Hat Tile Puzzles

Got some more time to play around with “hat” tiles today. I now have a scheme for laying out tilings in my homebrew python cnc framework

I might cut this as a jigsaw puzzle (adding a picture/pattern so that the pieces aren't interchangeable).

I don't have good intuition for how hard it would be to solve with/without the hex border, but it would help to contain the pieces since they don't lock together.

Ordered from a laser cutting service! There was some back-and-forth as they refused to cut it in place and I had to split the file up into three jobs (49 copies of the hat, 7 copies of the mirrored hat, and one border)

Whee, my laser cut "hat" tile puzzle just arrived!

Well, one small glitch that will have to be corrected in the next run: the original file was designed to be cut in place, relying on the kerf to provide the tolerance for assembly, and I forgot to adjust for that when splitting the files out to be cut separately. Doh!

No, problem, I just traced the border onto a piece of cardboard and enlarged it slightly.

The good news is that it is super easy to screw up and box yourself into a corner, even with the border as a guide, so the puzzle is satisfyingly difficult! I really had no intuition for how hard it would be ;-)

Doh! Doh! Doh!

Solved it!

Not trivial, but not too hard. Satisfyingly fun, I think... but I might be biased ;-)

Now I just need to adjust the cut file for the border and place another order.

Sorted out the border and placed a new order. I'm also experimenting with breaking it up into pieces to make it easier to store... the only puzzle joints in this puzzle will be in the edge pieces ;-)

Whee, got my new laser cut puzzle parts!

At first I didn't see the parts for the border that I broke into pieces, but then I found it assembled at the bottom of the package. Great to see that the puzzle joints work!

I also had borders cut for two smaller puzzles. I'm interested to see how hard they are to solve compared to the original larger puzzle.

Well, I still need to add a little more clearance. I'm confident I'll get it in the next iteration.

Also, as expected, the small puzzle is trivial to solve. The medium puzzle, though, is easy enough to screw up that it might be interesting.

Overall, good progress!

Finally got the clearances right! Small puzzle is still easy and big puzzle is still hard

Hah, I thought I was done, but it looks like I might have another puzzle to make ;-) https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/spectre/

Whee, puzzle parts… lots of puzzle parts!

Whee, puzzles!