Dutch puzzle designer Oskar van Deventer debuted his latest puzzle at the New York Puzzle Party Symposium held at the special Chinese Puzzles exhibit visiting the Museum of Chinese in America. Demonstrating his Over the Top puzzle to a packed house of puzzle enthusiasts, van Deventer has achieved an unofficial world record with this 17 x 17 x 17 twisty mechanical puzzle, which was 3-D–printed at Shapeways.com, the same company that created the rings for the Ring of Dishonor. Consisting of 1,539 individual flexible plastic pieces, this 5.5-inch cube makes the mass-market Rubik's Cube look like a walk in the 3 x 3 x 3 park.
An electrical engineer by training, van Deventer designed the Over the Top puzzle last year, taking over 60 hours to develop. After Shapeways 3-D–printed the pieces, van Deventer had to sort the pieces, color them individually, and finally assemble the puzzle — all by hand, adding an additional 15 hours of labor to the final puzzle. Van Deventer offers a peek inside the mechanics of the Over the Top puzzle and shows many of his other creations at his Youtube channel.
Van Deventer's first puzzle-making experience involved "a six-piece burr from the book Puzzle of the World from 1978. I cut the puzzle from six thin long pieces of wood." But, he admits he's "not much of a solver.... I collect puzzles for their innovative value. I like mechanical puzzles that have novel, innovative and unexpected mechanisms."
"When I heard about the world records being set for Rubik’s Cubes, like the 7 x 7 x 7, 9 x 9 x 9, and 11 x 11 x 11 created by Panagiotis Verdes from Greece, and Lie from China for his 12 x 12 x 12, I wanted to try to set a new record myself," van Deventer said. "With sponsorship and prototyping help from my good friend Claus Wenicker, I began designing and testing a number of prototypes, and my third attempt was printed successfully with Shapeways."
Van Deventer has been selling his puzzle designs to toy companies since the late 1980s. But now with Shapeways, van Deventer can sell his puzzles direct to market. The Over the Top puzzle, along with many other designs by van Deventer, is available as a do-it-yourself kit through his Shapeways storefront.
For van Deventer, Shapeways has completely changed the way his puzzles are let loose on the world. "Currently, when I have a new idea — say, for a twisty puzzle — a simple one might take me five hours from idea to market," van Deventer said. "It’s a very quick way to get the design out of my system and into the world."
Quite a few prominent puzzle designers, artists, and enthusiasts are members of the Shapeways community and actively using Shapeways' on-demand 3-D–printing capabilities to produce and sell their custom creations. Shapeways even has a community portal dedicated to 3-D puzzles. Other puzzle creators include Bram Cohen, Richard Gain, George Bell, Tom van der Zanden, Garrett Ong, Rik Brouwer, Tanner Frisby, Adam Cowan and Vesa Timonen.
As for van Deventer, he's going to continue making the puzzles he loves. Now that Over the Top is complete, he's already set his sights on the next: "I have just completed a successful prototype of my Icosaix puzzle, a face-turning regular solid with 20 triangles. Most of the mechanical design issues had already been solved by designer friends of mine. I found a working solution to have each face have nine separate triangles. It may be a small step for mankind, but my twisty-puzzles friends will like it."
