Adam, Dan, and I headed up the NJ Turnpike for an exciting trip to New York City to visit the New York Toy Fair being held in the Javits Center in Manhattan. This was Serious Shops' third year (and best yet!) visiting NYTF.

NYTF is a fantastic place to meet up with some of our current vendors, find new products and toymakers, and even catch an early glimpse of the next big thing in the toy world. Of course bringing home toy samples for the kids (and ourselves, of course) is a major plus!

The highlight this year had to be getting my photo taken with Robert Pattinson - you know, Edward Cullen from Twilight? 

Okay, it was just a cardboard cutout, but cool, nonetheless, right?!

We visited the amazing Lego display:

Best item of the show had to be the prototype of the soon-to-be released Rubik’s Slide puzzle on which we’ve spent the last few days mastering the easy level. 

I’m sure it will be a big hit this holiday season! Great brain teaser!

We collected catalogs, tested out puzzles, watched a skateboard demo, shook plenty of hands, walked what felt like miles of aisles, ate super-expensive mediocre food, saw some really unique toys, puzzles, & games, and overall had a really fun, productive time!

Next up: choosing which products to add to our line-up this year.  Stay tuned for new additions like Heye and EuroGraphics jigsaw puzzles!  I’m already looking forward to next year.  

 
Giving a gift? Make them work for it with this clear
acrylic puzzle box. To open it and get to the goodies
within, the recipient must carefully tilt the box to
guide a ball bearing through a three-dimensional
maze, all the way up to the latch.
This moderately difficult maze is a fun test of your
manual dexterity and sense of direction. The inside
compartment measures about 8 ¼"x5 ¾"x1 ¼",
perfect for most paperback books and small hardcovers
or up to two DVD, Blu-Ray, or video game cases.

Disentanglement puzzles, aka disentanglements, are the brain teaser puzzles that usually require the removal / extrication of a ring or long oval piece (known as a shuttle). These puzzles will often employ chains or ropes for complexity and/or aestetics. These types of puzzles have a long, long history dating back at least hundreds of years.

In general, these puzzles, at first glance, will appear to be unsolvable without force. However, upon closer inspection there are "weaknesses" to be discovered in the design. There are design weaknesses of many kinds, but some of the more common can be described as "loose" joints, "suspicious" gaps, or "pull-overs". The more difficult disentanglement puzzles could require the exploitation of more than one of these weaknesses in concert to reach the solution. In fact, some of the more challenging disentanglement puzzles even use recursive procedures to arrive at the solution (like Patience Puzzle, a super classic, http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/patiencepuzzle.html)

ex. of the "Pull-Over" weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/conestogas.html

ex. of the "Loose" joint weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/iron.html

ex. of the "Suspicious" gap weakness
http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/ring.html

IMHO, the best disentanglement puzzles are the intersection of visual simplicity and obscurity of weakness. They may not be considered the most challenging puzzles. They look strong, sturdy, and simple. Their weakness is difficult to describe, uncommon, and hard to "see". Here are some of my favorites:

And of course, who can forget the Classic Horseshoe Puzzle...For sale at http://www.seriouspuzzles.com/luchorshoes.html

This puzzle still mesmerizes me. It uses a slip and twist motion only made possible by the links between the horseshoe. With the ring nearly in stand still while the horseshoes twist and slip between it, the horseshoes are suddenly side by side and the ring ready to slip off!

SPOILER Alert -- solution for Lucky Horseshoes here:
For a slow mo video, check this out.

 UPDATE!  Congratulations to our lucky winner April @MagicDandelions! Thank you everyone for your interest & please visit again in the future for more giveaways!

I thought I’d start off the weekend right by giving away a brand-new, right off the shelf copy of one of our kids’ favorite puzzles; the Geometric Shapes Maze By Melissa & Doug. You can check out the puzzle maze, right here on our SeriousPuzzles.com site:

A great educational wooden puzzle; it reinforces basic color & shape recognition (shape names are printed on the puzzle), as well as developing fine motor, patience, independent work, sequence, and matching skills.  Our daughter’s favorite way to use this is to challenge me to mix it up the “most” and see how fast she can “unmix” it. A great time, all around! 

Melissa & Doug puzzles are crafted by hand using non-toxic paints, and meet or exceed all U.S. toy testing standards.

Would you like a copy of this fantastic puzzle maze?

Here’s how to get one:

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TO ENTER:

Please visit SeriousPuzzles.com.  Leave a comment on this blog; tell me one thing you learned about us or which puzzle you really loved on our site!

EXTRA ENTRIES: (Don’t forget to leave a comment for every extra entry you complete!)

1.  Sign Up For the Serious Shops Newsletter  (please send us a separate email to info@seriousshops.com letting us know you signed up)

2.  Tell me a product from one of our Serious Shops that you would like to see as a giveaway in the future.

3.  Follow Serious Shops on Twitter

4.  Follow me on Twitter & Tweet this giveaway (you can do this once a day!)

Giveaway is open to US Residents only. Contest will end on August 31st at 12am EST. Winner will be chosen at random and will be announced here on http://www.seriousshops.com/blogs/ & emailed directly. Winner has 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.