Talk:Mechanical puzzle

Ten billion barrel puzzle

Anybody know what the Nintendo Ten Billion Barrel puzzle is? I'm just curious. If somebody can point me to a source, I'll put the article in. --Barry 00:27, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

• It's at Nintendo tumbler puzzle (but feel free to move it to a better title or create links, I wasn't sure what the best title was.) —Blotwell 4 July 2005 02:31 (UTC)

VfD results

This article was nominated for deletion. The result was no consensus, but some merging/redirecting might be in order. For details, please see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/MoreKarlScherer. -- BD2412 ^talk 00:38, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

It was immediately listed again. The result was keep. Copyright issues are being resolved in the appropriate forum. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 04:33, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

As a result I have reverted it to the version before the import of the puzzlemuseum.com material. That article states that it can be freely reused in its entirety with appropriate credit. We therefore cannot put it in the editable Wikipedia or license it for other people to modify under the GFDL. --rbrwr^± 20:35, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

100 or 12 moves ?

I have changed the sentence "The level of difficulty reached levels of up to 12 moves for the first piece, a scale humans would struggle to grasp".... back to what it was before, ie with a 100. This is because nobody has given any source that says that what is said in the German Wikipedia article de:Mechanische Geduldspiele is wrong - and this is where the 100 comes from. Regards

ACH 10:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I should clarify, after reading what the page posted in the edit summary said. The sentence should mean that there have been analyses of up to the complexity given, so perhaps it does refer to a different Chinese wood knot. Not sure about it, though.

213.6.91.147 10:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Translation from German

I have finally finished the translation of the German article, and added it to the meager original article. Some questions remain, however:

• you will notice one of the images is commented out - this is because I have not been able to find a good place to put it, as it belongs to the rather short section of "dexterity puzzle". Any solutions ?

• Do we need the "simulated mechanical puzzles" section ? It does not really have much information, and it links to a non-existing article. Plus, some discussion of simulated mechanical puzzles is in the text.

• Do we need "a few notable puzzles" ? Or should it be under "See Also" ?

These are just some - I am sure there are more, waiting for you to pick up on :).

Regards

ACH 22:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

External Links: Spam?

Those external links look like spam to me. Anybody think like me? ycc2106 12:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Care to nominate which ones you want to delete? To be fair, each one should be considered individually on its merits. SpinningSpark 14:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Snake Cube

Anybody have an idea where the Snake cube fits in the puzzle types? Soulrefrain (Talk) 00:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Some would call categorise this sort of thing as a combination puzzle (for which I recently created a category). However, my personal feeling is that it does not sit very comfortably in this category. It's more like an assembly puzzle to my mind SpinningSpark 14:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Disentanglement Puzzle

The disentanglement puzzle pictured is known as "The Deringer" (sans ring), and is commonly considered to be very difficult despite the fact that it looks so simple. Most puzzle selling sites rank it among the hardest disentanglement puzzles they sell. Additionally, in my personal experience the deringer was a much harder to solve than chinese rings variants with dozens of moves. The quote: "The image shows an easy version of this puzzle, which may still be solved by chance." should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.237.75 (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible addition: Orb (US)/Orb-It (UK)

I own one of these, but can't find any good sources for information about it. The only webpage I found it mentioned on is a fanpage on mechanical puzzles. 67.135.49.211 (talk) 01:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I used this [1] Google search and got a good number of hits, most of them relevant. Some of them with info you could use in an article. SpinningSpark 14:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Notable puzzles

I think we should require that that the "notable puzzles" section requires a citation for notability (it should be the first of . . . oldest kind . . . etc) or else have an article which establishes notability through the articles cites. Otherwise the list will grow without limit and the "notable" heading will be meaningless as everybody adds their favourite puzzle. SpinningSpark 22:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Fold puzzles

The pictured example in this paragraph has me boggled, anyone have a solution for it? 130.237.5.115 (talk) 11:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Please take questions to WP:Reference desk, this page is for improvements to the article, but here's a clue - think diagonals. SpinningSpark 18:06, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Impossible Object Re-Phrasing

The phrase "The hole is in effect too small to fit the arrow through it and there are no signs of gluing. How was it made?" from the "Impossible Objects" section needs editing to suit Wikipedia. Although this is probably from the articles original source, Wikipedia provides information, so if the construction methods of these objects are known, we should include them. If not, then this should be re-phrased or removed. Jonoerik (talk) 11:56, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is the traditional method- the arrow is of soft wood soaked or steamed until the head can be compressed in a vice. When it has dried in the compressed state the arrow is then inserted in a hole (a glass bottle with holes cut is popular) and then exposed to moisture to expand it. Saxophobia (talk) 15:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

NPOV/cleanup tags

This article has a number of issues, and to tag them all would deface the article. Instead, I will list some problems here:

• The articles's quality is vastly reduced by its apparent lack of inline citations.
• My concern about neutrality draws from this, especially with regard to comments on puzzle difficulty: In several instances, there are simple statements of difficulty (which is highly subjective without justification, making them inappropriate), none of which are backed up by citations.
• The article could do with a fair amount of rewriting, with regard to Wikipedia's Manual of Style - for example, the article has issues with tone such as using the second person pronoun "you" and asking questions.

An edited version of the article highlighting problems can be found in my sandbox - where neutrality may be an issue due to tone or phraseology, text is bolded, variously with the addition of original research and citation tags (tags may also be found separate of bolding); where tone is simply inappropriate without hope for reconciliation, text is italicised.

I'd like to state that my criticism is in good faith: The article is very informative, and I appreciate greatly the work that's gone into it, but while I enjoyed reading it, I couldn't leave it to continue on in its current state; unfortunately, the subject matter is rather outside of areas I am familiar with (I chanced upon this page after Wiki-stumbling through several pages on mathematics), so the likelihood of me being able to actively improving the article is quite slim. I hope this article receives the improvement it deserves - I probably won't remember to check back here, so if you feel you've done a good job in rectifying the article's problems, go ahead and take down the tags. Thanks for reading. --Muna (talk) 08:28, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have taken off the neutrality tag. This is really not appropriate to the complaints you have on this article, the cleanup tag is quite adequate to cover those. There is no POV dispute on this article, or if there is, you have not mentioned what is in dispute. Lack of citations does not amount to a dispute. SpinningSpark 12:07, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the neutrality tag isn't appropriate - the article shows bias by making (seemingly) opinionated and praising comments regarding puzzles, without any balance to these comments or citations to back them up. That is bias, that is a neutrality issue, I am disputing it. --Muna (talk) 19:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Ball-in-a-maze puzzle

I've just created a stub on Ball-in-a-maze puzzles. I guess there ought to be mention in this article?--Annielogue (talk) 21:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Simulated mechanical puzzles

I found a game called Interlocked which attempts to simulate interlocking puzzles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx_VUibFejI There's also this program called Burrtools which solves puzzles: http://burrtools.sourceforge.net/ 217.132.186.129 (talk) 18:17, 18 June 2011 (UTC) What do you think about adding those to the "Simulated mechanical puzzles" section?

I think finding reliable sources discussing these programs would be a first step. Also, the article currently says "While many computer games and computer puzzles simulate mechanical puzzles, these simulated mechanical puzzles are usually not strictly classified as mechanical puzzles." Kind of implies that lists of examples is not wanted. SpinningSpark 00:22, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Mention 17x17x17?

The article mention "rubik's Cubes" up till 7x7x7. Would my Guinness World Record 17x17x17 cube be worth mentioning? It is commercially available as DIY kit in any desired quantity, albeit at a somewhat prohibitive price. And hundreds of blogs have posted about it.

-Guinness: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/largest-order-rubiks-/-magic-cube

-Twisty Puzzles Forum: http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22468

-Shapeways: http://www.shapeways.com/model/64058/over_the_top___17x17x17.html

-YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz43QuMyEzM

M. Oskar van Deventer (talk) 19:14, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I see no reason not to mention it here. A freely licensed image to go with it would be good also. Hellbus (talk) 04:36, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Source for the term "vexier"?

Never heard or read it before this article. It's not in any of my dictionaries. I thought it might be French, but it's not in my French dictionary, either. I like the sound of the term, but unless there's a citation (like if somebody just made it up), it really has to go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 01:39, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Principles vs trial-and-error

In the lead the article says:

typically [...] the goal is for the player to discover the principle of the object, rather than accidentally coming up with the right solution through trial and error

Is that true? Can it be sourced? Clearly, with Rubik's cube, unless you discover some principles, your chances of ever solving it are slim, but in other cases, there isn't much of a principle to be found, but you may stumble upon a solution if you mess around long enough. Nø (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2024 (UTC)