For the modern, tech-savvy person who likes to put jigsaw puzzles together, Tremorless Tools Games Division is developing a set of extremely small displays shaped like puzzle pieces.
Each piece has the usual irregular shape, and to make it more interesting there are none of the standard edge pieces - it's all center pieces.
Each piece contains enough processing capability to store a small portion of the overall image, which is broadcast over a WiFi-like system to the assembled collection of pieces.
This allows the puzzle piece set to host a variety of images, and the lack of traditional edge pieces gives additional flexibility to each pieces role.
While our prototype has power connector tangs sticking out the back which spark and arc while we move them around on the live power backing board our production run will get it's power from induction.
I am very short of sleep right now and functioning zombie-like, so if despite my searches this idea is halfbaked or otherwise incomprehensible please let me know.-- normzone, Jan 08 2013 Thanks [bigs] http://www.iwantone...flash/10284262.htmlBoggle Flash [pocmloc, Jan 11 2013] A new way to mess with your siblings. Update half the pieces to a new puzzle but none of the connected pieces. Keep doing this long after it's not funny anymore because then its really funny.-- Brian the Painter, Jan 09 2013 I'd jigsaw what you did there. (+)-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 09 2013 Why do they need to be jigsaw shaped? They can all be squares, but with edges magnetized in unique patterns, so they only fit the matching piece.-- DrCurry, Jan 10 2013 [+] and [+] [Doc]'s idea.-- FlyingToaster, Jan 10 2013 My father at xmas had a game with 5 cuboids each with a LCD screen on top. Each screen displayed a letter and you had to form the 5 letter word from them. They detected each others presence and made a funny noise when you lined up the correct word. I can’t remember what they were called otherwise I’d look up a linky for you all.-- pocmloc, Jan 10 2013 [DrCurry], so if you wanted to change the puzzle PIECE matchup sequence you'd need to electromagnetically change the magnetic edge pattern.-- normzone, Jan 10 2013 NZ: I was envisaging electromagnetic edges in the first place. If that's too expensive, on-board energy wise, then you could have a series of pegs, 5 say, that would slide in and out to make the matching patterns.
(With three possible positions, in, flat and out, and five pegs, you'd have 3^5=243 different combinations, which seems ample to me.)-- DrCurry, Jan 11 2013 pocmloc, you might've also been thinking of Scrabble Flash, (which now that I click on the link, must be the American title for the same).-- RayfordSteele, Jan 11 2013 [DrCurry], that's an interesting idea. While in the real world I design for simplicity and manufacturability, here in the 'bakery I think that the five peg setup has the potential to be re-keyed so that they could have varying engagement depths as well.-- normzone, Jan 11 2013 What if the puzzle was redesigned a bit. The playing surface is a 30" LCD touch screen. The pieces are 1 of 4 standard shaped see through pieces of inert plastic. The computer displays images beneath the puzzle pieces and moves that image as you slide them into position. If you pick up a piece the computer kicks you in the head. If you need a hint, the screen could flash hints of the finished picture or color a piece red for a second etc...-- Brian the Painter, Jan 12 2013 NZ: indeed, you could do that, but you would be destroying the ability to solve the puzzle by visual matching that is so important in jigsaw puzzles. (You can easily see how far a peg is jutting out, but you can't easily see how far in a hole goes.)-- DrCurry, Jan 12 2013 You are correct. In my zeal for overcomplexity I crashed the original idea.-- normzone, Jan 13 2013 I had somebody contact my email asking where they could buy this at...-- normzone, Jan 23 2016 You did say you had a prototype and imply you were close to production.-- notexactly, Jan 24 2016 random, halfbakery