The tetra puzzle started as an intuition: A tetrahedron (pyramid) has four corners and four faces, so there was a gut feeling we could break it up into four equal parts and build a puzzle from that idea.
For starters we broke the four corners out away from the center. But to make them interlock, they would each have to donate a piece back to their three neighbors. After a lot of trial and error, we were able to determine the right angles that would let the four parts slide open simultaneously.
With this theory in place, it came down to printing it out and trying. Even at this stage, you can get a puzzle printed and then find out it is no challenge at all... or it functions but isn’t really any fun. It’s an unpredictable process. So there are a lot of “puzzles” on the shelf that will never be made for one reason or another.
We’re stoked that the Tetra puzzle captures that little spark of joy that a good puzzle should. We’re thrilled to see it brought to life by our friends at Craighill. Thanks to them and almost 2 thousand backers on Kickstarer the Tetra puzzle will be available this winter.
For even more on the tetra puzzle and how it came to be check out the Kickstarter campaign here.