Wire puzzle with rings. metal puzzles. cube in a cube
This article will appeal to those who like to solve non-standard tasks and kill time not for computer games, but for solving puzzles or tasks that require abstract thinking and extraordinary quick wit. Here you will find a simple and original, as simple as anything, puzzle that you can do on your own, and later solve it yourself.
DIY wire puzzle:
Wire puzzles can be very interesting and educational games for your children.
Figure No. 1 - An example of a wire puzzle Wire puzzles (in this example, a spiral wire puzzle) are very easy to make. First you need to draw a sketch of your puzzle.
Drawing number 2 - Sketch of the snail As a material for a homemade puzzle, I recommend using steel wire. Take not very hard wire with a diameter of two to three millimeters. Then bend the wire according to the sketch of the puzzle (each piece separately).
Figure number 3 - Finished snail puzzle Puzzle of two nails:
I propose to start with making the simplest (but no less interesting) puzzle of two ordinary nails.
Figure #4 - Appearance nail puzzles All you need to do is bend two nails equally as shown in Figures 5 and 6.
Figure number 5 - How to bend nails 
Figure No. 6 - The gap is slightly less than the diameter of the nail When both pieces of the puzzle are ready, you need to connect them and give them to your friend - let them suffer.
Figure number 7 - How to connect the puzzle correctly This kind of wire puzzles are very useful, entertaining and fluttering, you can be very useful in the development and upbringing of your children.
P.S.: I tried to clearly show and describe not tricky tips. I hope that at least something will be useful to you. But this is not all that is possible to invent, so go ahead and study the site
But first, a few words about what it is better to make them from. Wire puzzles are usually made of steel wire of medium hardness with a diameter of 2.5-3 mm.
Copper or aluminum wire is not suitable: it is too soft and does not spring well.
The wire intended for puzzles must first be straightened. Hold it firmly with your hands and pull it several times along a wooden cylindrical rod vertically clamped in a vise. Then sand it to a shine with sandpaper.
Now determine the lengths of the individual pieces of the selected puzzle and cut off the corresponding segments with wire cutters. It is more convenient to bend the wire with the help of a simple device - a piece of a thick board, into which thick nails are hammered at the bends of the wire.
Bend small rings and ears with round-nosed pliers. For the manufacture of big rings several wooden cylinders of different diameters should be prepared in advance.
The finished parts of wire puzzles should be covered with 2-3 layers of colorless varnish. The parts (rings or staples) to be removed are blackened in the drawings.
They should be filmed completely freely, you just need to guess how to do it. Under the main picture of each puzzle there is an additional one, suggesting the course of the solution.
Star with a ring.
The diameter of the circle describing the five-pointed star is 100 mm. Ring diameter 1 - 30 mm. It is 10 mm smaller than the diameter of the ring of the curly earring 2. The elongated part of the earring should freely enter the ring 1 and the eye of the sprocket 3. (Fig. 1)
Anchor.
Anchor height 120mm and width 100mm. Ring diameter 3 is 30 mm and ring diameter 1 is 40 mm. Item 2 should move freely at the base of the anchor. (Fig. 2)
Figured links.
The dimensions of each link formed by parts 2, 4 and 5 are chosen such that ring 1 can only pass freely in the position indicated in the lower figure. The diameter of ring 1 is approximately 30 mm, and ring 3 is 40 mm. (Fig. 3)
Zigzag staples.
The dimensions of these brackets should be made as follows: brackets 2 and 3 - 40X50 mm, and the middle bracket 4 - .25X X50 mm. Ring 1 diameter — no more than 35 mm. (Fig. 4)
And again brain hello! In this workshop, you will learn not only how to do it yourself a fun engineering toy to entertain guests or as a gift, but also its solution!
This simple puzzle is based on the laws of gravity and the center of gravity. Solution to this braintoys seems simple, but most people still can't do it.
So, you need to install 14 nails on one nail, while the nails can only touch each other and at the same time must balance.
Step 1: Watch the video!
To get started, check out the presentation video of this puzzle:
Step 2: Template
For this homemade you will need only 15 nails (800mm is fine), one of which needs to be driven into the wooden base. Everything is simple!
If not, then draw it yourself
Step 3: Wooden base
Attach a template to the wooden board and mark the holes for the nails. Next, with a drill slightly larger than the diameter of the nails, drill holes. The holes are not through, but only of the depth that will allow the nails to stand in the base. And cut out the base from the board according to the selected dimensions.
On the milling table, process the edges of the base, sand it with sandpaper, and then paint with wood paint and varnish everything. Leave the base to dry for several hours.
The work looks long, but in fact everything happens quickly. After drying craft almost ready!
Step 4: Center Nail
Simple, simple again, drive a nail into the base. And go ahead, try to solve the puzzle!
Remember the rules: all 14 nails must balance on the 15th, while only touching each other.
Step 5: Solution
First, put one nail on the table, put another 13 nails on it alternately on both sides, fasten the structure with the 14th nail, laying it on top, parallel to the bottom, first nail. And then, carefully, keeping balance, place the resulting structure on the 15th nail, which is hammered into the base. That's it!
Step 6: Another Challenge
I found that when the thing was balanced, the nails could be moved closer together, and I added more nails. I got a design of 23 nails! But you will be inquisitive, and maybe you will get more
In general, if you ask other people what my hobby is, most will answer - "Ekaterina Georgievna loves to cook."
If you ask me what my hobby is, the answer will be slightly different, in fact, much more interesting - I love and collect toys with mathematical meaning.
I have written several times about my toys. For example, But that was a long time ago. And since then there has been a new one.
In general, it is difficult to collect mathematical toys. Not every puzzle is a good mathematical toy with a deep mathematical meaning. It helps a little that you can make math toys yourself.
Here I wrote about one of my favorite math toys from childhood -
Today I’ll tell you what else is in my magic box that we made ourselves.
My husband gives me a lot of mathematical toys. (He knows the correct answer to the hobby question!)
The simplest is a non-standard dice.
A wooden cube, the corners are rounded, then painted with white paint and numbers from 0 to 5 are drawn with a marker.
And here are the cubes winning in a circle from each other. I detail about them. Each next cube wins over the previous one with a probability of 2/3, and the first one wins over the last one with a probability of 2/3. Then in my collection there were marble cubes made by my husband. And they had a slightly unequal chance of winning each other. 
These cubes are made from stearin cubes for whiskey cooling. The cutter made a recess.
You can still use them in whiskey)
One of the most magical toys with mathematical meaning in the world, in my opinion, is Heron's chain. What is it - you can get an idea from the video:
Heron (the same Greek mathematician we remember from "Heron's formula" for calculating the area of a triangle), according to history, earned his living by showing tricks with this chain. 
And it is easy to make it at home from key rings. There are 50 pieces here. I highly recommend taking a large number of rings, it's more interesting.
I made my own toys in a simpler way. For example, here is the game "set". Consists of picture cards. Figures of 3 types, painted with 3 colors, there are 1, 2 or 3 of them on the card, and coloring methods: just a contour, shaded, or painted over. (4 features, 3 possibilities = 81 cards in total). 
"Set" is a combination of 3 cards in which each sign is either the same on all three or different on all three. In the picture, Denis shows a set: the number is the same, the shapes are all different, the colors are different, the way of filling is different. 12 cards are laid out on the table and the players find a set. Whoever found it first takes it for himself, more cards are laid out in empty places. Very exciting and interesting game.
For training, you can remove one feature. Let's say, when the children were in the kindergarten, we took only cards that were painted over solid.
Made simply: printed on a printer (when we didn’t even have a color printer yet), colored with felt-tip pens.
Magnetic tangram. 
One of my favorite puzzles is the tangram. You can cut out a tangram from cardboard, as we did in childhood. And here I have it cut out of a large magnetic canvas. No one usually plays with a cardboard tangram. But the magnet tangram hangs on the refrigerator all the time and everyone always plays with it. You come - on the refrigerator, the children (or the husband) have collected something new.
And here is a puzzle cut out of cardboard - "Pythagorean Square". The first task is to fold a square from 4 parts. And now add another small square to these details and fold a new square out of five parts. 
Recently wore puzzles to uni. For some reason, the students really liked this "square".
And here are cards with words related to mathematics. 
Lots of cards. Some from some branch of mathematics. There is a large set for students. There is a small set about our IMIT.
To do, of course, is easy - to print on a printer. So that it does not shine through - a shirt with a mathematical meaning on the back.
How to play? Well, there are a lot of options here. I like this one lately.
The players are divided into pairs. First round. The cards are stacked. You take one card - in the allotted time (say, half a minute) you explain to your partner the concept on the card, without using single-root words. Explained correctly - take the next card. Etc. You can't miss.
The second circle is the same cards, but explain without words. It helps that the cards are the same and you can remember something.
The third circle is an explanation in one word.
Well, the pair that scores the most in total wins.
You can take any other game rules about explaining words (such as Activity). Once, I even took credit for that. And, of course, there is no particularly specific mathematical here - you can make such cards in chemistry, and in the history of Russia)))
Here. And recently we got a 3D printer, and, of course, the idea arose to make toys for me using it))
For example, I got such a tangram. 
Tangram can also be made from cardboard, but this one is neater and more interesting. In general, I made (well, how did I do it? My husband made me, of course, on his 3D printer) a tangram (like this, with the IMIT logo) as a prize in one of our competitions. And this one turned out to be a trial (and a little unsuccessful) version of that one. But the one with the prize is magnetic (but mine is not). I swear, the magnetic tangram is a thing.
Here is such a thing: 3 identical parts from which a cube is assembled. Of course, this is already very difficult to make without a 3D printer. 
But the thing is very cool.)
My husband as an engineer, and as a mathematician I am literally fascinated by beautiful gear mechanisms. Hence the toys.
For example, here is a cube that can be twisted. Stands in my pulpit and never stands. It is constantly in someone's hands and twisted. 
It's almost impossible to break away. 
Those are some cool gears. 
And here are the asymmetrical gears. These can be seen in museums such as "Experimentarium" in Moscow or "Joule Park" in our Omsk. And also at my house))) 
The coolest thing is that the gears spin and do not jam)) 
Approximately from the same opera - a labyrinth box. It is not so difficult to close it - you see the lines of the labyrinth and move towards the goal. But open! You have to go through the maze without seeing him))) 
Of course, it is impossible not to combine my 2 hobbies: math toys and cooking. About molds for mathematical cookies, I recently And actually about Mesopathamian printing with Escher's mosaics, too. Miracle-wonderful. I have several.) 
Escher mosaics? Yes, I have them not only in the form of pieces for cooking. And in the form of a mosaic too. Very calms the nerves so lay out the lizards on the plane. 
And this one is an irregular mosaic known as "Penrose's Hens" (oh, the word chicken is no longer underlined). So, Penrose chickens, on the contrary, are annoying))) 
Here is my latest addition to my collection. This can easily be done with cardboard.
In the English version it is called "T-puzzle", in Russian "Collect the letter T". 
There are parts (such as shown in the picture). From them you need to collect the letter T. 
Why are there 2 sets in the top picture? Because there are two most famous such puzzles. One is attributed to Martin Gardner (the one that is paler in the picture) and the second is attributed to the Japanese puzzle inventor Nobu (the one that is darker). They differ in the proportions of the letter T.
They say that if you give details and tell them to make the letter T, 80% of people give up without solving the problem. Well, besides the letter T like a tangram, you can collect a bunch of other interesting things.
I'm a little sorry that the letter T cannot be made magnetic - then most of the interesting pictures from it will not be collected. But very cool stuff.
BUT! Conclusion. The right post should always have a conclusion. Husband bukov_ka
respect and respect! And behind the scenes - boundless love and kisses.
Well, and the second conclusion - in general, of course, it's cool when there are good stores that sell not "nail puzzles", but the right mathematical toys. And, of course, it's very cool when there is a 3D printer on which you can do something. But in fact, a lot of mathematical entertainment can be made from plain paper with improvised means.
Step 1: For a paper puzzle, you need to make eight cubes with your own hands.
You must make eight cubes for this incredible puzzle by cutting them out with your own hands according to the attached. You can glue them (for this, provide flaps on the sides for gluing), or use adhesive tape.
The cube has 6 sides:
3 of them must be black,
3 must be white….
ATTENTION: the red lines in the figure are the visible faces of the cube, the dotted lines are the invisible faces of the cube, the black lines crosswise are the black sides of the cube. Turn on your spatial imagination!
Step 2: Connect the cubes together
First, connect 2 blocks of cubes, as shown in Fig.2.
Now connect them all using fig.1.
Use 3M tape at the fold joints.
Fig.3 shows you what the connection of the cubes with fig. 2. But not schematically, but in color.
Step 3: Incredible do-it-yourself puzzle is ready!
Now you have a crazy cube. Have fun with your new paper puzzle!