Handcrafted Puzzle Book Must Be Unlocked Page by Page

August 20, 2016 4:00 am
Codex Silenda
(Brady Whitney)

 

Industrial designer Brady Whitney grew up on a cattle farm in Iowa, so he was taught from a young age how to work with his hands. This pedigree and a crazy amount of creativity led Whitney to launch the Codex Silenda project for his senior thesis at Iowa State University, a five-page 3-D puzzle book made completely out of laser-cut wood.

But you can’t just crack the book, flip through its pages, and call it a day: Each page is its own puzzle that needs to be unlocked before you can turn to the next one. (The puzzle pages consist of a Mechanical Iris, Rotating Maze, Geneva Gears, Paradox Sliders, and Cryptex Lock; see images of three of them below.) After solving each page, the reader will also find a portion of a short story about an apprentice in Leonardo Da Vinci’s workshop, so you get a little bit of knowledge to go with your brain-tease.

The Codex Silenda is just one of a number of projects Whitney has designed from scratch. Check out the rest of them—along with more detailed information about his thesis project—here. He also launched a Kickstarter for the project, which you can view here. Take a look at some of the blueprints for the book and its pages. At the bottom, watch Whitney’s Kickstarter video.

Codex Silenda
(Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
(Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
(Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
Mechanical Iris cover page (Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
Rotating Maze page (Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
Geneva Gears page (Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
Paradox Slider page (Brady Whitney)
Codex Silenda
Cryptex Lock page (Brady Whitney)

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