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Framed Snake
Puzzles with only a few pieces have a great elegance of their own. This one has just two pieces, a wooden tray, internally about three inches square, and a chain of 11 wooden cubes on an elasticated cord. The object of this little entertainment is to lay the ‘snake’ flat in its box. The elasticated cord is not at all tight, in fact there is enough room for at least another 4-5 cubes. However the cord is tight enough for the cubes to be drawn closely together when not stretched. To protect the designer’s copyright I have not pictured the snake clearly, just enough to give the general idea. It is probably designed by Jean-Claude Constantin, and was commissioned by John Ergatoudis.
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I have not yet solved this teaser, but I would guess that if the 11 cubes, which can be arranged as a 3x3 square with a two-unit protrusion, were loose, it might still be quite tricky to fit them into the tray. The German mathematician discovered an arrangement where 11 cubes of unit one could be placed in a square tray of side, but this solution was so specific that cubes had to be positioned at 40. degrees. You now have the added challenge of doing it with 11 cubes held together on elastic. Being on an elasticated cord makes it infuriatingly fiddly to arrange the snake flat. The tray is just a fraction too small to accommodate a 4x4 square of cubes. It is not specified whether the snake is allowed to cross itself. I would guess that this puzzle can be solved without this minor cheat.
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