Here’s a great post for anyone who likes woodworking and making puzzles.  The author of the post has gathered free puzzle plans from around the web.  It’s worth taking a look at, even if you don’t intend to make any of the puzzles as many fun designs are on display.

SmartKit is featuring a new puzzle by Peter Grabarchuk called Strimko.  It’s a sudoku variation where, instead of the traditional square grid divided into sections, there’s a grid of circles connected by lines.  The circles that are connected by lines create the equivalent of the internal sections.

Here’s a silly item for the puzzle lover’s holiday gift list that I found on BoingBoing Gadgets.  It’s a toilet paper holder with a puzzle.  In order to gain access to the toilet paper, you have to solve the puzzle.  I guess that’s good motivation.

We have a new site banner for puzzlinks.com, courtesy of Dave Millar over at The Griddle.  It’s been ages since I’ve done anything cosmetic with the site, so I appreciate the new look.  Click through and check it out.  Also check out Dave’s site (if you haven’t already.)

I got an email a while back about a site called Treasure Challenge that offered cash prizes for solving puzzles.  I just tried the puzzle for the first time today.  The site requires you to create a user to log in.  You are then presented with the treasure challenges for the week.  It will either tell you who solved the challenge or when the challenge will be active, or it will let you try the challenge.

First, you are presented with a series of trivia questions that shouldn’t be too difficult for anyone connected to the internet.  Some of the questions require you to click on an ad link.  The answer to the question takes you to a page that contains the answer.  For example, today’s treasure challenge was cleary sponsored by Amazon and all links went to their site.  This is, apparently, how the site makes money.  After you answer the trivia questions, you are presented with a riddle for which you only get one guess per day.

After this, thinks get a bit murky.  I haven’t gone any further, so I can’t say for certain what happens.  The rules say something about a FASTCASH round and multiple clues.  If you want to find out what that means, I suppose you’ll have to play.

ThinkFun is having a contest to see who can solve their 36 Cube puzzle.  The 36 cube puzzle requires you to arrange a collection of “towers” in a 6X6 block.  Each tower is a different color and a different height, which leads us to the two rules you need to follow.  The first is that a color may appear only one in each row or column.  The second is that all of the towers must be placed so that they are all a uniform height.  The places for the towers in the cube are already at varying elevtions, such that each row or column will have only have one tower of a particular height.  The completed puzzle will then be a cube.

The first 36 contestants who can prove that they solved the puzzle will win a ThinkFun Game Club kit for the school of their choice.