Crafty Beats

6-piece diagonal burr puzzle

It’s not so easy to “take a break” of crafting, especially hubby is willing to give me a hand on my project.

The original pattern comes from Homespun Magixx, a nice website of papercraft models. It took only one hour or two to finish this burr puzzle, including the cutting and glueing. Only a scissor and a glue stick is neccesary for this project (hmm….and our hands of coz). The diagram is clear to follow. I changed the color of the pieces. Just some simple clicks in computer. ^^

That’s how the unassembled puzzle pieces look like. As hubby refused to look at any solutions while playing with it, we argued a little.:-D I used to play some wooden burr puzzles (but not this type) almost 10 years ago. I always tried to solve a puzzle violently if I lost my patience. The papercraft version forces us to think twice before trying. In addition, we must assemble it very gentle, otherwise the pieces would be easily distorted or damaged. It’s great fun even for lazy bones like me (I would rather call myself “lazy brain”, who is too lazy to think :P).

As a matter of fact, burr puzzle is also a popular topic in the mathematical world. IBM even has a reasearch group on it. Besides, a lot of people implemented various puzzles in different way. For example, both Robert J. Lang and Jason Ku made their own origami versions of the 6-piece diagonal burr puzzle.
by Rober J. Lang
No wonder wood is still the most used material for burr puzzle.

I was surprised to find “Lu Ban’s lock”(鲁班锁 in Chinese. Lu Ban is one of the best carpentors/craftsmen. ), which is probably invented more than 1000 years ago, is actually a type of burr puzzle.

The advanced Lu Ban’s lock may consist of up to 36 pieces. It’s really proud to be a Chinese. 🙂 It’s also sad that it’s so hard to find a Chinese website (particularly simplified Chinese) solely about this gorgeous art. Most founds are connected to toy business, i.e. money. 😦

Anyway, let’s go back to the topic of crafts. There are many other categories of mechanical puzzles besides burr puzzle. Some of them are not so hard to be implemented with papercrafts. Know what’s in my mind? ….A soft puzzle will be my project plan No. N+1. Isn’t it nice? 🙂