The IPP Puzzle Design Competition
was established over a year ago to promote and recognize innovative new designs of mechanical puzzles.
There were 54 puzzle designs participating in this great contest. Many great puzzle designers of nowadays were among the winners. More details on the prize winners, all the participating designs, and even information on how to buy each of the designs is available at:
http://www.puzzleworld.org/DesignCompetition/.
The 2nd annual IPP Puzzle Design Competition will be held in conjunction with IPP22 with judging and awards in August 2002 in Antwerp, Belgium.
The American Crossword Federation 7 day Eastern Caribbean Cruise:
on board Holland America Line's ms Veendam,
December 1-8, 2001
It will be the American Crossword Federation's (ACF) first puzzle event of the new
Millennium - a fun-filled seven day Caribbean Crossword Cruise aboard Holland America Line's beautiful ms Veendam.
Stanley Newman - the President of the ACF - promises to everybody "... a "full boat" of crosswords, word games, and other puzzles..." Moreover, the Veendam has plenty of non-puzzle activities to enjoy.
Special Event Cruises, who was selected to handle the travel arrangements, is a first-rate company that specializes in organizing seagoing theme events at deep-discount prices. They were chosen on the basis of the recommendation of their previous clients, which include the National Scrabble Association and the U.S. Chess Federation.
The November, 2001 issue of
Discover magazine
contains a lot of interesting articles and
reviews. Among them there are
Scott Kim's Bogglers (Garage Shuffle, Mileage Mystery, A-maze-ing Bumper Cars) and
Eric Haseltine's NeuroQuest (the Trailmaking test). We sure you'll enjoy solving and playing these clever creations.
In the
Reviews you'll find Fenella Saunders'
article "Moving Madness: For those bored--yawn--by the conventional puzzle" about a new kind of jigsaw puzzles invented by Dugald Keith.
Such puzzles are made using
the "lenticular animation" technology (simply saying, a series of very narrow parallel strips with fragments of different consecutive images is laminated with a thin film with many
narrow elongated parallel lenses), hence their name - the lenticular puzzles. They have and another name - Dynamix Moving Jigsaw Puzzles - because in these extraordinary jigsaws the images actually move and change depending on the angle you view them from, and this fantastic twist provides an amazing new type of jigsaw challenge.
There are four versions -
Super Highway (with the moving cars),
Underwater Life (with the swimming fish),
Paradox (with the Escher-like stairs) and Floral Portrait (with
the growing flowers). The image and bubble showing actual size jigsaw
pieces on the front of each box also move to create an instantly
intriguing product.
The Dynamix Moving Jigsaw Puzzles are produced by
Blue Opal which is Australia's
leading puzzle company with over 70 years' experience. In the U.S. these quite unique and delicious puzzles from "down under" are distributed exclusively by
Think Fun Inc., and may be seen at
their site, or purchased at our on-line
Gift Shop.
Enigmas, Conundrums, and Baffling Things at the Lilly Library
Puzzles Old and New: Mechanical Puzzles for
Mathematicians--and Everyone Else
The Lilly Library, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana, October
11 to December 15, 2001
The Lilly Library at Indiana University Bloomington is an internationally known collection of rare books and
manuscripts such as a first printing of the Declaration of Independence
or the New Testament of a Gutenberg Bible. It stimulates the intellectual curiosity
promoting a wide range of activities including exhibitions and special events.
Now
the exhibition that features a wide range of mechanical puzzles from the renowned
Slocum Puzzle Foundation Collection came to the Lilly
Library.
Jerry Slocum is the world's foremost collector and scholar of puzzles of all kinds, and a seminal writer on the history of puzzles.
The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to view and attempt to solve some of the most enigmatic and beautifully crafted puzzles in the world selected from Slocum's collection of over 40,000 puzzles of every imaginable shape, size, construction, and genre, and over 1,500 books about puzzles in all of their aspects.
The Lilly Library is a part of the Indiana University Bloomington Libraries, and is located at:
1200 E. Seventh Street
on the Indiana University campus
in Bloomington, Indiana.
The Library's hours are:
9:00 am - 6:00 pm, Monday - Thursday,
9:00 am - 5:00 pm, Friday; and
9:00 am - 1:00 pm, Saturday.
Free and open to the public.
The 10th, jubilee, World Puzzle Championship
was held on October 8-14, 2001 in Brno in Holiday Inn Hotel. It was the most representative World Puzzle Championship ever. And again
there were fantastic and very comprehensive competitions, a nice cultural program,
the lovely weather and many unforgettable
moments of
the Czech
Puzzling.
The whole tournament was divided into 15 parts - 10 individual and 5
team. And three days 27 puzzle teams were competing for the beautiful
prizes, solving pencil-n-paper, logical, visual, mechanical and many
other kinds of puzzles, carefully prepared by the organizers of the Brno
Championship -
KIRA Publishing House in the
cooperation with the Union of Czech puzzlers.
We saw and solved many great puzzles during the Championship - even at
some participants' T-shirts. One on the left we spotted at T-shirts of
the Bulgarian team - try to solve it. What symbol has to replace the
question mark?
The team winners:
1st Place - USA;
2nd Place - the Czech Republic;
3rd Place - Belgium.
The individual winners:
1st Place - Ulrich Voigt, Germany;
2nd Place - Robert Babilon, the Czech Republic;
3rd Place - Zack Butler, USA.
The 11th World Puzzle Championship will be held in 2002 in
Oulu,
Finland.
This first World Puzzle Championship of
our Millennium will be held on October 8-14, 2001 in Brno (Holiday Inn
Hotel).
Brno is the second largest town of the Czech Republic and is situated in
the region called Moravia. It may take just two hours from Prague to
Brno by D1 highway.
The ancient city of Brno was founded in the 11th century. Now Brno is a
modern town with a lot of historical buildings, hotels, theaters, and
many wonderful sights. Brno is also a prominent puzzle center with a
long tradition.
It's the second time that Brno is the organizer of this fantastic puzzle
event. For the first time it was in 1993. The main organizer of the 10th
World Puzzle Championship is
KIRA Publishing House in the cooperation
with the Union of Czech puzzlers.
KIRA Publishing House
Just Launched Its New Website
The main organizer of the 10th World Puzzle Championship KIRA Publishing House now has a website. It still is under construction, but you'll find there some cool puzzles from the Czech National Championship (May, 2001) and the Czech Nomination Test (September, 2001). Similar puzzles will appear at the 10th World Puzzle Championship that starts on October 8, 2001, Monday, in Brno, the Czech Republic.
The World Puzzle Federation (WPF) - an
international organization dedicated to puzzles - has a fully renewed site designed by Michael Douma, designer of the WPF logo.
The WPF
follows the Olympic standard, and brings together puzzlers from around
the world for the annual World Puzzle Championship (WPC).
At the
official site of the WPF you may read about the organization, its
members, history, publications, statutes, and everything about main
world puzzle competitions - World Puzzle Championships.
Conceptis Ltd.
- the Leading Japanese-Puzzles Supplier
Conceptis Ltd. is a professional high tech company that during the past five years develops, produces and supplies Japanese Puzzles - Paint by Numbers, Nonograms, Griddlers and some other - to magazine publishers worldwide.
Conceptis is Co-Sponsor of the 10th World Puzzle Championship in Brno, Czech Republic, October 2001,
and it was Co-Sponsor of the 9th World Puzzle Championship in Stamford, CT, October 2000.
At their website you'll find many exciting and useful things - many volumes of black/white and color puzzles available for download,
puzzles' history, game instructions, step-by-step solutions, some secrets
of how to reach a success with exciting Japanese puzzles.
The 2001 Argentine Puzzle Tournament was held in Buenos Aires on August 4.
79 participants from all sides of Argentina met together to solve a fantastic set of 26 deductive, arithmetical, logic and visual puzzles.
The top four contestants will be a part of the Argentine Puzzle Team for the upcoming 10th World Puzzle Championship in Brno, Czech Republic.
All the 26 puzzles (in
Spanish), and other interesting information about the event, can be find in the
Campeonato de Ingenio web
site*.
Ivan Skvárca
-------------
* At the site you'll also find a set of puzzles from Argentine Puzzle Championship 2000
(in
English) translated by Wei-Hwa Huang.
The Maze planted in 1702 in the Hampton Court Palace Gardens near
London is the most famous hedge Maze in the World. It covers an area
of a third of an acre (about 1350 sq meters), and its paths are half a
mile (0.8 km) long.
Despite its "simple" pattern, it's incredible easy to lose yourself in
this Maze! Jerome K. Jerome described how this may happen in his
famous novel "Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)".
The Hampton Court Maze attracts people from all over the World, and every year thousands of them are happy "to be lost" in it.
All the cornfield mazes designed before 1993 were seen as passive art forms rather than active entertainment.
In 1993 at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania, the American Maze Company created and produced a cornfield maze for entertainment, that was the first maze of this kind ever. With this they brought the art of the
Maze to America and to the cornfield.
Now the Amazing Maize Maze® are recognized as an unique family entertainment for the summer and harvest seasons. And, without doubt, they are the most exciting and... sweet outdoor game in the World, which provide many
a-MAIZE-ing hours of fun.
For 2001 the American Maze Company is preparing some new and cool mazes. A couple of them will open in the end of July.
The twenty-first International Puzzle Party,
the first one in the new century, will be held at the Shiba Yayoi Kaikan
Hotel and the Tokyo Trade Center.
The organizing committee is preparing several interesting events for
puzzle enthusiasts from all accross the World. Some of them are as
follows:
-- Puzzle Exchange and Puzzle Party Day;
-- Hakone Tour - Exhibition by Kamei and Karakuri Creation Group;
-- Puzzle Shopping and Puzzle Hunting;
-- Visiting Antique markets and Fireworks.
It's the 2001 Team USA qualifying test to select new members of the US and Canadian Puzzle Teams. This great online puzzle
test is being organized by Will Shortz and Nick Baxter, and is open to all puzzlers in the World.
The event will take place on the website
www.puzzles-usa.org. There you'll find details on participating. Contestants must register on or before 9:00 PM EDT on Thursday, June 7, using the online
Entry
Form.
It will be the Dutch National Puzzle Championship, which serves at the
same time as a qualifying test for Brno 2001. Any other countries can
use the material of this contest on June 16 or later for a small fee
covering expenses.
This qualifying test is organized by
Rob
Geensen. Please contact him for more information.
This is a not-for-profit, tax exempt educational and cultural arts
organization which is dedicated to the sharing of paperfolding in
America and around the World. Jean Baden-Gillette is its President.
The OrigamiUSA site proposes Origami models online, fun stuff, Origami
books, videos, CD-ROMs, papers and other Origami supplies. At the site
you'll find information about Origami resources on the Web, special
Folding Sessions and Conventions.
Origami Convention '2001 will be held on June 23-25, 2001 in New York,
NY. This Annual Convention will be a memorable meeting of many
folders, creators, origami enthusiasts and special guests from all
around the World. Also an Action Toy Parade and a Prize Contest will
be organized as a part of the Convention.
The convention is opened only to OrigamiUSA members, so advance
registration is required. If you'd like further information please
contact the convention coordinators at OrigamiUSA, 15 West 77 Street,
New York, NY 10024-5192.
This is a world
unique attraction with a theme of Puzzles, Puzzling and Puzzlingly Eccentric.
Stuart and Janis Landsborough created the World's first "Modern Maze" in 1973 at one of the most beautiful mountain and lakeside resorts -
Lake Wanaka in New Zealand.
Later several overhead bridges were added to the maze; this made it even
more challenging and interesting. Actually with this Stuart became the first three-dimensional maze designer in the World. Walking through the Great Maze
may take about an hour... but never forget about the Minotaur.
Stuart and Janis then developed the World's first puzzle center devoted to puzzles, puzzling and puzzling eccentricity. This center is still growing and evolving. It has such an incredible attraction as one of the World's largest
collections of hologram photos, many other amazing illusion rooms and eccentric buildings!
Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World is so an amazing attraction, that you can easily stay here for hours! It's ideal for a family visit which certainly will be enjoyable and give many unusual and exciting experiences.
This year FPP2001 will be held in Finland on May 26, 2001, Saturday. The Party locations are Tomas Linden's Shop in Helsinki, and
Vantaa HEUREKA Science
Center near Helsinki.
All puzzle enthusiasts from all over the World are
welcome to attend. For more detailed information please contact
Matti Linkola.
The Kainuu Museum exhibits the history and culture of
the city of Kajaani and the Kainuu region in Finland. These days it displays
hundreds of mechanical puzzles in showcases and proposes to its visitors
more than two dozens of them for hands-on puzzling. All the puzzles are from the puzzle collection of
Matti Linkola who is the biggest puzzle collector in Finland, has one of the biggest puzzle collection in the World, and is a well-known puzzler, puzzle designer and craftsman.
The International Puzzle Parties will
have a great new program - the
Puzzle Design Competition. It
will begin this year, with judging and awards in August 2001 in Tokyo
at the 21st International Puzzle Party.
The goal of this contest is to promote and recognize innovative new designs of mechanical puzzles.
Anyone may take part in this competition and submit his or her own mechanical puzzle design (up to three entries are allowed from the same designer), independent of IPP affiliation.
Each submission must be made by the actual designer/designers of the puzzle.
All types of mechanical puzzles - Put Together, Take Apart, Interlocking, Disentanglement, Sequential Movement, Dexterity, Vessels, Vanish, Folding, and Impossible Objects - are eligible for the
contest.
Submitted puzzles must be new designs, and must be first manufactured or made public no earlier than two years before the competition: August 1999 - July 2001.
A complete entry, including 2 complete, working versions of the puzzle, a detailed written description, a drawing or photo of the design, must be received no later than July 15, 2001. Entry fee - US$25 per design entered.
