Almost everyone groans when they hear about the zucchini planted in the garden. Those things produce incredible amounts of produce. But did you know that eggplant is almost in the same category? We had one plant in our garden this year, and it was really impressive the amount of fruits produced. One day, I was looking at a pile of the things, and inspiration hit me! A puzzle!
I started by just looking at one fruit.
That was kind of boring. But then, I arranged five of them in a pattern, and it looked like a flower.
I took a picture and then started getting ready to print it out. I realized that this might be a good opportunity to finally practice a double stack cut so that some of the pieces could be interchangeable and perhaps make the puzzle more challenging. I did not get a picture while cutting, but I was able to stack two of the fruits together and cut out some pieces from both at the same time. It is not a perfect trick, as the color variations are a dead give away. However, it has since been assembled three different times by three different people, and all three of us put pieces in the wrong place! If you look closely at the last couple of pictures in the sequence below, you can see that a couple of pieces are in place that the color just is not right.
Here are some pictures of one of the assemblies. The colors are a little off. I am still working on perfecting my photography. (To see a larger picture, click on the thumbnail.)
Ready to assemble
In progress
In progress
In progress
Almost done
Done!
It may be hard to see in the pictures, but there are some drop outs where the fruits come together at the stems. And you have hopefully picked up on the fact that this is not a square or rectangular puzzle. There is not a single straight line anywhere. The puzzle was cutout along the edge of the fruits.
Here is a close up of one of the stack cuts. Two different fruits, but you can see that a portion of them is cut the same.
First set of stack cuts
First set assembled wrong
So there you have it. An eggplant flower puzzle.
Post Script 2 weeks later.
I took the puzzle to work for my co-workers to mess with. They assembled it on the break room table, but initially could not get all the pieces in! So, my first official trick puzzle.
Pieces will not fit!