Borrowed Karakuri Club Christmas presents
Fellow blogger Brian Pletcher was kind enough to loan me some of his Karakuri Club 2011 Christmas presents.

BB - Kyoko Hoshino
I assume “BB” stands for “Button Box.” Hoshino, a relatively new member of the Karakuri Club, integrates her skills with cloth and woodworking, which makes for interesting boxes. While not particularly difficult, this was a fun box to solve.

Dragon Wing - Shiro Tajima
This puzzle looked more like a kumiki than a puzzle box. Its unique construction resulted in a novel solution.

Pump - Tatsuo Miyamoto
This puzzle confounded me for quite a while. It didn’t seem like you could do much with it given its simple construction. I finally was able to open the box, but didn’t know how I did it. I closed it back up and was able to re-open it using the same general class of movements. Again, I wasn’t sure how I did it. After looking at the solution, I don’t think I would have reasoned it out. The solution falls into a class that I’m not particularly fond of because of the random (unless you have the instructions right in front of you) and difficult nature of the solution.

Twin - Hideaki Kawashima
When I first saw this, I thought Brian had re-sent me “Snake Cube,” Kawashima’s 2010 Christmas present. While the puzzles look similar, the mechanism is much harder in “Twin”. I was not able to solve this box, even after looking at the solution. Pletcher had to give me some more details for me to open the box.
Thanks Brian!









