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Plastic 3D Jigsaw Puzzles

Here are some of my plastic jigsaw puzzles. Sometimes it can be useful to divide the problem into two subproblems: (1) Find the right position of each piece and (2) Find a strategy to assemble them. The puzzles below are not essentially difficult, except for the batons puzzle.

Batons puzzle Batons puzzle

Batons Puzzle

The batons puzzle consists of 10 carved plastic batons which have to be pushed into holes in a plastic cube. It is not easy since the batons paths overlap and all batons are different.



Pieces 4x4 Soma Cube 4x4 Soma Cube, 2 parts taken out

4×4 Soma Cube

The 4×4 Soma cube (called Abraxis) is an extension of the popular 3×3 soma cube. It consists of 12 different pieces, each consisting of 5 cubes glued together and one piece made of 4 cubes (see right picture). It is a quite non-trivial task to assemble them to a big 4×4 cube. The left picture shows the result with two pieces taken out.




Egg puzzle - side view Egg puzzle - top view

Egg Puzzle

The egg puzzle is the most similar 3D variant of the classical 2D chilren's jigsaw puzzle made of paperboard with an image to assemble. The egg differs in that there are several layers glued together and the overall shape is an egg. Minor differences are that it is made out of plastic and there is no image.



Sticky colored tetrahedron

Sticky Colored Tetrahedron

This tetrahedron consists of 10 small tetrahedron-like pieces. The allowed moves are to detach the lower plane(s) or tip and rotate them.



Star puzzle

Star Puzzle

The star puzzle consists of 6 carved 3D pieces which have to be assembled to the depicted star. It is one of the more easy ones and equivalent to the wooden ball.



Lotto Pen

Lotto Pen

The original use of the lotto game is to draw some lotto numbers, just for fun. It becomes a game if you want to shake specific numbers into the pen shaft, e.g. 1 2 3 4 5 6. The lotto pen needs more physical, rather than brain skills.


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