FPP 2015

Since I've started this PhD, I've resigned myself to having to travel to Finland once a year (as if that bothers me).  I wait until Conference season and tack it on to that trip to save the wear on my slightly aging body.  Last year I posted on FaceBook that I was going and Tomas Linden  got in touch to say the Finnish Puzzle Party was taking place that week and asked me to join.  I enjoyed it so much, that this year when I planned my trip I contacted him!

First stop Helsinki for a night and of course I had to visit a puzzle shop!    Nothing for me though.  Can you tell how cold it was there?  Next stop Jyväskylä and a bit of intensive study before I headed off to the puzzles.


It was just as fun as last year and there was no disappointment at all.  This year the FPP was located in Turku along the southwest coast of Finland.  It's a very beautiful city and I enjoyed walking around it with my husband.  (Did I fail to mention he came along?)

We first went to a mathematical exhibition at what I think was an art center.  We had a bit of a guided tour, and while most of the items on exhibition I had seen before, we did get into a good discussion about why balls travel faster down different planes, and there was a really cool dice counting thing that I had never seen before.  You dump around 40 dice on the table, roll them then line them up randomly. Start with the first di and count that number.  As you go through the dice, you should end up with a few remainders, discard those, roll the rest again and restart the count.  You will then end up with no remainders.  I don't know what this is called, or why it happens, but it is sooo cool!  I was fascinated by it.  It was also great fun to watch the boys playing with bubbles!

From there we headed off to a school to do a bit of talking and playing with puzzles.  Of course Tomas was selling and I managed to get a few toys myself.  Once again it was a good haul!

I listened to a talk on different shapes and tiles that forgive me, went over my head, but was very interesting.  A icosahedron turned inside out makes 2 cubes.  Is that right?  Gave a short talk on where to buy Berrocals and then went on to puzzle play.  All in all we spent about 4 hours chatting and playing. I brought along the astronaut and sort of forced Vesa to reassemble it.  (I took it apart to show him how easy and different it was from the others I've brought in the past and made him fix it).  Sorry Vesa, but I really take great pleasure from watching people play with them.  (and thank you for the disk!) I brought along my copy of the 69 puzzle an if you count the shoes, you can see how many people it took to solve and reassemble the puzzle.  Good fun!

After we went to a man's house...Sorry, can't remember the name. We puzzled for another 4 or 5 hours, had a late bite to eat and headed home. While there, I managed to find an original price list for the Berrocal's I love so much.  How I wish I had discovered them 20 years ago!

We had some good fun playing with tops and various other what's its.

I can't wait until next year.  I hear it's going to be near a puzzle shop I went crazy in last year!

 Next stop: Copenhagen and a little shop that had to be found and a short visit with Oskar and José.

Two keys lock

Well, I started this magpie thing so I may as well continue with it. The puzzle I bring you today was invented by VESA Timonen and was given out as an IPP32 exchange gift by Nancy Alliegro. The box has written on it that it's manufactured by Bits & Pieces so I'm guessing that it would be offerd up for sale at some point in the future. I've yet to see it though.

The puzzle starts off as seemingly impossible to solve. There are two keys attached to the shank of the lock and the puzzlers job is to unattached them. A bit of twisting and turning reveals a split shank that spins freely. The novice will notice that the split can be slightly separated, but that won't do any good. It wouldn't be much of a puzzle if the keys could be removed in the same fashion as a regular key ring now would it?

I won't tell you any more about the solving because I don't want to give its secrets away. I will say that it threw me a good surprise. As I was sitting with it under the table trying to not make too much noise, the keys suddenly went flying. If I weren't mucking about when I should have been concentrating I would have laughed out loud.

There is a nice little twist to this one that tickled me. While the solve only took a few seconds(!) it would be worth getting for that chuckle moment when it's solved. I wonder when it will be released to the market....

On the 12th day of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
12 other puzzlers
David Litwin, Bram Cohen, Eitan Cher, Mr. Yao, Jason Smith, Steve Winter, Vesa Timonen, Peter Wiltshire, Mike Toulouzas, Ayi Li, Wil Strijbos, and Stuart Coffin.

11 Oskar Van Ds
10 Chinnimoto's
9 Robert Stegmann's
8 Jerry Slocum's

7 Eric Fuller's
6 Tony Fisher's
5 Richard Hess'
4 Mr. Fok's
3 Da Yan's
2 Brian Young's
And Stickman in a pine tree

It's day 12 and this little story has come to and end.  I thought the best way to do that would be with 12 final puzzlers!  Links and photos are provided where available.  Go look, go buy, go make sure the designers keep designing and the puzzlers keep puzzling!

Dave Litwin, Geert Hellings

David Litwin is a long time friend.  He's designed and built my collection of elemental puzzles along with a few others over the years.

Bram Cohen, Adam Cowen, Bob Hearn

Bram Cohen in addition to being a computer wiz has had a number of puzzles made by Hanayama as well as being the inspiration for many of Oskar's designs.

Eitan Cher is a young up and coming puzzle designer.  He's currently doing post-graduate work in Chicago but still finds the time to put out a puzzle or two.

Mr. Yao is the man behind Witeden.  He's designed a number of his own puzzles and that number keeps growing.  In the past few months he's put out over 10 new puzzles.

Jason Smith

Jason Smith first brought the helicopter cube to the market.  recently he has been designing a series of deep cut puzzles.

Steve Winter is new to the puzzle building scene.  He specializes in mazes, but has recently designed  few twisty puzzles with a maze built in.

Vesa Timonen has been designing puzzles for a while now that can be found in shops all over the world. He works in all media.

Peter Wiltshire is another relatively newcomer to the world of puzzling.  His Ferris box won the 2012 Jury Prize at IPP.

Peter Wiltshire

Mike Toulouzas builds beauties in wood.  His Judges Gavel won the first prize at IPP in 2011.

Ayi Li is a designer of a number of new twisty puzzles. I love Ayi because like me, he calls his puzzles TOYS!

Wil Strijbos is the dealer of choice for the puzzle world.  One and all go to him for their puzzling fix.

Wil and Tom

And finally...Stuart Coffin. He has got to be the builder of puzzles with the most designs to his name.  As he numbers each design, it is fairly easy to keep track of what he's made.  At IPP this year I picked up number 258 "Octet in F".  That sure is a lot of puzzles!

(AND 12 bloggers blogging (Gabriel, Allard, Kevin, Jerry, Neil, Brian, Oli, Moises, Gunnar, Scott, Tom, and Rox of course!))

Neil Hutchinson and Allard Walker

For a real enjoyable trip through puzzledom, click on the bloggers names above. Some of them you might have seen before  others may be new to you, all are enjoyable reads. This was my originally intended ending, but as I went through all the puzzle designers in the initial write-up of this blog back in December, I realized that not all the bloggers are designers   For this reason, I changed it to the above 12th day, but since we all enjoy reading about puzzles and people, I thought I'd leave it in here for you to get a small bit of extra Christmas cheer!

designer and blogger Scott Elliot

Merry Christmas all!  I hope you enjoyed my little poem this year. I only wish there were more than 12 days of Christmas as I have many many more than 12 puzzlers I'd like to introduce you to.  To do that and learn more, I guess you'll just have to continue reading my ramblings.  The more I do these, the harder they get.  It is becoming more and more difficult to come up with ideas....But next year....well, I'm already thinking ahead now aren't I?


And just for you Mr. Stickman:


On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
12 puzzlers puzzling AND bloggers blogging
11 Oskar inventing
10 Chinny spinning
9 Robert Webbing
8 Jerry Collecting

7 Eric building
6 Tony cutting
5 Richard Hess'
4 Mr. Fok's
3 Da Yan's
2 Brian Young's
And Stickman in a pine tree

(Are there enough verbs in there for you now? I left them out intentionally because I wanted to name names and tell tales!)