Sorry for the lateness on this one (not that anyone cares).
For AVCon this year I made a ton of cardboard Tetris pieces and puzzles to go with them. The inspiration for these puzzles comes from a game for the GameBoy called Daedalian Opus, though tangrams and the sort go back a long time. Both my housemate Alex and my mother mentioned playing with similar wooden-block puzzles as children.
Here are some photos.
The very first seven pieces.
Puzzle prototyping. Alex found a different solution from the one I’d been designing! He tried to write a program to discover all of the possible solutions but stalled.
Painted puzzle pieces, stacked and ready to go.
My workspace. Very messy!
A puzzle laid out at AVCon and solved by a clever attendee.