How do you puzzle?

Post Reply New Topic

How do you put together a picture on cardboard interlocking pieces puzzle?

I sat with my 7 year old niece. I offered to help her put together a 100 piece puzzle. She had her own way of doing it practically the opposite way I wanted to do it. Obviously it was too easy for her. I took her to the store and bought her a new 300 piece puzzle. I joked with her, "Now I'm going to hide the box cover from you so you don't have a picture to look at!"

My brother use to be in MENSA so I can imagine my niece is high IQ.

I'm not going to reveal her method (or my method). How do *you* puzzle?

How many different ways are there to puzzle? I match either the shape of the pieces, or the design on the pieces. I have noticed that I focus so much on the small details of individual pieces that I can't see the puzzle as a whole unless I physically step back from the table. But I think that's the point of a puzzle so I don't think it's really weird.

Please reveal the methods, I'm curious now.

I do edges, then color patterns (putting together obvious items in the picture) then sort common puzzle piece shapes, then back to color patterns. Sometimes as I am putting edges together, I end up putting a few picture item together before I finish the edges. The same goes with sorting shapes.

My mom taught me almost a puzzle ritual. Sort out all the straight edged pieces, especially the four corner pieces. Complete the frame. Analyze the picture and subdivide into parts. Sort pieces accordingly. Sky pieces, house pieces, tree pieces. If there is a fence, or a skyline, or some other artificial boundary, do that. Turn all the pieces picture side up. Match picture parts, or match by shape of the piece.

My niece dumps all of the puzzle in a pile. She picks up one piece, looks at it, and says "I know where that goes!" and places the single piece on the board in the general position of where it would be in the larger picture. So on with the next piece(s). Finally, she announces "I know where eleven pieces go, and look these two pieces are part of the flag and they hook together."

I want to do more puzzles with her, to see if she has a photographic memory that allows her to see details of the picture and then relate each piece to a position on her board? I don't know. Interesting and curious, to me at least.

You did say it was only a 300 piece puzzle so the puzzle is not very difficult. She is simply doing the color sorting as I indicated above.

I'm horrible at jigsaw puzzles and prefer solving Rubik's cubes.

My experiment failed...she wasn't able to complete the 300 piece puzzle.

Ooo Rubick's cube. I wish I could work one of those. I have a thing for geometric shapes. I don't think I have the natural ability to do one. Could I be taught?

Supposedly Rubik's Cubes have a pattern to solve them from any scrambled position, with a few preparative turns.

This site seems pretty good:

http://www.howtodothings.com/hobbies/ho ... ubiks-cube

Though I apologize for the ads on it. Apparently everyone in the world has an unsolved cube.

I like the little kid method, unless it's my puzzle they use it on... pick up a piece, put it next to another piece, force it into place whether it belongs or not, yell, "I did it! I can play this game!" Or, finding no way to even force it into place, put it down and yell, "I can't do it!! ! You do it!! !"