I got to sit on SNta's lap. Now how cool is that! I went home with $$$ in my pocket. How wired is that.?
Sadly (not really) I missed the lectures today. But.....I got an elephant!!! So sorry Carl, it really was worth it.
Dinner was fantastic. Each year we become more and more. I'll post the photos when I get home. (tapatalk please!) or Dave will when he does. Tonight we had at least 30!!!!

Chris and Alexi joined us for the dinner and twisting bit. Amazing.

With all this info and all these pictures, none of you (especially Rox) has actually told us what their exchange gifts were! Come on now - you have to give us some puzzle specifics!

Yours is on your way to you via a guy who burns his meat. That will be $1000000 please.
And when you get it, remember, you really do Need to shake your balls. Bram has given out something every girl loves. Oskar gave out either a very strange version of those chinese finger locks or something i need toboil before i can olay with it. Dr. Panda's teaches us how to have....better....um, there are young lads here so those of you below the age of 18 leave now please.









Dental hygiene.
I can't post photos! You'll get them later, so hold your horses. Or better yet, try to match the puzzle to the Peterson in the photo above.

I tried PayPal and they won't go that high!!
So you need to tell me a different total with a few less zeros or I'll need all your bank details to arrange a personal transfer!

As for shaking my balls ( ) - is this allowed in public? And is it safe for a man of my age?

Kevin xx

Mrs. S she's going to love it. I would get a laser shield first though. Oh, and be prepared to buy at least 2 bags.

The spy museum shop today found us buying 5x5x5 puzzle safes. I'd never seen them before.
Awards banquet tonight and I'll be sure to get loads of photos..

I'm sitting right next to my hotel's router and getting 3 bars (which is 3 bars more than I had before), so I figured that I should try some more photos and some confident typing in my posts.

The basis of the International Puzzle Party is (guess what) puzzles, so the number one rule is to bring toys with you everywhere you go. Free time did not exist unless you were dedicated to getting it. Any time there was a scheduled event, you would be sure to find people with their puzzles sitting in the lobby for many hours before and after, discussing possible solutions and variations. I was a bit surprised at how many twisty puzzles there were; I went into the party with the intention of avoiding the twisties and branching out as much as possible (though that didn't stop me from spending too much money with Hendrik Haak ). I was feeling a bit inadequate at first but once the puzzle party came and went I had plenty of stuff of my own to discuss with others.

Last night was the Twisty Puzzle meetup. Around 30 people came (as Rox said) and we had a bit of a puzzle figuring out the optimal arrangement for putting tables together. Almost as soon as we got there, the toys started flying:



Jason Smith and I were having an unofficial competition to see who could sticker their petaminx the fastest (there was no winner). At the time of the photo neither was complete. The food came out at random so at any given time, some were eating and some were playing. After a while, the restaurant kicked us out (because they were closed and it was too late, not because of our extreme cubism) so we left without taking any 'Rox buried in puzzles' pictures. We migrated to the hotel lobby and I performed my Rubik's Cube song (it will be on YouTube later) while we all played with each others' varied new challenges. I personally got around 35 new puzzles; I will get some photos and videos by Wednesday. Eventually, we all drifted off...

I just want to take a minute to point out that we really don't give Andreas Nortmann enough recognition. The sheer volume of new puzzles that he posted at his peak was simply astonishing and the puzzles are well-made, too-I got to try his curvy copter rhombic triacontahedron and it was quite nice. He also manages the museum. Three cheers for Andreas!

Today, a bunch of us went to the Mall for a tour of the museums. I went to the Air&Space museum with Rox, VeryWetPaint, and various family members. We took a look at the gift shop to try to find puzzles, but we were not successful. On the advice of Dor Tietz, we visited the art gallery next door and found the ThinkFun Gordian's Knot plus some puzzle clocks (the common ones) and an interesting cubic color puzzle that nobody bought. A short trip later and we bumped into some friends who had discovered the Spy museum's collection of puzzles and interesting objects (like the 5x5x5 lookalike that is actually a safe-you open it by turning a few layers along 1 axis then pulling the top off. It's not fully functional 5x5x5 though ). The store clerks were perplexed when there was a huge rush for them, and Rox snapped a shot of us all holding our new safes in the metro station.

Tonight is the last puzzle-related event of IPP: the awards dinner. Many nice puzzles were presented and played with, so I am looking forward to seeing the results. After that comes the real puzzle: fitting all of my new toys into a suitcase

I keep seeing an Oskar puzzle I don't recognise. It looks like a Holey Skewb with a crocodile trapped inside. Is this new or did I miss it?

That would be the Dumbbell Skewb I think.
http://www.shapeways.com/model/589987/d ... skewb.html
He hasn't introduced it yet, but it is on Shapeways.

Callum

Congratulations to David Pitcher; Honorable Mention for Rotoprism 2!

An excellent puzzle. Well done!

Are all the results available yet? I'd love to hear if any other twisty puzzles received an award.

And congrats to Dave!

As far as I recall, no other Twisty Puzzles got awards.

About those safes...





And forum members:

That's a bummer. I was really hoping for the MD to get an award.

IPP32 was a lot of fun. I was arrived late and left early so I missed a bit but what time I had was pretty devoted to puzzles (about 20 hours a day ).

I have 20 pictures and you can see them here. I'll include a few in this post though so I can talk about them

My puzzle party table, with Roxanne standing in so I could wander and buy a few things.

How can I avoid this one? Roxanne watching Juozas shake his balls.

The TwistyPuzzle meet up

Clearly over time our membership has grown quite a bit. But our member height seems to be going the other direction! Aleksey (Aleksey, member #46, 2002), Pantazis (kastellorizo, #246, 2005) and Chris (Synester, #730, 2008)

Roxanne, with a few giants of the puzzle community.

Finally, I came home with a few as well:

Top: Cast Donuts, a production 2x2x1, a lovely wooden puzzle of 37 different woods, three wooden puzzles, VeryWetPaint's weaving puzzle
Bottom: A new pillowed Dino, a Bubbloid 122 from Carl (wwwmwww) and a bead puzzle from the exchange.

I had a great time, and will point out we had a record number of members from our first page (the first 50):
Juozas (#4), Hendrik Haak (#7), Darryl (#8), katsmom (#13), Aleksey (#46)
If only Oscar and Milan could have made it we would have picked up a few more first pagers.

Enjoy,

Dave

This was my first time entering the puzzle competition. I entered two of my puzzles: "Bare Bones" and "Twisted Symmetry". I didn't win a prize, but it was fun to be in the competition. Hope to attend one in person in the future.

This year had 80 amazing puzzle entries, you can see them all here.

You can also see the competition winners here.

Best Regards

No prize for my 3 Color Cube, but I was very happy to see my puzzle in the competition among all those wonderful puzzles !
Congratulations to the competition winners !

That was a great party. Being that I have never been to Washington DC I had a very tough time balancing the puzzle party with seeing the sites. Unfortunately I ended up missing the twisty meetup as a result (we had scheduled a concert not knowing there would be a meet up then). It was great meeting all these insanely smart people. Being that I'm just a collector and not a designer, I feel so inadequate at times
Somehow I only ended up with 14 new puzzles. My wife and I made it a point to try to meet new puzzlers besides the twisty people, so at the banquets, we sat by ourselves and let others join us. It worked out well, but at the same time it would have been nice to converse more with the twisty people. Once again it's tough balancing the time. If the party was two weeks long, I still don't think it would be enough time!

I still can't get over how far twisty puzzles have come since I joined the twisty group back in aught zero. I guess according to Dave, I'm #8
I suppose shapeways has been a huge part of the revolution.

On a non-twisty related note, I was very happy to see the wooden egg puzzle win the jury prize. That was a very original concept and very well put together (even though it's not a twisty). My wife liked the mouse house puzzle because when she put her finger in, it snapped at her and she jumped and screamed while the room was silent.

Well, now I'm in Hershey PA, then tomorrow Philly, then Niagara/Toronto, then Windsor/Detroit, then finally back to Chicago.

-d

PS
By the way, Steve, I think if you had only submitted one of your maze puzzles, you would have had a better shot at winning a prize. It's very possible people voted for one or the other which could have split the vote in half.

I agree! I visited András and his family on a visit to Hungary last year, and he showed me his tools and how he designs/makes these eggs. The effort that goes into them is remarkable, so I'm very happy to see that others appreciated the unique design as well.

For those interested, here's a peek into how these eggs are made:

SmartEgg Visit (Hungary) - Oli's Mechanical Puzzle Blog]

Wow, thanks to everyone at the IPP for all the first-hand accounts of the party, and for the news of the award! Not sure why only RotoPrism 2 won a prize out of all the great twisty puzzles there, but the recognition sure is nice!

Because Oskar is on the committee, and he gets it. It's deceptively complex, and very original. I have to have one!

The IPP jury puts a big premium on novelty, and the deeper than origin cuts are highly original. There were certainly a number of excellent twisties in the competition, but I think the others weren't as novel.

Thanks everyone for the updates, it's great to see what happens at these meet ups (not as great as actually being there I'm sure, but maybe one day...)

I have a couple of questions:

Is the Master Jing's Pyraminx handmade or 3D printed and who was the builder/designer?

Now that the competition is over, is there a list of who invented each puzzle and/or contact information for people who were not at the event but wish to purchase some of the puzzles?

Sorry if I've missed this somewhere obvious...

I believe its Drew's http://twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/puzzle.cgi?pkey=2021

Square in the Bag won the Puzzler's Award? Seriously?!

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, the solution is incredibly obvious. It's hardly even a puzzle.

Does anyone have a link to this puzzle? I've searched, but didn't find anything on it.
Thanks you.

Was it not on the IPP design competition site? It's a square and a bag; the square needs to be inserted into the bag. The bag is both rectangular and too small.

Also, I have started cataloguing my new puzzles, including several exchange puzzles. They are available on my YouTube and Facebook pages (CuberJim for both)

It's funny. The solution was incredibly obvious to me, though actually putting the square in the bag did require a bit of fiddling; the fit is very tight. But I watched a number of people be totally dumbfounded by it. If you don't see it, it looks pretty impossible. Even if you see how the bag should contain the square, seeing how to get it there is another challenge.

I voted for it. Not as my top choice, but it was on my ballot. (You pick your top 5.) I think I heard some comments from the jury about it not being original, which is why it didn't win a jury award, but I might have misheard / misunderstood.

ey2eye, you mean anything more than this?

I could also see the solution immediately. I can also see how it would be tricky to get it in there: you'd need to shuffle both ends of the bag over opposite corners of the square at the same time, or bit by bit in alternation. They should round off the corners slightly to make this physical part a little bit easier...

Hi Dave,

As you know, I bought a sample of your Rotoprism 2 to study it. After playing with it for quite a while, not solving it and remaining clueless about the mechanism, I took the puzzle apart.

I am deeply impressed by the elegance of the mechanism. I had expected more pieces inside. I am still not sure whether I understand the geometry of the puzzle. I noticed three shells: an inner shell, a deep-cut middle layer and the beyond-deep-cut outer shell. However, I do not understand how they interact. Could you explain it with some illustrations?

I noticed that the outer shell is quite hollow. The five triangles slides in some rails, but you did not fill up the holes in those rails, nor did you fill the voids under the corners of the triangles. Could you have filled those holes? Would that do any good (or bad)?

Finally, I think that even the deep-cut layer would already make a nice puzzle. What would that look like?

Thank you again for this great puzzle and a masterpiece of engineering!

Oskar

I will back this up. I could tell it would be a diagonal fit but how to accomplish it was not obvious, and even knowing the solution it was a bit of work.

For non-puzzlers I think it is not obvious even how it should be surrounded by the bag, and then there is the extra challenge of getting it around even if you see how it should end up.

So it fits the profile of an attractive puzzle: Incredibly simple, obvious what the goal is, multiple levels of difficulty. The simplicity is what won my vote.

Dave

Here's another pic from the twisty gathering:

I've made a couple of pictures as well.

I immediately saw that the tile in bag went in diagonally, but took more than a minute to find the solution (I cheated and looked at the solution because I had lots of other puzzles to evaluate). It's a great puzzle, and got my top vote. I'm considering making a variant which is a tetrahedron in a more spherical bag, because that would feel a lot more natural in the state where the object is in the bag, which really ought to be how the puzzle is presented. Of course for that I'd have to learn how to sew, but then I could also sew a projective plane.

Getting to meet all of you I have been with here on the forum for so long was an experience in itself I can not wait to meet everyone again one day ! Of course the puzzles there weren't too bad either And finally, thanks to Rox's generosity, I can shake my balls as much as I want at home

Yes that is the Dumbbell Skewb. Oskar had at least one other puzzle there which hasn't been introduced here yet.

I also want to say it was a real pleasure to meet everyone. I sure hope I can make it next year. I had a blast.

Carl

Probably you (who was there at the IPP) all know the smartegg (Made by a Hungarian named András Zagyvai).



Here's a link to a werkfilm (how it's made):
http://www.smartegg.eu/Werkfilm.html
It worth it to watch!

Oh, I wish I would have known you were in St. Louis! I would have loved to meet up somewhere. That intersection is less than 10 miles from my house.

I may be in error as the one I was thinking about was introduced after I was already at IPP.

Carl

I'd say it is. Wonderful stuff!

Thanks Olivér!

Dave

Could I please have all the names starting from the back row on the left side and all the way up to the front row on the right side? God I hope I can go in 3 years but my chances of going looks like goose egg. I'd love to see all the puzzles there and Twisty puzzle people from over form.

I think it's also worth noting that he only uses two basic machines to make the SmartEggs from start to finish.

And the designs are all drawn up in coloured pencil on bits of cardboard tubing, completely by hand!


SmartEgg Designs by Puzzleparadox, on Flickr

Lathe by Puzzleparadox, on Flickr

Drilling Machine by Puzzleparadox, on Flickr

SmartEgg by Puzzleparadox, on Flickr

Umm...that's going to be a bit tough. I met soooo many new friends...but I will try.

Top row: Unknown, Andreas Nortmann, Carl Hoff, Adam Cowan (far left)
Next row: Unknown, Goetz Schwandtner, Me, Bram Cohen (?), Oskar van Deventer, Bob Hearn, Tom van der Zanden
Bottom Row: Scott (VeryWetPaint), unknown, Roxanne, Derek Bosch

In the photo of the safe:

Back row: Peter Wiltshire (?), Unknown, unknown, Roxanne, Me
Front: Scott (VeryWetPaint)

I have also uploaded around 15 new videos of IPP puzzles. They are available here

I can fill in a few more.

Middle Row, left: Juozas Granskas.

Next to you is Mark rothstein(I'm not sure of the spelling-his brother gave the talk on the oldest puzzle in art). Next to me is Darryl (of the bleeding nipples fame)
Dave left the night before and Panda came in late. Alexi and Chris were around for the TP dinner but not the photo. Nick Baxter told me I needed to do photoshop rather than make any more announcements. Sorry guys.

I've now loaded all the photos to facebook that I took durring IPP. For those that don't have an account, please let me know if this one works.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3758453676747.2145068.1138673266&type=3&l=592489a6ed
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3759412300712.2145089.1138673266&type=3&l=6e5c1d1bca
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3759499022880.2145091.1138673266&type=3&l=a28de5aed5
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3759455661796.2145090.1138673266&type=3&l=0330e89963

I have posted some initial thoughts on my blog if you are interested. http://ipp30.blogspot.hk/

Video's of the first half of the exchange puzzles are up on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/katsmom150901?feature=mhee. Others will come but I have to work in the morning and really need to work out how to sleep tonight....

Enjoy!

Wow! Those are many videos already! I have not managed to put any Exchange puzzle pictures onto my webpage yet, and they are still covering all my living room table.

So far I have put all my non-Exchange ones onto my page for a start (link see below).

I just noticed that the Purchase information for the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition Entries is now available. This includes the website address, email or contact information and the purchase price. This is for puzzle entries that have been made available for purchase by the designer.

You can find all this Here at Puzzleworld.

Best Regards