Open the Pod Bay Door

“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.” – HAL 9000

The robots are coming, and if life imitates art to any great degree I think we all know what is going to happen. The problem with AI is that we are the ones creating it, so these future robots will inevitably reflect … human nature. You can’t be too careful around them …

But for the moment I will admire them, or at least this little fellow, the Burr Bot, who taught me a thing or two, in the best way. Burr Bot is a hybrid puzzle box and burr puzzle which also incorporates sequential discovery elements. For a non-burr puzzle enthusiast, it’s also an approachable and addictive introduction to the genre that manages to be both seriously challenging and incredibly fun. Burr Bot is the brainchild of Dr. Andrew Crowell, an aerospace engineer with a puzzling mind. What started as an initial effort to build some wooden blocks and a marble maze machine for his children led him down the rabbit hole of making classic interlocking wooden puzzles, and ultimately “turned” into an obsession with designing TICs – Turning Interlocking Cube – puzzles, a particularly devious and difficult subgroup of the genre. From Andrew: “I fortunately had never heard of the program called Burr Tools, so I went about writing my own code to solve interlocking cube puzzles, and figured I would add rotational degrees of freedom to solve TIC puzzles (I had no idea how hard that would be at the time).  Over the course of a year or two, I finally got a version of the code working and began designing TICs using a computer.”

His first TIC design, a 5x5x5 cube, was called “Rotothorpe”. After that he tapped into his forte, a series of 4x4x4 cubes which all have the word “TIC” cleverly incorporated into the name. His overall favorite of the 80-90 designs he has produced (and hundreds that exist only on his computer) is the “FantasTIC”, which has just the right number of moves and rotations for each piece. Next on his favorites list would be “LocomoTIC”, which requires 17 moves to free the first piece (the most for any 4x4x4 cube he has ever seen), and “GalacTIC”, which has the most confusing set of rotations required for any of his cubes. Yet despite this obsession with complex TIC designs, he realized that he did not enjoy trying to reassemble these puzzles after taking them apart, having to remember where each piece went and in what orientation. In response, he designed a set of three burr puzzles which have trapped pieces inside a cage, so that only a single piece can be removed completely, thus dramatically simplifying reassembly. One of these puzzles (“Skeleton Key”) has a key shaped piece that comes out, and this led Andrew to think about how such a key might also then be used to actually open another part of a puzzle.

Burr Bot is an extremely enjoyable puzzle which seamlessly combines a number of puzzle genres and challenges into a unique creation. Andrew mentions that it is “probably my favorite creation. Burr Bank (the successor to Burr Bot) may be up there too.” He credits Ken Irvine, a fellow TIC creator and puzzle designer, with mentioning that there ought to be a “red herring” inside the puzzle somewhere as well – advice that Andrew took literally in the final version. He thinks the puzzle is relatively straightforward and logical, so did not include warnings not to drop things down dark holes with no particularly logical reason to do so, yet puzzlers will always find a way to make things more complicated. He designed Burr Bot’s successor (Burr Bank) to avoid any such options for illogical moves. I’m sure someone will still find a way. Burr Bot (and Burr Bank) are incredibly fun and very well designed to maximize what is possible with the trapped burr concept, cleverly incorporating hidden tools and treasures along the way. Burr Bot won an Honorable Mention at the 2021 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

While I doubt this will be the last burr puzzle I attempt, I am admittedly not a burr puzzle enthusiast. I do appreciate the clever twists on this genre I have encountered, or have been challenged to experience, such as Jack Krijnen’s fabulous Tipperary. But since this was the last burr I actually completed (for the moment), I’m toasting it with a Last Burred. Which is really just a Last Word, but with a little change. As you recall, a Last Word is a classic cocktail made with equal parts gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino liqueur (cherry brandy) and lime. I’ve made countless variations on the Last Word, because it is such an easy template to riff on by swapping one ingredient for another in class. It’s sort of ironic, always trying to have the last word on this subject.

There’s only one small change required to turn a Last Word into a Last Burred. The gin must go. Why? Because any self-respecting Burr Bot knows what type of base spirit needs to be used here: Burr Bon. It’s so obvious that even a human could figure it out. I’ve also swapped the Chartreuse for a similar herbal aperitif with a slightly sweeter and milder profile known as Genepy, but it’s more of a software update than an entirely new operating system. Here’s to the robots – cheers!

Last Burred

¾ oz bourbon

¾ oz Genepy

¾ oz Maraschino liqueur

¾ oz lime

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a favorite glass. Garnish with a lime wheel and cherry fish.

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