Hello everyone we hope you are having a great holiday season. We have attached an announcement from Revo HQ for possible support on a new product based on feedback we’ve had from yourselves.
Introducing REVOMAZE Lite….
Please view the following announcement to check it out further:
https://www.vaultmaze.uk/forum/announce ... e-revomaze
Many thanks,
Rachel
I post a text version here below (the same information as in the link above):
To celebrate 15 years of the REVOMAZE
ANNOUCEMENT 24-12-2023
To celebrate 15 years of the REVOMAZE
Dear All,
On Christmas Day 2008, having cooked Christmas dinner, I wanted to design a puzzle. The design was based on two pieces of material I had, 1” brass and 2” aluminium bar along with a recently purchased CNC Mill and CNC dividing head.
My design came from a mistake I made making slots in a screwdriver handle in the 1970's while doing my apprenticeship. The idea was to create a maze you cannot see and must solve by touch alone. Here are some issues I was faced with during the design on Christmas day and the production of the prototype on Boxing day.
Challenge 1 - Design the maze using flat graph paper.
As the maze was going to be on a round shaft, I had a 3mm cutter to do this. The first issue was to divide the 1” (79.8mm circumference) with the 3mm cutter diameter came out to 26.5 or 53 half steps. So, I made it 50 1.5mm steps making the circumference of 75mm (diameter of 23.84mm) making the hole to drill in the sleeve of 24mm diameter.
Next was the length. My 2” aluminium was 87mm long while the 1” brass was 110mm long. Making the sleeve 85mm would have to be half so the maze would not reveal itself which comes to 42.5mm.
To be centred on this line, it is 1.5mm on each side. Going 26 steps of 1.5mm giving a range of 0 - 39mm makes a total length of 40.5mm (with the 1.5mm cutter radius) and leaves an edge of 2mm.
So, the graph paper was set to 50 x 26 (1.5mm X 1.5mm) squares.
Challenge 2 – Assembly
The next issue was how to assemble the puzzle quickly. Having to solve the puzzle to get the puzzle to the start was not the best idea. When designing the maze, two issues came out. How to get to the beginning and how to prevent the pin from going back the same way.
The solution was twofold. Adding a deeper (reset channel) would require ramps to go from one lever to the other. In doing that, a spring-loaded pin would be required.
This solution was the unique part that made this puzzle so original. We made the maze depth 1.5mm and the reset tramps to 3mm deep.
Challenge 3 – Drilling the sleeve hole.
The biggest drill I had was 11mm. After drilling the sleeve, I then had to bore out to 24mm diameter. This took a long time and was hard to keep parallel but once done, I then turned the brass to 23.84mm leaving 0.08mm on each side.
Challenge 4 – No C Axis.
My mill only had X, Y and Z axes. Having a separate controller for the new dividing head allowed me to program 50 divisions making 7.2 degrees for each turn. I therefore had to do everything by hand ending up with a maze that nearly matched the original drawing but left a kink in one of the main reset lines plus a couple of other areas where I did too many division presses.
Challenge 5 – Stopping users from access to the pin.
I wanted to make the puzzle such that it must be solved to gain access to the maze. I achieved this by drilling from one side through to the other on the sleeve. This meant I had to find a way to allow the pin to drop into the maze to allow the core to be removed.
I had a spring that fitted neatly in the sleeve hole through to the other side that was below the surface.
Once done, the pin length was adjusted until it smoothly went up the end ramp and then clicked into the reset line helped by a rounded pin end. Even with the kink, it worked smoothly and clicked positively into the central reset line.
Challenge 6 – Forgot to take pictures is one reason the puzzle is successful.
Having no pictures and being impatient to try the maze out, I had the belief that the maze would be correct and while having the drawing, would be easy to solve, I was wrong. It took nearly 3 hours to solve, and many tries later would become the reason why the puzzle has become so successful.
Once solved, the elation and euphoria of solving it made me want to try again and once more I had no pictures. But to my surprise, the second attempt took a few minutes and then down to seconds confirming that once solved, the ability to re-solve was straightforward making the puzzle an object the puzzler wanted to show other people who then had to go through the same learning process.
After a few tries, I finally made some changes to the maze by adding 7-sided flats on the ends of the maze and then made the sleeve with some steps and score lines to make it look like rings before adding a slot to place “REVOMAZE 1” onto it.
Challenge 7 – Finding someone to make the puzzle.
It soon became apparent that making the puzzle would require serious equipment. This took a couple of months, but the machine used is very expensive sliding head lathes as well as convincing the engineers how the design works.
The company spent a short while programming their Citizen M32 sliding head machine when I was called in to be shown the result. I was then shown one being made that took just 6 minutes compared to my many hours of work.
Challenge 8 – Telling the public.
In February 2009, I put the first 12 “REVOMAZE” puzzles onto eBay. This caused a massive response in the puzzling community with a later video blogger running a review that achieved over 5.6 million views.
Challenge 9 – Meeting the expectations of our growing and dedicated customers.
Our customers are loyal and enthusiastic puzzlers who are dedicated and intelligent and who want more challenging puzzles. We stepped up a level using dynamic moving parts.
This attracted high-level users who rose to the challenge and to everything we could design. In doing so we made our course onto an ever-decreasing client base. This was compounded by errors in design as well as making the puzzles too costly.
Throughout the product life cycle, we have introduced new products that gave a boost for a while, but the inevitable decline continued.
Challenge 10 – Overreaching in a global repressed market.
Due to government changes, instability in markets and the impact of the global pandemic as well as wars that have made the economy unstable in many countries, we are facing our biggest challenge which is to produce a puzzle that can be enjoyed by a larger audience.
List of Challenges:
1) Price
2) Weight
3) Complexity
4) Design size
Future …
Make the puzzle in moulded plastic. But this will require a massive investment. While we have technically worked out the possibility, we have had to curb it as this would require careful planning to get the product into the distribution channels.
What is next, short term? …
15 years ago, I invented a puzzle that has sold tens of thousands to clients in hundreds of countries. So, Rachel asked a question to our loyal customers, and I was taken aback by the answer she received.
Rachel asked, “Would you recommend our puzzle to someone else?” The answer was “No!”
The reason they gave was that the puzzles were too expensive and complicated. The collectors and high-end puzzlers still love the puzzle, but it was clear why we are seeing such a decline as we have become too niche, and growth was not sustainable.
Having 15 years of REVOMAZE experience, it was time for a reboot.
VAULTMAZE became a massive project that has proven the issues we were already experiencing had not been learned, but while the engineering and design are successful, the project has had challenges. We are committed to completing it and continuing development for our customer base.
I sat having a coffee in our local Starbucks and came up with a new approach that may allow us to meet a new audience. Time has shown my original idea above was sound and has good reason to be successful and can be again with some changes to tackle the challenges we are having.
Materials
We use a 2” aluminium round bar for the sleeve which is expensive as well as requires expensive machines to produce the hole that is parallel and clean finish to be as smooth as possible.
We use a costly 1” round brass bar for the maze which again needs an expensive machine to run.
Both produce components that are expensive and heavy. Due to supply, we make the maze and now make the components to build the core making them complex to assemble.
Both require finishing by anodising and nickel plating.
So where is my main challenge – Well, to be frank, it is the sleeve hole and that led me to my solution.
Looking at my material supplier, I came across an aluminium tube that had 5mm thick walls. Therefore, I started looking into using this like the clear training sleeve we had created that had a 24mm hole.
Having a test piece, that came as 30mm outer and 20mm inside, I found another supplier who had tube at 31.5mm with 6.8mm thick walls. This gave me around 19.1mm internal diameter on the tube.
Next, I considered the maze bar as being aluminium. This has advantages and disadvantages. Back at the beginning, we did a test maze but was not successful as aluminium-on-aluminium binds and eventually welds itself plus the small walls could be bent or damaged. However, rethinking the situation by looking at my MacBook Pro anodising that resists scratching, the benefits are as follows:
The advantages …
1) Cheaper.
2) Lighter.
3) Can be anodised.
a. For the sleeve, we would do a hard black.
b. The maze can be the colour level.
c. The result will harden the surfaces.
The disadvantages …
1) Not as strong.
2) Smaller diameter.
3) Binding with the sleeve.
So, before we start, we must address the maze rubbing inside the sleeve. This was solved using two O-rings at the beginning and end of the maze. These O-rings are bigger than the diameter of the maze but can control the pressure inside the sleeve. This was successful and the result gives us a smooth motion with low friction.
Using a 2mm cutter (we create a map on a 1mm x 1mm grid), gives us 60 by 34 (2040 points) compared with the 50 by 26 (1300 points) of the standard REVOMAZE giving us a larger area map even though the diameter is smaller.
The pin…
Learning from the success of the VAULTMAZE sleeve, the knowledge was used to create a pin that would be always in the sleeve. But it cannot have a cap as that would not follow the rule of having to solve the puzzle to the end.
The core must be removable, so instead of the pin going down into the end slot, we get the pin to go up to the surface. Using a tool that locks the pin in place, the core can then be removed. Using a second tool allows the maze to be refitted even if the first tool has been removed.
So now we have a new lighter and cheaper puzzle that is also thinner than the standard puzzle and as such is much cheaper. But while being made of aluminium and a smaller diameter, we feel the puzzle is tough and gives a good puzzle experience.
Using a design making the walls thicker than normal, the user gets good feedback without the fear of damaging the maze. Due to its mass, the puzzle isn’t damaged when dropped and having the pin housing out from the sleeve makes the puzzle difficult to roll off a desk. Being a smaller overall diameter makes it fit better in the pocket.
Who are we aiming at?
1) Kids
2) University students
3) Pensioners
4) Our current user base (25-45 age range)
Being cheaper, smaller, and lighter makes it more accessible to a wider audience.
INTRODUCING …
Comparison
REVOMAZE LITE
Length 100MM
Diameter 30MM
Weight 150G
Positions 2040 (9 RESERVED)
Levels 9
RRP £40 - £70
REVOMAZE STANDARD
Length 105MM
Diameter 50MM
Weight 600G
Positions 1300
Levels 18+
RRP £95 - £300
REVOMAZE Lite provides all the same challenges without the high cost, weight, and size. We are planning to have a range of puzzles again using colour to represent the levels.
- LEVEL 1 £40 (5/100) AQUA STATIC Introductory Level
- LEVEL 2 £40 (10/100) BLUE STATIC Easy Level
- LEVEL 3 £50 (20/100) LIME STATIC Beginner Level
- LEVEL 4 £50 (30/100) GREEN STATIC Standard Level
- LEVEL 5 £60 (40/100) FUSHUA STATIC Intermediate Level
- PILOT £60 (45/100) Black STATIC Challenging Level
- LEVEL 6 £60 (50/100) RED STATIC Hard Level
- LEVEL 7 £70 (60/100) GOLD Expert Level
- LEVEL 8 £70 (70/100) PURPLE Extreme Level
Before committing to the project, we will run a pilot of only 125 puzzles (each will be engraved with a unique number and certificate). After shipping, Rachel will do a survey and collate the reaction to the new puzzle as well as identify if the new puzzle would be recommended to friends, family and others.
- Revomaze_lite_3.jpeg (69.93 KiB) Viewed 11867 times
If you would like to join the program, you will receive a unique code to get 10% off any other REVOMAZE Lite puzzles.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4ff6a ... 4/file.mp4
- Revomaze_lite_4.png (536.72 KiB) Viewed 11867 times
- Revomaze_lite_vs_standard.jpeg (44.92 KiB) Viewed 11867 times
Due to the size, our engineers will be able to make these at a cost-effective price freeing us to continue and complete our
VAULTMAZE project.
https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4ff6a ... 4/file.mp4
- Revomaze_lite_5.png (556.56 KiB) Viewed 11867 times
- Revomaze_lite_6.jpeg (61.41 KiB) Viewed 11867 times
If you are interested in joining this project, please click the link below:
REVOMAZE Lite Pilot Programme (
https://www.vaultmaze.uk/product-page/r ... lack-pilot)
Thank you for reading and Rachel and I hope that you will join us on supporting this project and sharing it with your family and friends, we look forward to hearing your thoughts once the pilot has shipped, and we will be working on advertising in the upcoming new year as well as further developments and updates.
We wish you happy holidays and an prosperous New Year.
Very best regards,
Chris
