Darwins Drawer

Darwins Drawer

This is the first of No Problem Puzzle’s amazing series of “Drawer” puzzles. You will want to collect them all. For this model, a case is included which holds the model, poker and pieces. You can also install an RFID tag that will provide the user with a video to watch that describes the puzzle and provides an additional puzzle.

This curious 3x3x3 drawer cabinet stores four puzzle pieces. The only complication is that the drawer has a high back and low front. As more pieces are being packed, the drawer quickly becomes restricted from opening, thus minimizing the prospect of fitting in new ones. To keep track of the inside's whereabouts, Darwin's Drawer has a convenient grid on top. Packing the drawer with the full set of four requires you to find a unique solution among almost a hundred-thousand possible assemblies. Only the fittest puzzlers will survive this test!

A poker, to move pieces once inside the cage, is provided for those who are not dextrous. No rotation of pieces is required for this unique solution.

Watch the included video to see how to legally manipulate the drawer and what restrictions it contains for placing pieces inside. Two different challenges are presented along with their solutions.

Printing Instructions

Print all parts as oriented in the STL files.

If you wish to install the RFID tag, you’ll require an NTAG 215 device. See the included PDF document “RFID Installation” for more instructions on printing the case and installing the device in the top of the case.

The cage, drawer and pieces are recommended to be printed with 0.2mm layer height, 2 walls and 15% infill. You can add 3 walls and 50% infill to the pieces to give them a more solid feel. Seam alignment should be “aligned”.

When printing the drawer, the underside has a long channel. Check your slicer to ensure that the bridges run across the channel (blue lines in the included picture). If your lines run lengthwise, the lament will droop and your print will not be successful. In this case you firrst will need to change the bridging angle. I’ve included the 3mf file I used which might be of assistance.

For the cage, you can highlight the text in a different colour by using a filament change by layer height.

Two sets of pieces are provided. Choose the look you prefer.

Some 3MF les are included which were created in PrusaSlicer v2.9 which may help setting up your slicer.

Difficulty

3.5 out of 5

The Printable Puzzle Project

The Printable Puzzle Project aims to make available high-quality open-source models of many puzzle designs. All of our models are posted with the generous permission of their designers and are licensed for non-commercial use only. Anyone may print copies for their own personal use, but selling or otherwise monetizing them is not permitted, and puzzle designers retain all rights as copyright holders of their work.

Our puzzles are modeled using the open-source puzzlecad library. The .scad file is included with this model in case you want to modify any of its design parameters; more information on how to do this can be found in the PPP Puzzle Modeling tutorial.

The "No Problem Puzzle Collection" contains many puzzles with complicated boxes that would be too hard to model using open-scad. Additionally the original design files for the boxes have been lost due to a hd-fault. That is why these puzzles only contain scad-files for the pieces.

About The Designers

From November 2020 to April 2023 Theo Geerinck and Symen Hovinga collaborated under the trading name of "No Problem Puzzles" to design and produce their puzzles. Many of their unique packing puzzles introduce fascinating features such as moving or sliding doors and elements. These features and the way they behave always add a playful new dimension to the more familiar exercise of packing shapes. Those puzzles could once be purchased through an online printing service. Alternatively, for those who owned a 3D printer the files could be obtained from Symen.

However, after the tragic loss of Symen, purchases through the ‘No Problem Shop’ was no longer possible. Therefore, Theo decided to publish the designs so that everybody can create 3d-printed copies to be enjoyed for personal use.

Modifications to the original designs for ease of printing and aesthetics provided by Dave Crabbe