- Friends, welcome back to Brick By Brick.
I'm your host, Adam Ward, and today we're
talking about and building about, one of my
favorite things in the whole wide world.
Not cookies, not ninjas, not ninja cookies.
But puzzles.
And I know, there's a million different types of puzzles.
Probably more.
There's jigsaw puzzles, there's 3-D puzzles,
there's brainteasers and riddles.
Might be kind of hard to build a riddle out of Lego,
if somebody wants to do it, I'd love to see you try.
We're not building a riddle today.
We are building what is called a burr puzzle.
And a burr puzzle is a puzzle made of
different shaped pieces and different size pieces
that all come together to make something really cool.
And they can be made out of wood, or metal,
or clay, or glass probably.
But we're going to make one, big surprise, out of Lego.
So this one is a three-piece burr puzzle.
Two of the pieces are the same, and one is different,
and it comes together like this.
You've got a C,
we've got another C,
and we've got an O.
But the O, as you can see, has a bigger bottom
than it does a top.
And that's critical to the design.
So we take the big part of the O,
flip it over so it's facing upward,
grab one of our C's,
hook it around.
Bring the twin sister along for the ride, boom.
And that is our burr puzzle.
You want to learn how to build it?
I do too.
I will teach you right now, let's go.
To get started, we are going to build one of the C's.
So, we're gonna kick if off with the bottom level, the base.
We've got some two by fours,
the two by fours hang out with a couple of two by sixes,
and a two by eight brings it all together.
So we put our two by sixes on top,
and on the bottom or our two by eight,
and then our two by fours make the flanges,
the fingers, whatever this part of a C is called.
I'm not a letterologist, but somebody
probably knows what they're called.
And you'll see that,
you'll see?
See what I did there?
You'll see that on purpose.
The entire C is two bricks wide.
And we're gonna keep that trend going
for the entire height.
Now we got our plates in place,
it's time to grabs some bricks to hold the plates together.
So we've got some two by sixes,
and we've got some one by twos.
We're gonna take our one by twos,
put them right on the edge of the C's.
I'm gonna take our two by sixes,
one on the bottom, one on the top.
And then our other two by sixes fill this area in here.
Now, you don't have to make your burr puzzle
this exact size, but if you're gonna change the size,
going smaller or larger, it's really important
that you maintain the same ratio.
You know, solving a a puzzle can already
be a little bit frustrating, so you want
to make sure that when you build it, it works
the way you want it to work,
These bricks are done, ready for another plate level.
So, I'm gonna grab the same exact plates
as the first go around.
We've got two by four, boom, two by four, bam,
two by six, two by six, and two by eight.
We've got a plate level, we've got a brick level,
we've got another plate level.
Plate, brick, plate, what's next?
Brick, you're absolutely right.
So, here comes some more bricks.
Two by six on the top, two by six on the bottom,
these are little guys right here.
And if you're thinking "could I use a two by two?"
Of course you could use a two by two.
But we just got one by twos.
We got some one by sixes to come over here,
lay it in and fill in this part as well.
So, now we've got a plate, we've got a brick,
we've got a plate, we've got a brick.
What's next?
Plate, you've got it my friends at home.
You are a smart bunch of human beings.
So we take our plates, we put them right on top,
piece right there, that piece right here, boom.
And now our C for our burr puzzle is
almost the exact right height.
The only thing it's missing are some tiles on the top.
Now, sometimes we use tiles just to make a piece
look cooler, or sleeker, but when it comes
to the puzzles, we have to use the tiles.
'Cause if we just have these notches sticking out,
the Lego studs, they're gonna hit other pieces,
and that's gonna be no good.
We got a bunch of tiles and we're gonna cover our C,
which will make it look slick and,
in this case, totally serves a purpose.
Last tile on completes this C, looking good.
Now that was so much fun, we get to do it another time.
So exactly what we just did, but you can choose a
different color, I did one in blue, make the exact same C.
Our C's is done, so it is O time, my friends.
Now the O is the exact same size as the C's,
but instead of an opening here,
it is closed here and the bottom
is twice as thick as the top.
So, to start, just like we did with our C's,
we're gonna kick it off with the plates.
So, for the bottom, we're gonna use this four by four plate,
which is awesome, but if you have two two by twos
or however you want to make it, some two by sixes on top.
And then a two by four, and then just like
with the C's, on top of the plates come the bricks.
Just gonna connect our plates like this.
Whatever plates you're using, you just want to make
sure that the bricks are complementary to the plates.
That doesn't mean they're like "oh hey, I like your shoes."
It just means that they line up in a way
that leads to a very strong build.
And if your bricks complement your shoes,
that's even better.
Your shoes are really cool, by the way.
So, plate, brick, you know what's coming,
'nother row of plates.
Gonna basically do the same thing we did
on the bottom, now in the middle.
Some two by sixes, a four by four, and a two by four.
We're gonna be adding three layers of plates.
Now, if you're thinking to yourself,
"wait, Adam, plates are one-third the height of a brick,
"so why don't we just use a layer of bricks instead?"
Well, my friends, by using three levels of plates
instead of one level of bricks, we make our
burr puzzle so much stronger.
Now, if you don't have plates, you want to make
this whole thing with just bricks,
and then tiles on the top, that's totally cool.
You can do it, but if you've got plates, put them to use.
That's what they're there for, they want to be built with.
They don't want to just be just chilling
in a bucket or a shoebox.
Plate, brick, plate, brick, now it's time for the last level
of plates, and then of course my friends, the tiles.
♪ Here come the plates boo en boo doo ♪
That's not a song .
Gonna put them on like this, here they come.
Got some one by fours instead of two by fours.
And then, I really like this color green,
come in with our one by four tiles.
We're gonna smooth out this entire surface.
Give me a C, give me a C, give me an O,
what's that spell?
Cuh-coo, which of course, is the international noise
you make when you've completed a puzzle.
But before we can say cuh-coo,
let's see if it actually works.
Grab our O, but remember, the big part goes up in the air.
Take one of our C's, lock it on, that little twist.
Okay, so far so good, moment of truth my friends.
Will it fit?
Yeah, we did it.
You did it, I did it, together we made a burr puzzle.
Not just a burr puzzle, we've got a family of burr puzzles.
We've got the multi-colored one, which is really
kind of like almost disorienting, it's kind
of hard to figure our which piece is which.
We got the all green one, a shout out
to Sheldon, the first puzzle box we ever made.
And we've got our tri-color.
We even made a teeny tiny one.
Now, this one is basically half the size
of every single dimension.
So instead of 12 tall, it's six tall.
Instead of eight wide, it's four wide.
And each piece is just one brick thick.
And what you're seeing with a lot of these burr puzzles
is you're still seeing the bottom of the plates.
So if you want to cover up the bottom of the plates,
there are these super cool pieces called boat tiles
and normally they're rounded, but sometimes you
can find them and they're square.
So if you take these pieces and you put them
on the bottom, you can't tell the difference
between the top of the pieces and the bottom.
And it creates a really cool effect.
Congratulations friends, you are now
all puzzle expert, burr puzzle expert.
Bur-puz-bur-perts.
Yeah, sure, that's a word.
So you an challenge your friends, your family,
your parents, your neighbors, whoever you want,
to see if they can build a burr puzzle or even just
figure out how to take one apart or put it together.
But just because you know how to do it and they might
not know yet, don't give them a hard time.
You have something awesome to show and to teach,
and that's one of the best things you can do in the world.
That's why we do this show,
to teach you how to build things,
to show you what you can do with your fun builds.
To teach, to grow, to learn, it's one of my
favorite things, and I'm so so so excited
for you to go out and do the same thing.
Thank you so much for watching, puzzle heads,
I had a great time, I hope you did too.
To watch even more brick by brick, click on a box
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for so much amazing stuff, click on a box right over here.
And if you just can't get enough Lego,
you can go to @peaceandbricks on Instagram
and peaceandbricks.com for more Lego-y goodness.
Cuh-coo!