Wil Strijbos' Lotus Puzzle

Yen Puzzle (Image Courtesy of Wil Strijbos)

This is a review on Wil Strijbos' latest creation, based on a prototype he circulated at one of the Midlands Puzzle Parties (MPP) last year.

This first iteration was called the Yen Puzzle, as it was simply a One Yen coin held by a nail in a block of wood. The aim of course was to relieve the One Yen from its captor, the nail.

Since then Wil has revised this idea and added more tricks to it, thus inventing the aptly named Lotus Puzzle, which he released just before Christmas.

Lotus Puzzle (Image courtesy of Wil Stribos)

As you can see, the Lotus is a lot more refined than it's predecessor. It appears to be milled from a single block of Aluminium and which has been anodised in Wil's trademark blue, complete with his initials and the puzzle name 'Lotus'. Wil has replaced the One Yen coin with a simple Aluminium disc and the nail with an Aluminium rod. Another noticeable difference is the puzzle is now composed of two pieces, joined by another one of Wil's specialities, a dovetail joint.

Dovetail joint and
Black Pin shown

As with all of Wil's creations, he states in the accompanying email that:

"No magnets, no banging, no external tools and no force in any way." - Wil

This is a sequential discovery puzzle similar to Wil's First Box (which I'll review soon!!!). Therefore, Wil also states that:

"From one side of the Lotus puzzle you will see a small black pin. Please do not remove this pin. It is just there for your safety, it has nothing to do with the solution. Later on when you know the solution you may remove this black pin, to see the inner part of the puzzle. (Please, be sure you found all the secrets before you remove the black pin :) )" - Wil 

Aluminium disc removed

Apart from the usual rattling from pieces inside, there isn't any other hints given by this puzzle. on how to go about solving it. However, you can make assumptions based on the knowledge of Wil and his "trick", mainly that there must be cleverly hidden "tools" inside to help along the way.

From here on I can't really say too much more, without spoiling the puzzle.

By process of elimination and general fiddling, the first step can be identified as removing the Aluminium disc, which actually took me the most amount of time!!!

The rest, unfortunately, would be telling!!!

In conclusion, another brilliant puzzle from Wil Strijbos, packed with tricks and tools and with relatively no hints given along the way. That, in my opinion, is the perfect recipe for a brilliant sequential discovery puzzle!!

That's all for now!!!

PS: Once again, the only way to obtain most of Wil's puzzles is directly from him. So, if you're intrigued and want to know more, or wish to get in contact with Wil to be put on his mailing list, send me an email on my blogger profile and I'll be happy to send you his email address and/or answer any questions you may have. Alternatively, Google is your all knowing best friend!!!