Cataloging puzzles and databases and mini-competition

 Today's blog post is a plea for ideas and help.  I have been studying the Hordern-Dalgety classification system and have run into a few problems. I applaud James for all the work he has done on this.  I know I could never have accomplished this.

The first issue I have is that the sequential puzzle section seems to be very vague when it comes to twisty puzzles.  I'm trying to work out how to catalog these.  James has also mentioned having this same problem. Should it be by shape, by number of sides, by mechanism?  What would you do?  How do I make this a user-friendly section that can be navigated by the non-puzzler? 

Another section that has not really been fully classified is sequential discovery puzzles.  I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of these types of puzzles, but I do know we have quite a few and will be receiving more this summer.  How does one catalog these?  What main classification should they fall under? Are they opening puzzles? Are they assembly puzzles? Or do we need another classification that has only sequential discovery puzzles in them? 

My next thoughts run to databases.  There are databases all over the world: Rob's puzzle page, Goetz page, The Lily Library...The list goes on.  Each one of these is unique and stands alone.  While we could link to each one, it seems a lot of extra pages for people to go through.  George has this idea of allowing people to link their collections to ours while still having it be a separate page.  By this I believe he wants it to be something along the lines of the twistypuzzles.com collections page.  Unlike that one though, he wants people to be able to add their own puzzles to their own database.  He envisions people working together to help develop the webpage interface.  He's looking for a world standard I think.  We of course would host the database.  Any thoughts on this?  

My final question is more of a mini-competition.  We have a rather large 2 (1/2) car garage (23'x22') and a golf cart garage (10'x12') Both of which have a rather boring grey floor.  You see, we have no need for a garage here so we plan to use it to display yet more puzzles. Yes, it is temperature controlled and even has its own powder room (dedicated to wire disentanglement puzzles).  We want to have something puzzle related epoxied into the floor.  My thought was a maze in the large garage and a couple of pentomino puzzles in the golf cart garage.  There was an arrow maze done for the IPP in San Francisco, but George vetoed that one.  We'd like to open this up to the public to come up with a puzzling idea.  If we choose your design/idea for the floor, we'd like to invite you to stay a weekend in the Puzzle Palace Museum.  Send your ideas to katsmom01 (@) gmail (dot) com.  We plan to leave this offer open until the end of May.  At that time we will choose a design to place on the floor before the puzzles arrive. Based on our experience with the floor at Puzzle Palace, this process takes up to one month to finish.  Forgive the messy photographs.  Right now the workmen are storing all materials in there.

On to the weekly update.  George has finished installing all of the bookcases in the Library, Guest bedroom and closets. The lights have all been converted over to low UV emitting LED lights.  The putting green is finished and it is great fun!  The landscape lighting has been finished and security lighting is up and running.  We have holes all over the walls that need patching, but this is my fault for moving too many switches around the house.  We found some odd switching in the house and have begun working on fixing the problems.  One set of lights had the switch buried in the wall.  Even the previous owner didn't know where it was.  One light has 4! switches to run it.  And the worst infraction is 3 rooms on one switch.  The electricians and I have a love hate relationship.  They love the work and the food, but they hate the work and the changes when they think they have all but finished the job.  All but one of the ancient (circa 1985) intercom systems have been removed.  I have learned how to use the kitchen built in radio.  The old phone jacks have been removed bar one or two for humorous sake (my 19 year old didn't know what they were used for).  The old pool equipment has disappeared and a new pump is sitting waiting to be installed.  And me?  I still cook for all the workmen every day and run back and forth to the big house while the lighting system there is being updated.  

Pavement Puzzles

Some of you may have seen our driveway at the big house (Puzzle Palace).  It has a 3D effect block pattern on it that I think is simply amazing, but others have commented that it makes them rather ill just looking at it.  To install it, we handed 3 different colored pavers to the HOA office and asked for approval.  They ASSUMED it would be a random pattern with the colors of the pavers and the installation began. Little did they know.  

One of the main features of Puzzle Palace is the shape of the majority of rooms.  We live in an octagonal house.  Most of the rooms on the ground floor have this shape.  When we bought the place, there was an octagon bricked into the front driveway right in front of the house.  The wrap around drive features an octagon using side walls and planter beds and we decided to continue keep this.   In the center of this octagon, we recreated the dissection of an octagon into a square mainly attributed to Geoffrey Thomas Bennett's.  Upon further investigation, Martin Gardiner writes in Knots and Borromean Rings, Rep-Tiles and Eight Queens (p. 48, 2014) that this design first appeared in a Persian manuscript in the 1300's.  Whoever made it we are glad it has been developed.  It looks stunning in the center of the driveway.

In the Museum, we decided to use a hexagon and installed Harry Lindgren's dissection of an octagon into a square.  This piece was placed at the top of the drive near the garage.  Unlike the one shown above, it can easily be seen from the street.  Needless to say, it has confused the residents of Boca Grove.  Yesterday the paver layer told me that after he finished putting the design in he went home with a terrible headache.  He ate dinner, watched some tv, and passed out at 8 pm.  He then woke up around midnight very excited. He finally worked out how it turns into a square, AND he understood why the bricks had to be placed as they were.  We had created concentric hexagons!  He told me he loved working on our two projects because he got to THINK.  Normally he just lays pavers as per a standard pattern.  Dull work to say the least.  I laughed and said if he wanted, I could give him a triangle to dissect into a square.  He laughed and went home.  I bet he will be thinking on that one all week now.

Just a question, can you make the octagon or the hexagon to a square using dovetails to connect the pieces so they form both shapes? George thinks it would be much more fun than just having 5 pieces. Or better yet, can they both be hinged so they can easily be reformed into the square?

The final ground design that we have incorporated is a number of Puzzle Palace logos (from George's prior business) throughout the Museum property.  This was based off a Stuart Coffin three piece bock puzzle (number 30, 1980) that George had.  I recently gave him a puzzle that looks similar made by Wim Zwaan in 1993.  He liked it so much he made a 3d copy of it and placed it on a pedestal outside the main door of the Puzzle Palace Museum.  If you are an avid puzzler and eager to get into puzzling when you arrive, the first puzzle is to remove it from its enclosure.  It is our hope that the puzzle is played with by nosey neighbors and passersby.  If it should disappear, it's no great loss, we will just print another and be glad that someone liked it enough to walk away with it.  However, in this community, we know that will never happen.   

 

On to the weekly update on the Puzzle Palace Museum.  The electricians have managed to fix all outdoor lights, the internal lights have all the cans placed, and we are awaiting the specially ordered bulbs. The outdoor areas minus the driveway have been sealed.  We've a bit of patio furniture poolside. George is in the process of putting the bookcases together for the library and the downstairs guest bedroom.  I have completed all repairs in the kitchen and it is fully functional.  Today the washer/dryer go in so guests don't need to worry about finding a laundromat. Stay tuned next week for a new update.

Thoughts on display and duplicates

 George and I have spent a great deal of time thinking about and discussing display options for our museum.  As noted in my last post, we have decided upon a mix of cubies and book cases.  Our go-to for this museum is IKEA.  Yes, you read that right.  IKEA.  The Kallax cubies are what we used on the front wall in the great room and kitchen, and in the downstairs guest room.  The library, half-way bedroom, and master bedroom will all be equipped with Billy Bookcases.  Now I know this sounds cheap, and it is.  BUT!  It is not.  We are fortunate to be living in a cinderblock home.  All units that are attached to the outside walls are mounted directly into the cinderblock walls.  Each bookcase is 93" tall and 30" wide.  This allows for mounting to every other stud of the building on internal walls.  

People have said this will not hold up to the weight of the puzzles, but unlike most, our shelves will not be crowded with puzzles.  Our motto in Puzzle Palace has been since day 1: Display and Play.  The same goes for the Puzzle Palace Museum.  The shelves are 11" deep, and I suppose it is possible to have the puzzles 2 or even 3 deep, this is not something we want to do.  If they are like that, you can't see the puzzles, and you will be unable to play with them.  The bookcased rooms are done that way in order to provide living space for any guests we may have.  

The Kallax cubes are a different story.  Each cubie will have six 14"x6"x4" clear PET lidded containers inside. Each will hold up to 8 standard sized Rubik's cubes. Each container will be labeled and each puzzle inside the contaier will have a unique identifier. This will allow visitors to quickly access the puzzles they are looking for.  

We plan to continue to use the Horden-Dalgety classification system with a few tweeks and additions.  Most notable of this is the absence of any classification for Twisty puzzles.  I have also spent many hours pouring over the Slocum, Hoffmann, von Delft & Botterman's, and Rob Stegman's puzzle classification systems. With each of these, there are many good points and there is always the possibility that I will be incorporating parts of them into our system.  If you have any constructive ideas, please feel free to pass them on to us. 

The library will house all of the puzzle books. Sadly, the only way I can see to hold all of them is to store them by height.  This will allow us to maximize the space in the room.  There will be a computer set up in the house with access to the public database for all guests.  

As for storage, we don't really see this as a problem.  All duplicates will be stored in the attic space of Puzzle Palace or the garage of the Puzzle Palace Museum.  All other puzzles will be on display as per our MO. 

And now on to duplicates.  Since we have announced this acquisition, we have had many requests to sell our duplicates.  Yes, we expect to have many but at this point we are not at all interested in letting any go. We have agreed with James that we will not put any up for sale for at least 3 years.  I expect it to be much more along the lines of 5 years.  It is my goal to have the collection completely catalogued before I even begin to think of disposing of any duplicates that we have.  As an example, when George and I combined our collections, we discovered around 3000 duplicates.  I have yet to sell any of those.  We have our treasure chest and duplicates are placed there for guests to take one when they leave.  We plan to continue this practice.  We also plan to trade puzzles for puzzles at some point in the future.  Perhaps when the dust settles and I have the puzzles put on shelves and catalogued we may run a special auction.

In the mean time, we are looking for yet more puzzles.  Unlike some museums that shall remain unnamed, we have every intention of increasing the size of our collection.  If you feel there is a puzzle we simply must add to the collection, please let us know. If you wish to donate puzzles to the collection, we will readily accept them without the need for you to provide any sort of funding.  Like America, our museum is a melting pot.  Send us your tired, your poor, your unwanted puzzles yearning to breathe free. 

Before I close, a small update on the progress of the museum.  This past week has seen the completion of the outdoor area.  All pavers are in place and work continues on leveling the driveway and completing the walkway to the pool area. We have had four more walls of shelving units completely mounted and another started.  Final plans have been ok'd for the workman's bathroom disentanglement walls.  The electricians have entered the building and have finished installing lights in both downstairs bedrooms and the great room.  The olive oak trees have been removed from the front of the property and a pool polluting oak has been removed from the back of the house.  The wood from the later is now curing in the garage to be used in the fireplaces.  Work continues at a steady pace.  I'm sure we will be completely finished by the time the puzzles arrive.