Puzzle Design Challenge Brief

 

Client                                       Fine Office Furniture, Inc.

 

Target Consumer                 Ages: High school aged

 

Designer                                 Anna Stephenson

 

Problem Statement

    A local office furniture manufacturing company throws away tens of thousands of scrap ¾” hardwood cubes that result from its furniture construction processes. The material is expensive, and the scrap represents a sizeable loss of profit.

 

Design Statement

    Fine Office Furniture, Inc. would like to return value to its waste product by using it as the raw material for desktop novelty items that will be sold on the showroom floor. Design, build, test, document, and present a three-dimensional puzzle system that is made from the scrap hardwood cubes. The puzzle system must provide an appropriate degree of challenge to high school students.

 

Constraints

1. The puzzle must be fabricated from 27 –  ¾″ hardwood cubes.
2. The puzzle system must contain exactly five puzzle parts.
3. Each individual puzzle part must consist of at least four, but no more than six hardwood cubes that are permanently attached to each other.
4. No two puzzle parts can be the same.
5. The five puzzle parts must assemble to form a 2 ¼″ cube.
6. Some puzzle parts should interlock.
7. The puzzle should require high school students an average of 5 minutes/seconds to solve.