Eternity Puzzle

On August 10, one of the LEGO employees asked me if I intended to build other types of puzzles, too. Apparently a new puzzle had just been released two weeks before the event in Billund: the Eternity Puzzle. The first one who manages to solve this puzzle, wins two million dollar! The puzzle consists of 256 square pieces that are bordered by coloured patterns which must be aligned across a 16x16 board (where the dark gray patterns mark the border of the puzzle). I bought the puzzle immediately to try it out: I quickly realized I won't be the big prize winner. But winning those $2 million was not the only reason why I bought the puzzle: I wanted to see if there were possibilities to make a LEGO-version of this board game.
When I saw the 256 pieces of the puzzle and the patterns on it, I knew I would need lots of 45 degree angled parts to make the LEGO-version at least look like the real one. A quick search on BrickLink learned me that these parts are hard to find in a wide range of colours (and expensive!). So I decided to make my LEGO-version of the Eternity Puzzle slightly smaller than the original one: a 6x6 board instead of a 16x16 board.
The board itself became tan, because I still had plenty of tan plates and tiles left from my interlocking puzzles. For the piece-patterns I used 3x3 plates without corner (2450) in white, red, green, blue, yellow, sand blue, dark blue, brown and dark gray for the borders (unfortunately sand blue and dark gray don't really match). Maybe someday I'll dress them up with flowers (Clickits), 1x1 round plates, or other small parts to make the whole look more colourful.

• Left: the empty board. Just like the real board game, there is one spot marked on the board: this is where you begin to solve the puzzle.

• Right: 36 pieces to be fitted on the board...

• Left: there's only one piece that fits the marked spot.

• Right: finding pieces with matching colours.

• Left: working my way towards one of the corners (this is probably not the best method to solve this puzzle...).

• Right: almost halfway.

• Bottom: all the pieces on the board, but not in their right spots!!

I took this puzzle with me everytime I attended to an event, offering a LEGO-set to the first one who would be able to solve the puzzle. Even though my puzzle is a lot smaller than the original one, it's still a tough one to crack! I never had to give away a LEGO-set... until November 2011. On the very same day, 3 individuals solved the puzzle, completely independent of each other: my 3 daughters.
There was also a visitor who got totally hooked on this puzzle during the previous event, that I decided to sell it to her...
Exit Eternity Puzzle!...