Here is something different! A few wooden turned puzzles that may amuse people in present circumstances. The ideas come from club friends and/or childhood memories. These are currently with the teenage sons of a neighbour for an independent assessment.
They are (from the top in the picture):-
Lucas/Hanoi etc towers - move the disks from rod to rod to make a similar pile on another rod, one at a time, no disk ever to be on top of a smaller disk. With 5 disks this takes 31 moves (2^n - 1) but the mythical Hanoi version with 64 disks cannot be done in the age of the universe! The usual versions have the rods in a row but we are turners after all and circular is fine - I have stained the rods to distinguish them. Computer coders note the solution is 'recursive' in that each stage includes repeating the solution to the previous stage.
(Tippee top as previously shown here)
Ball-in-cup trick - the ball is lightly retained by a concealed magnet in the cup base - so it will stay if gently turned over but a tap will drop it, so the cup can be lifted off. The basis for a lot of tricks! Supplied also with an identical but non-magnetic ball to sow further confusion!.
Misslle-in-silo puzzle. The ‘missile’ fits loosely in the ‘silo’ but the rounded end is then slightly recessed and impossible to hold. The task is to get the missile out of the silo without jerking or turning over the silo (for example you could insist on holding it on a table). Blow across the top to extract the missile - Bernoulli demo. Note the second pic of the missile in its silo to make things clearer.
Marble-in-well puzzle - roll the marble into the elevated central well - just tricky!
