Perpetual Motion was designed by Bill Darrah. This secret box contains a small oriental coin. The object is to open the top of this very squat box and remove the coin. the base of the box contains a grooved maze. The lid has two nails which slide in the groove. The is solved by moving the lid so that the two nails make their way through the maze until they both come to a large hole allowing the lid to be lifted off. Notably, the two nails cannot be moved around the maze in tandem since they must always be exactly the same distance apart. This type of maze was first introduced in the Taxi puzzle. What makes this puzzle especially hard is that the maze is hidden.
The material is black acrylic. It has a white acrylic inlay of a Chinese character which has the approximate meaning of 'confused motion'. Bill simply chose to name this puzzle Perpetual Motion. You may find yourself perpetually moving the lid around trying to get it to the lift off point. If you give up, you can still get the prize by clicking on the solution below. Actually, it really isn't the solution since it is merely a diagram of the maze. You'll still have to figure out the best way to navigate it.
