Elephant No. 268: Word Search Puzzle

I liked word search puzzles a lot when I was a kid, so I thought I'd try making one for today's elephant.

The first word search puzzles appear to have been created by Norman Gibat in March 1968. Published in the Selenby Digest—a free advertising paper distributed at supermarkets and other shops in Norman, Oklahoma—the puzzles became highly popular throughout the region. Schoolteachers asked for reprints to use in their schools, and one teacher even sent copies around the United States to teachers in other parts of the country. At some point, one of the puzzles found its way to a major news agency, and the format was syndicated.

Around the same time, Spanish puzzle creator Pedro Ocón de Oro was working on a similar word game that he called Sopa de letras, meaning "alphabet soup" or "letter soup". The first Sopa de letras book appears to have been published in 1976.

Word search puzzles—also called "word find", "word seek", "word sleuth" and "mystery word"—consist of a series of words hidden within a grid. The object is to find all the words in an accompanying list by circling either whole words or the individual letters in each word. Usually there are letters left over, which sometimes form a secret message or phrase.

In addition to the word search puzzles found in puzzle books and newspapers, there are word search puzzles that can either be played online or downloaded to solve by hand. There are also numerous computer generators for word search puzzles, which allow the puzzle-maker to input a series of words, which are then magically transformed into a puzzle grid.

For today's elephant, I decided to try making one of these puzzles by hand. It looked relatively simple: make a grid, then fill it up with theme-related words that run in various directions.

Easier said than done. It goes quite easily, of course, for the first few words. You can even have them intersect one another and latch on to one another without any trouble at all. After a while, however, it gets very difficult. The spaces that remain are too small for the words you still want to use, or there's one stupid letter in the way. If you are rash enough to remove this letter, the resulting domino effect is likely to take down several other words with it.

I started by sketching out a grid measuring 16 squares by 16 squares, for a total of 256 squares to fill in. It sounds like a lot, but it's not that bad when you use longish words.

After I had my grid, I simply started filling it in with elephant-themed words. I used scientific words, foreign words, compound words, descriptive words, and very short words. I stuck to words I've used in previous blog posts, but the list is definitely eccentric.

As mentioned above, once I got to a certain point, it got tricky. As you can see from my working copy below, the process involved a lot of crossing out and correction fluid. I also wanted to be left with a "mystery phrase" at the end, which required me to have a precise number of blanks available.

Once I'd finished working out the puzzle—which took me nearly two hours—I was ready to make it presentable.

At first, I was going to draw it out by hand. Then I realized that it would be much easier if I produced it using a word-processing program.

After formatting the whole thing, I tested it to make sure everything was okay. This took about an hour, because, of course, it wasn't okay. Some of my original words had been swallowed up in others, so I crossed them off the list—no use searching for what's already been fully circled. Other words had been changed so many times that they were now misspelled, so I either had to substitute new words or find a way to rejig what I had. And then there was the "mystery phrase", which moved around so many times I had to test the puzzle again. Twice.

To make it pretty, I was going to draw an elephant around the outside; however, I'd spent so much time making this already, that I didn't want to add some kind of computer illustration to the mix. I also thought about printing the puzzle out, drawing around it by hand, then scanning it, but my document scans never look quite right, so I decided to leave well enough alone.

I wanted to include this as a PDF download, but I don't think this blogging platform allows it, so I've included it in image form. The image is not as sharp as I'd like, despite my best efforts, but I think you can download it this way, if you're so inclined. For those of you who decide to actually try it, I'll post the solution to the mystery phrase in tomorrow's post.

 

This was much harder than I expected it to be, but it was an interesting process. I would probably try this again, although I'd be torn between trying to make it all up on my own, and just using a puzzle-generating program.

Elephant Lore of the Day
According to a nineteenth-century British officer serving in India, elephants can be remarkably tender nursemaids to human babies.

The officer reported seeing the wife of a mahout, or elephant-keeper, place her baby in the care of an elephant while she went to do some marketing in a nearby village. The baby, of course, was not content to remain where it was placed and, as soon as its mother left, would begin to crawl away.

Sometimes this led the baby to crawl beneath the elephant. At other times, the baby would crawl into the greenery where the elephant was feeding. Each time, the elephant would gently lift the baby out of harm's way, or remove any obstacles in the baby's path. If the baby was about to venture beyond the range of the chained elephant's trunk, the elephant would stretch out its trunk, and deposit the baby back within reach.

According to the officer, the child didn't mind in the least, and in fact may have viewed the whole thing as a bit of a game.

Boy with elephant, from Ashes and Snow, 2002.
Photo: © Gregory Colbert
Source: http://theworldofphotographers.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/
colbert-gregory-photographer/

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information

on a number of sanctuaries around the world)

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders 

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand) 

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India

Elephant No. 251: Dexterity Puzzle

While sorting out a few things yesterday, I came across a small plastic dexterity puzzle, and wondered if I could make one. I've never been very good at solving these little puzzles, but I've always liked them, and it didn't look like a very complicated concept.

Dexterity puzzles—also known as palm puzzles, jiggle puzzles and ball bearing puzzles—may be the oldest form of puzzle in the world. An artifact resembling a maze form of dexterity puzzle was found at Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley, and dates to about 2500 B.C.

In more modern times, dexterity puzzles have been produced since at least the 1880s. A dexterity puzzle known as "Pigs in Clover", produced in 1889, is considered the earliest modern dexterity puzzle. When it was introduced, Pigs in Clover caused something of a craze, even showing up in political cartoons of the time. Dexterity puzzles enjoyed a resurgence in popularity during the 1930s, and have been widely produced ever since.

Original version of Pigs in Clover. The idea is to get all four balls/pigs into the centre.
Invented by Charles M. Crandall, 1889
Collection of the Lilly Library, Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.A.
Source: http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/images/item.htm?id=http://purl.dlib.indiana.edu/
iudl/lilly/slocum/LL-SLO-003650

The idea behind a dexterity puzzle is to run balls through a maze, or nestle them in depressions scattered across a picture. The printed design for the latter includes logical places for the ball bearings to rest, and sometimes instructions for use. Although most dexterity puzzles are small enough to fit easily in a child's hand, some are slightly larger. Complicated maze puzzles can be as large as tabletops, with special handles for tilting the playing surface.

An unusual dexterity puzzle with egg-shaped balls.
Source: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/59975121@N00/sets/72157600415138198/

Most dexterity puzzles will use a single size of ball bearing. Some, however, involve more than one size, with instructions for fitting the different sizes into specific spaces on the playing surface. Over the years, the balls have been made of clay, lead shot, steel ball bearings and plastic. At one time, even mercury was used, for its tendency to bead.

Designs could either be elaborate or simple, and were made on printed cardstock, wood, plastic, and even embossed tin, as in the example below. Dexterity puzzles have become highly collectible in recent years, with antique versions selling for $150 or more.

Antique dexterity puzzle.
Source: http://www.icollector.com/ANTIQUE-BLACK-AMERICANA-
EMBOSSED-DEXTERITY-PUZZLE_i10201305

For today's elephant, I decided to use a circular tin container with a glass lid. These are relatively easy to come by, and are usually called "watchmaker's cases". They come in various sizes, but I chose the 70 mm (2.75 inches) size, which was the largest I could find. You could also use a deep picture frame or shadow box. The main thing is that the playing surface be far enough away from the glass to allow the balls to roll easily—but perhaps not so far away that they bounce a lot.

Because the watchmaker's case is deeper than I need, I cut two circles of foamcore to line the bottom. I used black because it's what I had in scrap form.

At first, I thought I might like to have the holes showing as black, then I changed my mind, so I cut a circle of bristol board to lie on top of the foamcoare. For all of these, I used the bottom part of the case to make a template, then cut just inside the line to make sure they would fit.

For the playing board, I sketched a design on a piece of artist-quality bristol board. I thought about the ball bearings when I was drawing it, trying to figure out the best places for the ball bearings to rest.

I outlined it with a black pigment liner, then heat-set it with a hairdryer so that I could paint it without the outlines running.

To finish the design, I painted it with cake watercolours.

To make the holes, I used a tapestry needle. To ensure that the holes were even and round, I poked the needle through all the way to the end, then twirled the end around in the hole. I was originally going to use a 0.3 cm (1/8 inch) hole punch, but thought the holes would be too big for a puzzle this size. You want holes that are small enough to hold a small ball bearing without it falling through, and large enough to encourage the ball bearing to stay where it rolls.

Instead of ball bearings, I decided to use gold dragees—the kind you use on cakes and cookies. I had a bottle of these, so I tipped some out, choosing the ones that were most uniformly round and also the smallest. If you wanted something even smaller, you could also use mustard seed, which comes in both brown and yellow. The main idea is that it be round enough to roll easily.

I placed the dragees on the holes to make sure the holes were spaced nicely, and that I had the right number of dragees.

The final step was putting on the glass cover. Since the covers on these cases have a tight fit, I didn't think I needed to glue or tape the lid, but you could if you wanted.

This took me about an hour in total, including painting time. I'm pretty pleased with the final piece because, although I really didn't know what I was doing, it turned out quite well. It even works. Now if I could only manage to make all the little balls stay where I want them.

Elephant Lore of the Day
Sometimes Nature is just plain creepy. Although I like butterflies in my garden, I don't think I'd like to be in the midst of a swarm like the one below.

The African snout butterfly (Libythea labdaca) travels the continent each year in massive migratory swarms of up to a billion butterflies. Travelling south in the spring and north in the fall, the African snout butterfly can completely blot out the Sun and decimate foliage.

African snout butterfly (Lybithia labdaca), Boma, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007.
Photo: Akito Y. Kawahara
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lybithea_labdaca.jpg

When they swarm elephants, snout butterflies are primarily seeking the salt in the dried sweat on an elephant's skin. If I were an elephant, I'd be trumpeting madly. And fleeing.

African snout butterflies swarm a forest elephant, Central African Republic.
Photo: Michael Fay/National Geographic Stock
Source: http://www.nationalgeographicstock.com/ngsimages/explore/
explorecomp.jsf?xsys=SE&id=412416

 

 

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information

on a number of sanctuaries around the world)

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders 

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand) 

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India

Elephant No. 238: Mazes

I was looking at some drawings by Keith Haring earlier today, and it struck me that many of them look like mazes. So I decided to try making a maze for today's elephant.

The oldest-known maze is thought to be the Cretan labyrinth at Knossos, which dates to about 1000 B.C. Although usually grouped together, mazes and labyrinths are considered by some to be different entities. Mazes can twist and turn and double back on themselves, while labyrinths generally have a single way through that is not as difficult to follow.

Historically, mazes have been built with walls, hedges, crops, masonry, mirrors and more. Designed as physical challenges through which a person must walk, many of the world's most elaborate mazes contain towers from which to locate a lost maze-walker.

Hedge maze at Longleat, England, 2005.
The wooden structures can be climbed to locate lost maze-walkers.
Photo: Rurik
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Longleat_maze.jpg

Mazes are also used as psychological experiments assessing spatial learning and navigation. These types of experiments usually use rats or mice, and test for things such as anxiety, memory and cognitive impairment.

Paper-drawn mazes are a relatively recent invention, and today are often computer-generated using complicated algorithms. During the 1970s, there was something of a "maze craze", with a wealth of books and magazines featuring mazes for all ages.

Unconventional paper maze by Yonatan Frimer.
Source: http://teamofmonkeys.com/maze-mazes/animal-mazes.html

Traditional paper mazes involve passing only once along a given pathway, although there are various kinds of "super mazes" today which involve 3-D simulations, crossing multiple pages, doubling back along the same pathway, and so forth.

Many countries have permanent mazes, usually made of hedges and crops such as maize. Although there are outdoor mazes in virtually every part of the world, they are most prevalent in the British Isles and North America. The world's largest permanent maze is the Samsø Labyrinten in Finland, which covers six hectares (15 acres).

Mazes have even made their way into art. These include maze wall murals on public buildings, and meditative mosaic floor labyrinths in churches such as Chartres Cathedral.

Labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France.
Source: http://www.northernelectric.ca/medieval/labyrinth/labyrinth.htm

For today's elephant, I thought I'd try making something fairly traditional, with layers of lines and rows, and something more unconventional. For the second elephant, I took my inspiration from mazes like Yonatan Frimer's zebra maze above.

I started with a pencil sketch for each. For the conventional maze, I did a general elephant outline, knowing that I'd have to add concentric lines inside and out. For the second maze, I drew a festival elephant.

For the conventional maze, I started from a set of helpful online instructions. The idea appears to be that you make outlines around outlines, then erase bits of the lines to create gaps. This is all easier said than done with an irregular shape like an elephant, but I did my best.

Once I had drawn all the pencil lines, I decided I'd better map a route through the whole thing before committing myself with pen. This drawing is only 17.75 x 17.75 cm (7 x 7 inches), so the lines are very fine. Even I got lost, despite knowing the general route. If I were walking such a thing, I'd need to carry a flare gun so that people could find me before I starved to death.

When I thought I'd mapped a way across the page, I went over the lines with black pen. Surprisingly, there was only one spot in which I had boxed myself in. This was easily fixed with a judicious bit of correction fluid.

Because I wanted the elephant to show a bit better, I lightly shaded the general shape with a coloured pencil. This makes no difference to the maze's functionality. Turns out it doesn't make much difference to the look of the thing, either.

Next, I turned my attention to the less traditional maze. This doesn't nearly as much time to draw as a conventional multi-layered maze, but it's actually just as hard to figure out.

To make it interesting, you want the pathway to snake through the whole drawing, which means leaving gaps along the way, while also blocking people from taking shortcuts or haring off in the wrong direction. I found the blocking part the more challenging of the two, because you don't want to make it obvious by drawing a big black line where it doesn't make any design sense.

In this one, I actually blocked my route twice and had to add correction fluid in two spots, rather than the one I'd done for the more conventional maze. I also had to close off a gap which would have allowed someone to avoid half the route.

Once both mazes were ready to go, I had to make sure they worked. Instead of tracing them with my finger—which can be surprisingly disorienting—I used a red pen to wend my way through each.

I actually found the second maze harder to negotiate, even though I more or less knew the way through. It's probably because it looks like a regular drawing, rather than a series of paths, and the little gaps in the drawing can be surprisingly hard to find.

Making these was kind of fun, although the one with lots of lines was a bit tedious for someone like me. The lines are obviously not evenly spaced—a task that would have been pretty much beyond me—and they're probably too close together. That being said, it was an interesting exercise.

I liked making the second one far more, probably because it's more like drawing. I also liked the idea that a drawing can masquerade as a maze. If I were to make more, they would probably be like the second version.

Before I started making these, I actually didn't know that mazes were relatively easy to produce. I thought that complicated mazes could only be produced by computers or, at the very least, on graph paper. I was happy to find out that I was wrong. I'm also very grateful to Betty Nesmith Graham, who invented correction fluid.

Elephant Lore of the Day
At the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, orphaned baby elephants are kept in a stable each night. These are elephants that are still too young and too milk-dependent to be permanently returned to the wild.

Because the babies need to be fed at three-hour intervals, keepers sleep in bunks above each elephant's stall. A different keeper is assigned each night to prevent the elephants—and keepers—from becoming too attached.

Although the elephants remain nonchalant about different keepers, they are quite firm on feeding times. When speaking with National Geographic writer Charles Siebert in 2011, one keeper commented that there was no need for an alarm clock to know when it was time for the night feedings. Every three hours, the elephants would reach up their trunks and pull the blankets off of the keepers sleeping above them.

Baby elephants playfully tussle over a bottle of formula not finished by the little
blanketed elephant at the keeper's feet—David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Kenya, 2011
Photo: Michael Nichols
Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/orphan-elephants/nichols-
photography#/04-vying-for-formula-670.jpg

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information

on a number of sanctuaries around the world)

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders 

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand) 

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India

Elephant No. 233: Connect-the-Dots

My first thought was that this would be a very easy thing to produce. Then I realized that it would have to be more or less a continuous-line drawing for it to work. This makes it a little more complicated, but still not all that difficult.

Connect-the-dots puzzles—also known as join-the-dots and dot-to-dot puzzles, consist of a series of numbered dots. When a line is drawn from number to number in sequence, a object appears.

Most connect-the-dots puzzles are simple line art, and they are usually produced for children. Lately, however, a more complicated form of connect-the-dots puzzle has appeared, sometimes featuring well over a hundred numbers.

In addition to being a game, connecting the dots is the first tool used in a popular cognitive development program created by Israeli clinical psychologist Reuven Feurstein. The phrase "connect the dots" has also found its way into everyday parlance, implying a person's ability—or inability—to associate ideas or see the bigger picture.

For today's elephant, I decided that I didn't want it to have any solid features such as eyes or tail. As a child, I felt that those kind of connect-the-dots puzzles were only for "babies", and were a form of cheating on the part of the originator. Having never produced one of these before, it was quite possible that I would feel quite differently by the time I was through today.

I also decided was that it could have as many numbers as I wanted. Another thing I never liked about connect-the-dots when I was young was when the dots were so far apart that the lines were straight and pointy. I used to deliberately curve the lines when I was little, if I thought I could guess what the final design might be. Sometimes this made for some very strange completed drawings.

I started by making a relatively simple sketch.

Once I had the drawing, I figured out where it might be easiest to start, and how to work my way around the drawing. It helped that I'd done continuous-line drawings before, but it's not hard once you get the hang of it.

I began by making dots along the entire outline. I hadn't quite reckoned with the number of dots I would need to avoid jagged lines, but it was quite a lot—413, to be exact. The thing is that you need dots spaced closely together if you want the illusion of a relatively smooth line.

When I'd finished making dots, it was time to number them. In some parts of the drawing, the dots were so close together that I had to draw little lines indicating the number for a dot embedded deeply in a particularly dense cluster. I also lost track a couple of times, and had to add correcting fluid to mask my mistakes. I'm actually surprised I didn't make more mistakes in this welter of dots.

I expected it to be equally difficult to connect the dots, but it was actually easy, and even fun. Like a little kid, I was honestly delighted to see the drawing materialize when I joined the individual dots.

The final result is relatively close to my original drawing, if a bit less elegant and smooth. The more dots you have, the more detailed the drawing will be, which makes it suitable for older kids and even adults.

In the end, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed connecting the dots. It took me about an hour—mostly the time it took to add the tiny numbers—and I'm quite happy with the final result. It was such silly fun that I may even consider making these for some of my friends. But maybe not with 413 dots to connect.

Elephant Lore of the Day
One of the most serious problems facing elephants is fragmentation of their habitat. Roads, plantations, farms and settlements bisect longstanding elephant migration routes, making it difficult—if not impossible—for elephants to find mates, as well as adequate food, minerals and water.

A promising international initiative, however, aims to solve the problem by creating elephant corridors. The Wildlife Trust of India, for example, has already identified 88 potential elephant corridors across the country, prioritized in order of conservation importance and feasibility. Only two of these have been established so far, but there is a strong commitment to the corridors, with support from international partners such as the World Land Trust.

The ultimate aim is to create a pan-Asian network of forest corridors, enabling Asian elephants to move safely between protected areas. The hope is that this will reduce human-elephant conflict and protect important elephant habitat, while benefitting other wildlife, such as tigers and monkeys, in the process.

Interestingly, this sometimes means relocating villagers rather than elephants. Villagers who have already suffered the consequences of conflict with elephants or tigers are usually willing to move. In other corridors, initiatives such as the Indian Elephant Corridors project provides funding and expertise to help people create alternate livelihoods to the slash-and-burn agriculture which has led to the rapid disappearance of forests, along with a concomitant rise in human-elephant conflict.

To learn more about the Indian Elephant Corridors project, click here.

Asian elephant in established elephant corridor in India.
Source: http://www.worldlandtrust.org/sites/files/elephant-in-corridor.jpg

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information

on a number of sanctuaries around the world)

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders 

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand) 

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India