People attending the National Puzzlers’ League convention at the Lilly Library this week work puzzles of many different shapes and sizes. Each one has a different path to the solution.
Some, like a wooden robot, are about finding a way to take it apart.
“This guy is called Woodrow, and I have made almost no progress on it so far,” said Jonathan McCue of Seattle, holding one of the robots. “It looks like his nose comes out somehow.”
McCue has been attending this convention since 2007. The league holds annual get-togethers nationwide and has been as close as Indianapolis; this is the first year in Bloomington. The convention is Thursday through Sunday at the Indiana Memorial Union and Lilly Library.
One of the main attractions allows members to solve various puzzles, including rare and unusual mechanical puzzles from the Jerry Slocum Collection, which includes more than 30,000 puzzles that he donated to the university.
David Moulton of San Francisco has attended the convention for 20 years. He solved the wooden robot puzzle, and this morning was working on assembling the head of a Greek citizen warrior.
“The handicraft on some of these puzzles is really amazing,” he said. “Part of it is just kind of appreciating how well they're designed and constructed, and then having the kind of aha moments for how to solve the puzzles themselves is really cool.”
While he normally works puzzles on his own, he likes the opportunity to share the experience.
“You get sort of a collaborative element, you know?” he said. “You can bounce ideas off each other, somebody makes a suggestion, somebody else is like, ‘Oh yeah, well, let's try this and that.’ And some of the puzzles here a little bit more kind of open-ended and harder, and so it's helpful to have different points of view.”
Numerous puzzles from the collection are also on display. One of them is an Iron Masterpiece Double Shackle Trick Lock from Germany from 1850. Puzzle locks were initially designed to add more security to a lock.
They’ve also been used as tests for locksmiths. To pass their final test, a journeyman would have to make a masterpiece lock like the trick lock. If the puzzle elements worked correctly, the locksmith passed.
Also in the collection is a 2013 Angel Box puzzle from the Netherlands. Designed by Wil Strijbos, the puzzle box gives the solver all the pieces and tools used in other steps of the solution to solve it. No outside tools can be used.
Convention co-host and puzzle creator Roy Lebran said each puzzle in the collection is different.
“Some take-apart puzzles have one step, the magic step,” he said. “You figure that out, and it's disassembled. There are some that are, like, 57 steps… there's put-together puzzles where you have a bunch of pieces and you're trying to put them together, and sometimes you know the shape you're making, you're making a cube, you're making square, sometimes you don't, and you have to figure out what that goal is. Oh, it turns out I'm making a butterfly, and then that moment you realize you're making a butterfly is an aha moment, and it's, like, aha, and then you get a moment of satisfaction, but you're not done.”
The vast collection allows members to try different kinds of puzzles aside from word puzzles, which Lebran said many are most accustomed to solving.
“Fewer people collect or solve a lot of mechanical puzzles,” he said. “And so the opportunity for those people to see another side of the puzzling world that they don't spend a lot of time with, but they're going to walk away with a newfound appreciation for this.”
Slocum himself, alongside his son, is at the convention, working with people on the puzzles. Indiana University alumnus and New York Times puzzle editor Will Shortz is also in town for the convention as its program director.
“The puzzles and games are just so much fun,” Shortz said. “It's also people who pushed the envelope with new ideas for puzzles and games.”
