Review: Pickagram
Today, I’m sharing my review of the Pickagram magnetic puzzle set. If you’re interested in a portable and engaging way to build spatial reasoning, creativity, and logic, keep reading!
Disclosure: I received a complimentary set for review from Timberdoodle. All views expressed are my own.
What It Is
Did you ever play with a Tangram puzzle? Pickagram takes that concept and makes it 3D and magnetic, which makes it way more interesting to fidget with.
From the package insert: “Pickagram is the world’s first magnetized 3D art puzzle designed by bringing a whole new dimension to the ancient Tangram puzzle, utilizing the geometry of the Golden Ratio to inspire its iconic shape and proportions.”
(Don’t know what the Golden Ratio is? That’s okay. You can read the Wikipedia article I linked to if you want to, but if you’re like me and mathy things make your eyes glaze over, don’t worry about it. You don’t have to know about the Golden Ratio to benefit from Pickagram.)
What’s Included
The Pickagram Bundle from Timberdoodle includes seven black-and-white (“panda” colored) magnetic blocks of various geometric shapes and a deck of 52 challenge cards.
The varying angles of each piece are what make this puzzle so intriguing. The black sides are magnetized with snickety magnets that click satisfyingly as the pieces fit into place.
Challenges
Pickagram comes out of the box as a square. Not a cube, mind you. The angles of the pieces form a pyramid at the top and bottom.
There are 26 challenges, with four levels for each. The easiest level includes a full-color diagram, with each block in a different color reflecting the 3D faces of the pieces. The second level is a 2D image with white pieces. The third level is lines and dots, and the fourth level is simply dots.
Playing around with the various suggested configurations is fun, and not as easy as I expected. I usually try working from the second-level challenge, but sometimes, I have to refer back to the colored diagram on level one to see where I went wrong.
My Thoughts
Challenges aside, Pickagram is a compelling fidget that I love keeping on the side table in the living room. It is appealing to all ages and has great versatility. It is compact enough to stow in a small zipper bag for travel or restaurant waits.
Video Clips
Check out this video for a demonstration and the story of how Pickagram was invented:
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