After a bit of a push and some late nights I finished the new prototype. Everything is working as expected and I'm already getting ideas on how to dress this up when I make the real pieces. I prototype for a variety of reasons: to work out how the puzzles work, build mechanisms and to look at a full size piece to decide how it will ultimately look. I make prototypes out of cheap woods and build in such a way that I can take them apart.

This box has two puzzle locks on it. Both consist of multiple sliders with letters on them. When the sliders are positioned correctly the lock can be moved. Move both locks and a button in the center can be pressed and the drawers spring out.

The puzzles are letter sequences. On the box are two sets of sequences. The trick is to determine the sequence and figure out the next letters. These types of puzzles can be made easy or hard.

Each lock has 216 possible combinations (3 sliders with 6 letters each) which means there are 432 total combinations. Not impossible to brute force, but that's no fun. These are hard to pick via feel too. Fun thing about this design is a simple change can make the brute force approach much less appealing. 8 letters by 4 sliders equals 4,096 combinations. Do that on both locks and there are then 8,192 possibilities!

Now, time to pretty up this design. I like this part!