PolyPuzzle Lab

  Laser cut, assembled board at bottom and ten "hoe" pieces at top Introduction After the design of  Nine Pointy P puzzle , I continue to explore polyiamond and triangular grid, in especially this hexiamond  (contains six triangular units) piece shown below. Following AI's recommendation, I've named it "hoe". The  replication puzzle  in this post is called "Ten Hoes" because ten of this piece are used. A hexiamond piece, AI said it looks like a garden hoe The board of this puzzle, as shown below, features a large triangular frame and instructions on how to play. Inside the frame, there are eight small triangles, each labeled with a number from 1 to 4, with each number appearing exactly twice. To solve this puzzle: choose a number 1, 2, 3, or 4, then find the two small triangles on the board that match that number. while keeping those two triangles open, move, rotate, or flip the ten hoe pieces as needed to fill all of them into the large triangle ...

  Laser cut and assembled P&P puzzle, showing seven small pieces and a board with two frames to solve Introduction Ready to dive into the world of P's? This geometric dissection puzzle demonstrates the transformation between a "P"entagon frame and a "P" pentomino frame, through seven small pieces, as illustrated in above picture. The challenge is to move, rotate, and flip these pieces to fit them into one of the frames one at a time.  There are two frames, so you’ll have two puzzles to tackle. The seven small pieces are all convex irregular polygons - two triangles, four quadrilaterals, and one pentagon. Laser cut files are available at ATOMM .  Once you’ve laser cut them, you’ll need to glue the large top frame piece onto the bottom base piece to create the board; and the results are shown in the pictures above.

Laser cut and assembled puzzle Introduction A combination of loose-packing puzzle and replication puzzle , this puzzle has two frames and 8 identical T pentomino pieces. The goal of this puzzle is to put 4 T pieces in the left smaller square (2 known solutions), and 8 T pieces into the right larger square (1 known solution). SVG file for laser cutting is available at ATOMM and MakerWorld .

  Introduction This is a beautiful  calendar puzzle  on hexagonal grid with two panels. Similar to the  square grid version , the left panel has months, and days of the week; and while the larger panel on the right displays the days of the month, as shown in the picture below.   Laser cut and assembled board at left, and ten pieces of polyhexes at right. This puzzle features ten polyhexes , as you can see in the image above. The two panels aren’t connected, so each polyhex piece can only fit in one of them. The goal of this puzzle is to show three hexagons representing the date (month, day of month and day of week), while covering all other hexagons (including the empty one next to 31) using the ten polyhexes. You can find the svg file for laser cutting/engraving machine at ATOMM  and  MakerWorld

Introduction The goal of this puzzle is to pack all eight identical tetrahex (4 hexagon cells) "P" pieces into a heart-shaped frame. Inside the heart frame, there is a small heart island and all the tetrahex P pieces must fill around it. This puzzle is a combination of loose-packing puzzle and replication puzzle . Each tetrahex P has two sides: Each tetrahex P piece has two side, P side at left, and Q side at right darkened by engraving All eight tetrahex pieces have dark engraving on their Q sides, while their P side remain original wood color. The laser cut and assembled ready-to-play puzzle is shown below (showing 4 piece in P side and 4 pieces in Q side). Please note the assembly requires gluing of the heart frame and also the small heart island onto the base board at specified location. The assembled board has a cutout region at lower right corner for storing one P piece only for storage purpose, if you do not want to store it at solution stage. As you can see in above ...

Introduction Isn’t a heart-shaped puzzle just the best? The challenge is to fit six different pentomino pieces into the frame. With the heart’s smooth curve and the pentomino pieces’ straight edges, you might think there’ll be some gaps. And you’re right—this is a loose-packing puzzle . The fun part is figuring out how to position the pentomino pieces relative to the frame. Can you discover the perfect combination of packing and orientation to solve it? The great thing is, you can flip and rotate all six pentomino pieces as you work! Laser cut, with heart-shaped frame glued onto base board, with six pentominoes on the side SVG file available at ATOMM  and MakerWorld

  Laser cut Eight Hex P Challenge puzzle. It shows the piece outside isn't quite fitting and puzzle cannot be solved without re-arrangement of the pieces. Introduction Instead of polyomino and square grid used in the first replication puzzle , here we switch to polyhex and hexagonal grid. The basic building block is P-tetrahex, which looks like a letter P (and also like a pistol): P-side of a P-tetrahex and let's call it's reflection Q-side Q-side of a P-tetrahex This puzzle requires the filling of eight P-tetrahex into a frame as you can see in the picture above. The challenge is that only one side of each P-tetrahex can be used in this puzzle: 6 P sides 2 Q sides The required sides have dot markings (the other sides are blank) in my laser cut file, and they must face up when you’re trying to solve the puzzle.  The picture below shows the frame and eight P-tetrahex pieces with dot marking sides facing up.  This puzzle has exactly one solution. Puzzle frame at left, and ...

Laser cut Eight L Challenge puzzle. It shows the piece outside isn't quite fitting and puzzle cannot be solved without re-arrangement of the pieces. Introduction I’m excited to share my first replication puzzle ! It features eight L-tetrominoes arranged in a 6x6 square frame with a unique 2x2 notch at one corner, as you can see in the picture above. The challenge is that only one side of each L-tetrominoes can be used in this puzzle: 5 L sides 3 J sides The required sides have dot markings (the other sides are blank) in my laser cut file, and they must face up when you’re trying to solve the puzzle.  The picture below shows the frame and eight L-tetrominoes with dot marking sides facing up. This puzzle has exactly one solution. Though it is not as challenging as Nob's L puzzle with twelve L-tetrominoes, it is not an easy one either. Puzzle frame at left, and eight L-tetrominoes at right, dot markings on 5 L sides and 3 J sides. Laser cutting/engraving files are available at ATO...

  Cut and assembled puzzle, ready-to-play setup Introduction You can find the laser-cut/engrave SVG file of this puzzle at  ATOMM  and MakerWorld This 3-in-1 Squeeze-Me-In puzzle comes with a triangular board, three small pieces (one triangle, one parallelogram, and one square), and nine large pieces. As you can see in the picture above, the three small pieces are tucked into the three small empty cutouts, just like they look. The nine large pieces are arranged to fit snugly into the square board. The picture below shows how the puzzle looks before all the pieces are on the boards. There’s a little figure in the lower right corner of the square board that shows you how to put nine large pieces back into the ready-to-play setup. The challenge here is to fit one of the tiny pieces into the big square board, along with the nine bigger pieces, without any of them overlapping. You’ll probably have to shuffle, turn, and flip all ten pieces to get it right. This puzzle is a tri...

Cut and assembled puzzle, ready-to-play setup Introduction You can find the laser-cut/engrave SVG file of this puzzle at ATOMM  and MakerWorld This 4-in-1 Squeeze-Me-In puzzle comes with a parallelogram board, three small pieces, and nine large pieces. As you can see in the picture above, the four small pieces are tucked into the four small empty cutouts, just like they look. The nine large pieces are arranged to fit snugly into the parallelogram board. The picture below shows how the puzzle looks before all the pieces are on the boards. There’s a little figure in the lower right corner of the square board that shows you how to put the nine large pieces back into the ready-to-play setup. The challenge here is to fit one of the small pieces into the big parallelogram board, along with the nine bigger pieces, without any of them overlapping. You’ll have to shuffle, turn, and flip all ten pieces to get it right. This puzzle is 4-in-1 because it has four small pieces, and each one is ...

  Introduction This is a fun twist on the daily calendar puzzle ! Instead of just one rectangular panel, we have two panels on the playing board, as you can see in the picture below. The two panels aren’t connected, so each polyomino piece can only fit in one of them. The panel on the left shows the months and days of the week, while the larger panel on the right displays the days of the month. Just a heads-up, there are two empty squares, one on each panel. This puzzle features ten polyominoes, as you can see in the image above. Each polyomino piece has a dot on one side, and the other sides are clear. You can find the svg file for laser cutting/engraving machine at ATOMM ,  MakerWorld  and  CuttingPATH How to Play? The goal of this puzzle is to show three squares representing the date (month, day of month and day of week), while covering all other squares (including the two empty ones) using the ten polyominoes, like the picture below. Here are three ways to p...

Introduction Calendar puzzles  can be found in all sorts of shapes, not just squares! This post is about a fun one using a triangular grid. You can see the board layout and pieces below. The board on the left is shaped like a diamond, made up of 56 equilateral triangles. It’s divided into three sections: the upper left for months, the lower one for days of the week, and the rest for days of the month. Each equilateral triangle has a date element, except for six that are empty. Most of these empty triangles are needed to make the puzzles solvable. Now, the nine pieces above are also made of equilateral triangles. These shapes are called polyiamonds , and here we use one heptiamond, six hexiamonds, and two pentiamonds. and here we’re using one heptiamond, six hexiamonds, and two pentiamonds. You might have noticed one of the pieces is a diamond! That’s why this puzzle is called Double Diamond because of the small diamond piece and the large diamond board. You can find the svg file fo...

Cut and assembled puzzle, ready-to-play setup Introduction You can find the laser-cut/engrave SVG file of this puzzle at  ATOMM , MakerWorld  and  CuttingPath This 3-in-1  Squeeze-Me-In  puzzle comes with a square board, three small pieces, and nine large pieces. As you can see in the picture above, the three small pieces are tucked into the three small empty cutouts, just like they look. The nine large pieces are arranged to fit snugly into the square board. The picture below shows how the puzzle looks before all the pieces are on the boards. There’s a little figure in the lower right corner of the square board that shows you how to put the nine large pieces back into the ready-to-play setup. The challenge here is to fit one of the tiny pieces into the big square board, along with the nine bigger pieces, without any of them overlapping. You’ll probably have to shuffle, turn, and flip all ten pieces to get it right. This puzzle is a triple threat because it has ...

Introduction This puzzle further extends  Day of the Month puzzle  and Month + Day of the Month puzzle to include the Day of the Week, so there are three squares that you'll need to show while covering all other squares, like the picture above. With the increased complexity,  the board now has a total of 50 squares and we will use ten polyominoes as shown in the image below. Again, each of the ten polyomino pieces has a dot on one side,  while the other sides are clear You can find the svg file for laser cutting/engraving machine at  ATOMM , MakerWorld  and  Cutting Path How to Play? Here are three ways to play: Easiest : Give it a shot by rotating, moving, and flipping all ten pieces, but don’t worry about the dots. Computer simulations show that there are about 7,318 solutions per date in average from all 2,562 (=366x7) dates, and every date has at least 248 solutions!  A solution to solve June 9 Wednesday is shown below and you see some p...

  Introduction As one of the  calendar puzzles , this puzzle takes the  Day of the Month puzzle  to the next level by adding months. Now the board has 12 extra squares representing January to December, as you can see in the image below.  This makes it a bit like the classic  A-Puzzle-A-Day . However, our puzzle has a unique board layout and some multi-level challenges that we’ll explore later.  Just like the Day of the Month puzzle , this one uses the same six polyomino pieces, plus two new ones, bringing the total to eight polyomino pieces, as shown in the image below. Just a heads-up: each of the eight polyomino pieces has a dot on one side, as shown above. The other sides are clear You can find the svg file for laser cutting/engraving machine at  ATOMM , MakerWorld and  Cutting Paths How to Play? Think of it as a fun twist on A-Puzzle-A-Day! Your goal is to cover all the squares with the eight polyomino pieces, except for the target ...

  Introduction Starting with a  calendar puzzle  featuring just the days of the month is a fantastic way for beginners, kids, or anyone else to get into this kind of puzzle. Pick a day number between 1 and 31 that catches your eye, like today’s or a particularly interesting day, and give it a shot! In this post, we’ll share a design using a square grid and  polyomino  pieces, along with a discussion about it. You can find the svg file for laser cutting/engraving machine at  ATOMM , MakerWorld and  Cutting Paths The Design The design features an asymmetrical board layout where the days of the month are arranged horizontally and downward from 1 through 31, as you can see below. The board after gluing the top frame piece on the days base from laser cut file This puzzle uses six polyomino pieces, which include four  pentominoes , one  hexomino and one  tetromino . When you put them all together, they cover exactly 30 squares, and you get t...