News and Pix for Model #357

I finally have some real progress to report on Model #357. I’ve assembled about a third of them and am busily at work assembling the rest. I received the raw parts from the machine shop back in May and the quality greatly exceeded my expectations. The finish, which is bead-blasted and black anodized, looks as good as I had hoped. Have a look:

So that’s the good news. The bad news is that it is very very slow going. I’ve been working on assembling them since May and I’ve got a long way to go. I made 100 of my first two puzzles and I’m making 200 of #357 so that’s part of the delay. Also, unlike with my first two puzzles I’m using a home laser etcher to mark each #357 with the model number – that takes about fifteen minutes per piece. And I’m using four magnets for piece alignment (instead of two spring pins as I did with the other two puzzles). The magnets need to be glued and glue needs time to dry. Ugh. I have made so many bad “design for manufacturing” decisions on this puzzle it’s almost comical.

One result of my spending so much time assembling #357s is that after a while I start waxing philosophical about how I would describe it, what kind of puzzler it would appeal to, and so forth. It’s hard to put those thoughts into words, especially without risking spoilers, but bear with me. Imagine a graph whose Y-axis is a measure of puzzle enjoyment and whose X-axis is time spent working on solving it. For most puzzles the Y-axis will peak at the moment the puzzle comes apart – or goes together if it’s a packing puzzle. I’ve tried with my first two puzzles to have that peak hit after the puzzle comes apart and instead coincide with the moment of understanding how and why the puzzle actually works. My hope is that the dopamine hits in the midst of solving and reassembling it a couple of times. It’s for that reason that I try to make it possible to take apart my puzzles entirely, so you can see all the component pieces that have to work and interact just right. My design for Model #357 is in the same spirit. When you open it up and look at the features inside, know that everything in there is in there for a reason. (All my failed prototypes can attest to that!)

Anyhow, my plan is to have the puzzles ready for sale before Thanksgiving and I hope I’m not jinxing it by saying so. Here are some more pictures for the curious:

Oh, and here are the specifications: Model #357 is made of aluminum, weighs about 13 ounces, and is about 2″ on a side. I think it has a nice heft to it and here’s one final picture for scale: