Team Floor Check’s Puzzle Story:

The Figura family is from Waverly, IA and started puzzling competitively in 2018 with their first members, Sophie and Max. When they handily beat all of the competitors at a local library competition, they quickly found more competitions and added Kory and Zebediah to their team. They first competed as a full team in 2019 and have practiced weekly ever since. They’ve been working on a stash that was gifted to them that included more than 100 puzzles! Their hard work has paid off and they took 2nd place in the Teams division of the 2021 National Championship! 

Q&A Time:

What’s your favorite part of puzzling?

Max: “The final rush of finding and making connections.”

Zebediah: “It's a fun mental exercise, there's the pleasure of completing a long and difficult task, and of course a certain delight in being good at something.”

Kory: “When we sing together while we're puzzling and get all the parts of voices to the song. When we're layered up on each other and working in sync. When two of us put in touching pieces from different directions at the same time. Also, puzzles work really well for timelapse videos, which I love taking, and that got us started with completing puzzles all in one sitting.”

What’s your advice to get faster?

Max: “Find the balance of working on aspects individually and combining or expanding the puzzle as a whole.”

Zebediah: “Recognize when you're trying to find or build something that's not the easiest or most productive part you could do. Often I pick a pattern or object to construct and it turns out harder than I thought. When that happens, it's better to work on a different pattern instead, and come back to the first one when there are less pieces to choose from.”

Kory: “Practice. Do puzzles without looking at the picture while you work. Don't focus on one place too long.”

What’s your favorite part about puzzling as a team?

Max: “The sorts of conversations brought on during a largely visual and tactile activity.”

Zebediah: “I really enjoy the banter that gets traded across the table during a puzzle, but probably the best thing is how well our specializations work together. In our team we don't all do the same task: Sophie constructs the border, and when that's done focuses on areas of a (mostly) solid colour. Max and I both construct different contiguous areas of the puzzle, which generally comprise an object of a single colour or pattern, and then neighbouring objects or colours. In puzzles with many objects (e.g. collages) we tend to work on all of the areas that have the same or a similar colour at the same time. Kory ensures all of the pieces are flipped over (a very worthwhile task!) and sorts pieces for the rest of us, so that we don't have to spend time doing that ourselves.”

Kory: “I love how a puzzle is solving a problem, but the solution can be reached in a lot of different ways. I love the time I spend with my kids and the sense of accomplishment when it's done, whether we're speed puzzling or just doing a ‘long term’ one.”

Connect:

Team Floor Check can be found through Instagram at @teamfloorcheck