UMPuzzle

Information

A 27-piece puzzle designed for the PrusaPrinters Tabletop / Puzzle contest.

Printing

It's easy to print using no supports and prints in 80min when printing the "walls only" version (~30g filament). I recommend using at least 2 perimeter walls for piece integrity, but using just 1 also works fine.

There's also a small “Hint_Shape” model file that you can print if you want to see the shape it's supposed to create, as well as a "Hint_Frame" or “Hint_FrameBottom” if you want further assistance.

There are 2 versions of the STL. One version that is "solved", and one that is scrambled.

The puzzle can be scaled down to 75% just fine if you want a smaller version.

Difficulties

It has several difficulties based on a couple of factors.
For an easier puzzle, print without top/bottom layers, and use an infill like Archimedean Chords. I would recommend doing a color swap so you can easily match the top/bottom sides.

For a harder puzzle, don't use any infill and use only 1 color, so each piece has 2 possible sides. This way there are more possible positions of each piece, making it harder. There's a scrambled version so it's not solved on your plate, as well as a ScrambledFlipped version which is rotated randomly, so you don't know which side is up or down on any piece for further difficulty.

I've included .3mf-files for my favorite settings. Here are the difficulty levels for the included ones (all single-color):

Easy: Rings, Star, Lines, HexesBottom
Medium: Hexes, Grid, Filled
Hard: Walls, Scrambled, ScrambledFlipped

Puzzle Hints

Are you stuck? Or maybe you just want some help to get started.

Start by trying to find matching edges.
You can often use the edge length to find a match.

Remember that "outer edges" and "edges that face other pieces" are hard to distinguish. If you can't find a matching edge, it's likely you're looking at an "outer edge".

All pieces that are "squares" are connected and form the center of the puzzle. The "triangle" pieces are found at the 5 "corners" of the puzzle.

Also, don't forget about the printable hint piece and frame.

Here's a video of the solve from the brilliant 3d-Printy. Thanks for the make and the video.