| Bill's Baffling Burr requires 5 moves to remove the first
piece. There are 24 ways in which one could imagine the
pieces being assembled, but only one of them can be physically
carried out.
A computer program was written to quickly analyze all ways
a set of 6 pieces could be assembled and how many moves were
required. This program was used as part of the design process.
Bill's Baffling Burr appeared in the Computer Recreations
column of Scientific American in October, 1985. Unfortunately,
one of the pieces was shown incorrectly in the article, and the
resulting burr was impossible. Among letters received from many
readers was a model constucted in aluminum, which requires an
Allen wrench to disassemble! |
