I hate this puzzle/coaster/whatever the hell this is. Ever since I stole this (got it from a fair for free) I have kept it on my desk, neatly arranged in the exact way it came. But you can never have good things it seems. Because a few days ago, my friend came over and thought himself smart enough to reassemble this. Needless to say he wasn’t and he couldn’t. I had to bear the sight of this disarranged mess of a puzzle on my desk for days until another friend who had the same puzzle showed me his and I was able to successfully rearrange it. Those few days were not it, let me just say. But I have since come to realize that the puzzle isn’t for show. It is the process of failing to put it back and then eventually rearranging it that makes it… well, it. And so I created a little game with this puzzle called “The Last Piece”. Essentially, you know where the last piece goes, but the rest you have to figure for yourself. And only when you’re done with the rest can you put back the last piece. What do you get from it? The satisfaction of seeing an LED bulb turn red. Who doesn’t love to see little red lights?
The circuit itself is simple: I used aluminum foil to create points of contact between the board and the piece which I stole from my building’s main lounge. I then thought about what more this could use: more lights! So I added more contacts so that when the last piece is placed in the wrong position, a red light turns on and when it is in the right position, the yellow light turns on, indicating you’ve won.
I also finally have a picture of the solved puzzle so I never have to deal with the mess again, no matter how many times my friends fail at this game.