Bowling alley in a briefcase

I read about this great little puzzle on Jerry's blog and decided I wanted to try it. I saw one come up on an auction site (maybe Baxterweb?) anyway, I didn't bid high enough and continued to search. Much to my surprise and pleasure, when I looked at the table and spotted one. Without thought I grabbed it up and made my purchase.

Now with this one I had the advantage of seeing the internal bits on a webpage so I had a general idea of what needed to be done. Not that that helped me any. My exchange partner had played with this puzzle at Gathering for Gardner this past year. He fiddled with it at IPP32 but didn't get it open. One of the renegades kept telling me he was missing a vital step and would never get it open. And all that information went into my head when I tried to solve it.

Did any of that help me? Not really. I have a slow learning curve. So I ended up doing the same move I saw John do over and over and over.  Did I solve it?  Nope.  So like the Armadillo~back in my bag it went.

A while later, I was able to solve the armadillo puzzle and this gave me a bit of a kick to go try this one again.  Yep.  A lot more silliness before I was to the point of opening. Yep.  John was missing a vital step.  Yep.  It was a total accident that I found it.  And yep.  I can open it again.

This is yet another great puzzle by this duo.  How people come up with ideas like this is beyond me.  But I'm sure glad they do.  I wonder if I need to start finding someone to design my next IPP exchange puzzle or if I can rely on my own simple brain to come up with an idea before the deadline?  Any takers out there willing to help a slow girl?