Two Stage Puzzle

At first glance, this colourful puzzle looks pretty simple. Don’t be fooled! It’s actually a surprisingly tricky two-stage brain teaser that will have you scratching your head.

The first challenge is to work out where all the oddly shaped pieces belong inside the frame. But that’s only half the fun! Once you’ve arranged the pieces, the real challenge begins: without lifting or removing any of them, you must slide the pieces around until the little circular piece travels from the top-right corner to the bottom-left corner.

Made from laser-cut acrylic sheet, this puzzle is colourful, satisfying to play with, and a great example of how a simple design can create a seriously challenging puzzle.

You will need.

1. Laser cutter
2. DXF file, which is below
3. Acrylic sheet of different colours
4. Acrylic glue.
5. Cotton bud.

Once you have cut out the piece, remove the protective film and glue the frame to the base. That's pretty much it. If some of the pieces are a little tight, you could sand the edges.

To start the puzzle, you can put the pieces anywhere you want, with the circle piece in the top right corner. The idea is to slide the pieces until the circle is at the bottom-left corner. If you get stuck, you will need to rearrange the pieces and start again.

STOP: Spoiler ahead; do not go past this step if you want to work it out yourself!

You will not be able to solve the puzzle without solving the first step. Set up the pieces as shown in the photo.

And there you have it — a colourful little puzzle that’s much trickier than it looks!

With the last 18 steps in the photos to guide you through the solution, you can see just how much thought goes into solving it. It’s a great project for kids (and adults!) to explore laser cutting, design, problem-solving and a bit of engineering along the way.

The best part is that you don’t just end up with something you’ve made yourself — you get a brain teaser to challenge your friends and family.