Eric Fuller recently offered a few new puzzles through Cubic Dissection and I picked up “Zauberflote” designed by Gregory Bendetti as well as “Stand Py Me” which I reviewed recently. Both puzzles sold out very quickly.

Zauberflote translates as “Magic Flute” and is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Gregory wanted to make a series of puzzles which had a link to the opera which he enjoys.

Zauberflote - Königin der Nacht pieces

In a change from my usual style, I’m not showing the completed puzzle at the top of the post, but rather the pieces. I’ll get to the reason why soon enough. Eric has created this 4 piece version of Zauberflote from acrylic and yellowheart, and describes it as a pocket puzzle, given that its full length is just 2.25″. Gregory gave the four piece version the full name “Zauberflote – Königin der Nacht”, and each of the puzzle in the series with a different number of pieces in the flute has a different sub-name. I really like the use of the acrylic here, as even when the puzzle is solved (as you’ll see below) you can still see the internal burr of the wooden pieces, which is a nice touch. Eric made 45 copies of this puzzle, and they are all signed with Eric’s usual squiggle.

I spent about 30 minutes working on this puzzle, and after a few false starts I found a way to get all the pieces in place and the flute shape (or possibly more of a set of pan pipes) is easy to see. When I was solving it, I started by putting the smallest piece in first, and I required a couple of rotations to get the pieces into their final location.

My solution requiring rotations

Feeling quite happy with myself I put the puzzle aside for a few days. When I came back to it, I opened the trusty Burr Tools and created a model of the puzzle there. Now I fully expected burr tools to be able to put the pieces in place, but I didn’t expect it to be able to give me an assembly given that rotations were needed (when I solved it). To my surprise, Burr tools came back with 72 solutions and one assembly!

Solution found by Burr Tools

Burr tools notes a 14.4.2 assembly and shows that it is possible to solve the puzzle without using rotations as I had. If you look very closely at the two images, you’ll see that the internal burrs are in different locations showing that clearly it’s a different solution. Also Burr Tools puts the largest piece in first, although I believe it is possible to insert the pieces in any order.

So having used burr tools, I think there are more solutions than it shows, even without the rotations. I did talk with Gregory as to whether rotations were intended, and he admitted that he hadn’t checked for rotations, but it wasn’t cheating, since I still solved the puzzle without forcing the pieces, and had found a solution that he hadn’t. The solution with rotations is much shorter at 7.1.1.2 (if my counting is correct).

Overall, this is a fun puzzle, which isn’t too hard and is very nicely made by Eric.