Artisan Puzzle
Coil
Featuring hand-bent copper wire, the Coil is a masterful display of elegant engineering, presenting the elusive task of retrieving the ball from the bottle.
The Coil has already found its place as a prized possession of puzzle collectors and a unique experience that hosts can share with their guests.
Backstory
Back in 2019, Will and Wes were experimenting with what bottles were best for making their decorative bottle puzzles. And though they’d make their Fish challenge in a wine bottle before, there was something that didn’t feel quite right about it.
So they started to brainstorm what type of challenge could embody a wine bottle, and they thought of a corkscrew. A corkscrew is commonly used as a wine opener, but how might it be incorporated into a puzzle?
At the time, the twins had identified a type of challenge that they’d wanted to make: how to get something out of some type of container – and they’d toyed around with a few ideas – but hadn’t landed on something that seemed to work well.
Then, one day after identifying the corkscrew concept, Will started to think deeply about how to make a corkscrew. When he shared Wes the concept of running the ball through a corkscrew, Wes lit up. But something didn’t seem quite right…
The original idea was that could be brought to the top of the Coil. But how would the game actually complete? After deliberating, Wes then thought it might be best for the ball to come all the way out.
Will then had the challenge of figuring out how the Coil could be secured to the top of the bottle in a way that still allowed the ball to come all the way out of the bottle.
After weeks of planning, Will then figured out how to both bend a securing the copper wire to the bottle, achieving the vision of a wine bottle themed challenge that was both decorative and playable.
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Inventor(s): Will Nelson, Wes Nelson
Release Date: November 2019
Tips & Solution
Tip #1
The ball must enter the coil at the bottom.
Tip #2
The coil can tend to shake, so first make sure the coil is still before attempting any movements.
Tip #3
It’s best to try and align the ball with the bottom of the coil before attempting to maneuver the ball to the bottom of the coil.
Solution
Here’s are the steps to solve the Coil:
- Tilt the bottle away from you, so that the ball is resting at the bottom of the bottle at the far side. The bottom of the Coil should be between you and the ball, and the tongue, or opening, at the bottom of the Coil should be facing towards the ball.
- Wait until the ball stops shifting side to side.
- In one motion (that we call a “lift-pivot”), lift the bottle up, then tip it back so that the ball falls onto the tongue of the Coil.
- Once resting on the tongue of the Coil, tip the bottle upside-down so the ball runs out. Be ready to catch the ball when it comes out!
- Now that you have the ball, you can place it in its seat just beside the opening of the bottle.
Gallery
