notched sticks. They are traditionally square sticks, but all sorts will be considered here [in this book]” (Coffin 2007, xi). Through the rest of Geometric Puzzle Design, Coffin does indeed consider all types of interlocking puzzles, burr or otherwise.
Another sub-category of interlocking puzzles is keychain puzzles. These are small puzzles usually made of plastic. The earliest form of this sub-category was also Jerry Slocum’s first puzzle. Irving Steinhardt designed the Trylon-Perisphere puzzle, which the Helen Hart Novelty Company produced for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Jerry’s parents would occasionally travel, and when they did, they would bring back souvenirs for their children. When Jerry was eight years old, his parents went to the New York World’s Fair and returned with the Trylon-Perisphere puzzle for Jerry. That one puzzle started Jerry’s lifelong journey of collecting mechanical puzzles.
The Trylon-Perisphere puzzle takes the form of the two buildings that were the hallmark of the World’s Fair, “a 700 ft. high obelisk, called a Trylon, and a 200 ft. ball-like structure, called a Perisphere” (Slocum et al 1986, 86). The puzzle uses the Trylon as the “key” piece, as it is the first piece removed while disassembling the puzzle and the last piece replaced when putting it back together. The globe consists of five pieces that are taken apart, and then you reconstruct the globe, locking everything together with the Trylon tower.
The Trylon-Perisphere puzzle did well for Helen Hart Novelty Company, and after the World’s Fair closed, the company took the puzzle and replaced the Trylon tower with a smaller piece attached to a keychain (Slocum et al 1986, 86). The idea being that you could have a puzzle in your pocket in case you became bored. Other toy companies also started following suit and creating their own keychain puzzles, creating their own sub-category.
If you are interested in seeing more puzzles in the Slocum Puzzle Collection, you can learn more at https://libraries.indiana.edu/lilly-library/mechanical-puzzles or by attending the Friday Puzzle Tour held from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm in the Slocum Room.
About the author: Andrew Rhoda is the Curator of Puzzles at the Lilly Library, where he oversees the 35,000 mechanical puzzles in the Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection, in addition to the Slocum book and manuscript collections. He hosts classes from across disciplines who visit the collection, and he has presented on mechanical puzzles and the collection at puzzle events here in Bloomington and around the world.
Bibliography
Coffin, Stewart T., 2007. Geometric Puzzle Design. 2nd ed. Wellesley, Mass.: A K Peters, Ltd.
Slocum, Jerry, and Jack Botermans, Carla von Splunteren, and Tony Burrett, 1986. Puzzles Old and New: How to Make and Solve Them. Plenary Publications International (Europe).
Slocum, Jerry. and Jack Botermans, 1994. The Book of Ingenious & Diabolical Puzzles. Times Books.
Wyatt, Edwin Mather, 1956. Puzzles in Wood. Milwaukee, Wis: Bruce Pub. Co.
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