EWE EFO

I think what makes me happiest was to make a cubed UFO that had been abducted by the Sheep!

The base of the box has an inset frame that when from an above angle view, looks to be hovering.

There was of course a ridiculous story that went along with this puzzle, where 5 rag tag sheep wandered into Area 51 and stole a UFO.

The EWE that you can see in the top hatch didn't really know what she was getting herself into and just wanted out, hence the goal of the puzzle.

Mechanically speaking, this idea was about making a box that wasn't a box, well not in a traditional sense anyway.   I wanted to design it so that when you finally removed a door from the side, that it only revealed more mechanics to get the next door open.

I had fun using glass bezels to cover the images of the sheep in the dials.  The bezels gave the image the ability to been seen as you move around the box if that makes sense.

While I am an artsy to most folks way of reckoning, drawing cute little sheep in all of these situations isn't really in my wheelhouse, so I called on the talented folks at Fiverr to do the custom artwork.  If you haven't heard of Fiverr, you might wanna check them out.

It was challenging making the 3rd sides insides.  Known as 'The Four Finger Forcefield' it features a strong neo magnet so when you try to grip on those tiny slats to open the inside, inside door they snap closed as soon as you loose grip.  Ultimately, there is another lock keeping the doors from opening, then its so much easier.

The last door has a gear hiding behind it and once you solve for that you can take the top knob off.  Each of the side dials has a different effect and how they interact with internal mechanisms.  You can see how easily this last door was held on, though its the pin beside the gear that locks the door dial lock tab from being able to move.  That pin is controlled from another side of the box.

Below is a sneak peek at how many pieces the puzzle breaks down into.  The core chassis as I call it was the outer walls for the inner box and it was the corner posts that helped to make it all work just right between the layers.  Some of the biggest challenges was designing systems that fit into the 1/4" gap between inner and outer doors. 

Having it so that it all disassembles kind of makes it easier to build as much as it looks complex.

The picture showing just some of the jigs and templates I needed to create in order to build this little beast is a better scope of the task at hand.

Thanks for looking guys!