Cross In Circle

CROSS IN CIRCLE

The third puzzle from Vaclav Obsivac which entered the IPP contest 2004 is called CROSS IN CIRCLE and - as with all of his works - is of great craftmanship and consists out of different kind of woods. I bought my copy directly at his company VIN&co for Euro 29.- only which is a great deal in my eyes.

As with the majority of his IPP works which I reviewed till now, coordination motion is required to take the puzzle apart and put back together with the small difference that it has to be done twice this time because, as the puzzle name tries to tell you, there is an interlocking cross (out of 4 pieces) trapped in an interlocking circle (out of 6 pieces). That might also be one reason why he rates this puzzle a difficulty of 4 out of 5. The other reason lies definitly in the re-assembly process. It took me personally a long 10 mintues to get it fully apart (I am always very cautious and do no want to "injure" the puzzle) and then almost an hour to get it back to its initial state. I had big problems to "close" the circle but finally found the correct sequence to do it.

The puzzle is quite big and therefore a nice showpiece for those who are collecting wooden brain teasers. I also believe it has a fair challenge so that everyone can solve it as time goes by.