Episode: 2027
Title: HPR2027: Old Engineers and New Engineers
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2027/hpr2027.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 13:29:47

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This is HPR episode 2027 entitled, Old Engineers and New Engineers.
It is hosted by Gabrielle Evenfire and is about 13 minutes long.
The summer is, I describe my and my children attempt to solve a puzzle.
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Hello Hacker Public Radio, this is Gabrielle Evenfire.
I have another short little podcast for you.
This is a story of Old Engineers versus New Engineers.
In this story, it features me and my children, I being the older engineer obviously.
And it was my birthday and I received from my in-laws a cute little novelty item.
It's a little wooden puzzle.
Now this, imagine if you will, a cylinder where it's about three inches in diameter, about
one inch tall if you lay the circular face on a table.
So you've got this little hockey puck shaped block of wood.
Now cut it in half mentally across the middle of the circle.
Now you have this little wooden half moon about an inch wide and about an inch thick and
about three inches wide across the circular part and about an inch and a half tall going
from the rectangular end to the arc end.
So if you've got this shape in mind, now I'm going to say that the arc end of this, the
arc face of this little puzzle is the bottom.
The rectangular face, which is the part that is sort of, you know, where the hockey puck
was cut in half.
We'll call that the top, okay?
So now if you're looking at this little wooden puzzle and you put the bottom, that's the
arc face.
On the table and you're looking down from the top, on this rectangular face, you'll see
that there is another, there's a cavity, a well that has been scooped, a curved well
that's been scooped out of the middle of this half moon shaped block, okay?
So it's like a little hockey puck was dug out of the bigger hockey puck.
So at the very, very bottom of this well, this cavity inside of the puzzle, inside of
the wood, there's a small little piece of, a little piece of wood at the bottom that
cuts the well in half, but it doesn't divide it completely that, that little, you know,
ball, if you will, doesn't come all the way back up to the, the level of the rectangular
face.
And inside of the well, there were two little metal balls, about, you know, say a millimeter
or two, diameter.
And so the balls could go into either side of the well, they could just hop over the
wall if you tilt it enough.
The rectangular face was covered with a surface of clear plastic, so you could see down into
the well, but the balls wouldn't come up out of it.
And then at each of the ends of the well, at the, at the ends of the well, there were
notches cut in about the diameter of the little metal balls.
And they were cut in far enough so that the two metal balls could comfortably fit in
either one.
And these are essentially at, so that they're essentially cut in at the, into the narrow
end of each end of the well.
So if you've got this little half moon on the table, you know, you can, and you've, and
you've got it semi circular side facing you, then you can rock it to the left and the
right on its curved arc.
And the balls will roll along the well, and if you tip it far enough, they'll fall into
the little notch at the end.
And if you roll it to the right, they'll roll to the other side and fall into the other
notch.
And the object of the puzzle is to get one ball in each of those notches at the exact
same time.
So I looked at this and was playing around with it tilting it back and forth.
And I thought, okay, I've done puzzles like this before, sort of, not like this one,
but, you know, I've done, done mechanical puzzles before, you know, I'm going to be tempted
to try and just, you know, jiggle the balls and hope they both go into their appropriate
notches on both sides.
But that's really not going to work very well.
I'm going to try and, you know, get them, tilt them all the way to one side, and then
quickly see if I can snap it over to the other and get one over.
That's not going to work either.
I know the answer isn't going to be anything like that.
So I start pondering, and of course I noticed that the clear plastic face that keeps the
balls from coming out of the well, that's really the only flat surface in the whole thing.
So I think, okay, well, what if I do this?
I'll turn it on its side, I'll get one ball and one notch, and then I'll guide, I'll tilt
its sideways very slowly so that the other ball rolls to the other notch, and I bet you
there's just enough friction, I'm sorry, not to the other notch, but to the other side
of the well along the face of this plastic plate, there should be just enough friction
in the notch to keep the one ball in there.
And then if I very, very, very slowly tilt the whole thing upside down, then I'll have
both balls on a flat surface.
If I just keep that friction up just enough, I should be able for the ball that's in
the notch, I should be able to guide the free ball into the opposite notch.
And sure enough, I'm able with some very, very excruciating patience, able to do this,
and then very, very, very slowly and carefully turn it back over so that it comes, I'll say
back into the original orientation with the curved side down and one ball in each notch.
Yay, for me, I looked at this and I, well, okay, I figured out a method to do it.
Look, these are little cute puzzles and, you know, the solutions always simpler than
this.
It never requires that much finesse and it never requires what I would say relying on things
like just enough friction from just enough imperfections in the cuts or anything like
that to hold the little balls in place.
So I knew I hadn't really figured the puzzle out.
Well, I had figured out a solution, but it really wasn't a satisfying solution.
But nevertheless, I was impatient.
So I go and I open up the directions to see what's the real solution.
I look at it and, ah, of course, yes, silly me.
Well, I probably could have thought about it longer, man, but I'll never know now.
I'll never know if I would have thought of a more elegant solution.
That's the price of impatience, I suppose.
So if you don't want to hear the solution to this puzzle, by the way, then you should probably
stop this right now.
I'm going to put a picture of this puzzle, of course, in the show notes so you can see
what I'm talking about and you get a better feel for what's going on here.
But then to continue with the story, I decided to then give this puzzle to one of my
children.
Now, my second daughter is 12.
She loves all things engineering.
She likes building things out of electronic kits and out of little robot kits and so forth
and so on and she says she wants to be an engineer someday.
So okay, figure this is up her alley and I show it to her.
And she starts playing with it and she says, oh, dad, it's too hard.
I don't know.
I can't figure this out.
You know how kids are.
So I said, oh, you can do it.
You just got to think about it some more.
I'll leave you alone.
You figure it out.
And then, you know, it's like, no, I can't figure it out.
I come back 10, 15 minutes later.
She's like, no, this is too hard.
I can't do it.
I mean, of course, she wants a hint, right?
So decide I'll give her a very vague hint and I say, okay, well, here's what you do.
Okay.
Look, do you understand what y'all pitch and roll up?
Okay.
Well, you know, if you're holding your hand out in front of you, face down, right?
And you tilt it forward and back.
That's, you could say, that's y'all.
And then, if you're twisting it left and right, then that's pitch.
And if you're turning it so it's face up, face down, face up, you know, that's roll,
okay?
And you, my dear daughter, are, you know, you are, you're doing a lot of y'all right
now, but you're not doing very much pitch or roll.
So you got to think about the other motions, okay?
Just think about the other motions.
Oh, dad, that's not a very good clue.
Okay, don't just keep thinking about it.
I leave her alone.
I'm like, yeah, we'll see if she figures it out.
I'm not going to give her any more than that.
And you know, despite all of her protests and hour later, she comes back down and she
puts it on the table and she gives the solution that was indeed on the card.
She just puts it on the table and she spins it.
And sure enough, the balls fly to the edge of the well and into the appropriate notches.
Yay, good for her.
She stuck with it long enough to actually figure it out.
So I was thinking, okay, that's good, good for her.
And then I bring the puzzle back downstairs.
And my youngest, my six-year-old, is down in the kitchen.
And she says, oh, what's that, daddy?
And I said, oh, it's a little puzzle.
And I show it to her and I say, here, you've got to get one ball in each end.
And so she tips it and puts both balls in one notch and I say, no, no, no, you've got
it in one of each end.
Oh, she's all here.
I'll have tipped the other direction.
No, no, no, it's got to be one ball in each end at the same time.
And she's like, oh, okay.
So she's playing with it and she's staring at it and looking at it.
And I go over to the refrigerator and I'm like, I'll just get a drink and see if she
ever figures it out.
And she walks around the other way to the refrigerator around the opposite side of
the island in our kitchen to the refrigerator and pulls the refrigerator magnet off of
the refrigerator and proceeds to use it to pick the balls up out of the well, drag them
to the edge, drop them in the notch, put one in each end and says, look, dad, I figured
it out.
And I was completely beside myself because I thought this is the absolute best solution
yet.
Talk about completely not taking anything for granted, not making any assumptions.
And my gosh, the simplest and most elegant of the solutions, I think, anyways.
So this is just a reminder of me, reminded me immediately.
See, this is what happens as you become the older engineer.
You're already thinking about all while I've seen this.
I'm not going to try this.
I'm not going to do this.
It's hard to get that fresh perspective.
And it's always amazing, then, to see life through the eyes of a child again and realize
just how unlimited the possibilities are in our world for fixing problems.
So it was a fun, fun, heartwarming event.
And I thought that maybe the hackers out there in HPR land would get a kick out of it.
So with that, this is Gabriel, even fire, signing off until next time.
Bye-bye.
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