Switchback Steps
Ninety-six blocks, forty-eight routes. A staircase that has to reach the top in a fixed number of turns — and the card tells you how many.
28 × 18 × 22 cm assembled · free shipping over $199
What is in the box
- 96 beech blocks (4 profiles)
- 48 challenge cards
- Card stand
- 12-page starter booklet
- Cotton drawstring bag
Specification
- Pieces — 96 blocks + 48 challenge cards
- Material — Solid beech, 8 mm ply step deck
- Finish — Water-based matte, EN71-3 tested
- Assembled size — 28 × 18 × 22 cm
- Build time — 1–2 hours per route
- Age — 8+
- Challenges — 48 cards, 4 difficulty bands
Shipping & returns
- Dispatched from Shenzhen within 3 working days.
- Duties prepaid to US, UK, EU, Canada and Australia.
- 30 days to return an opened set; parts replaced free at any time.
- Flat kraft box, 38 × 28 × 6 cm, 1.2–4.6 kg depending on the set.
The build
A switchback is a path that doubles back on itself to gain height in a space too narrow for a straight run. The set gives you ninety-six blocks and a deck of routes: each card states a height, a turn count and a block budget, and the staircase has to satisfy all three at once.
The first twelve cards are solvable by looking. By card thirty you are counting turns on your fingers. Cards forty to forty-eight have more than one legal solution and no diagram on the back — those are the ones that get kept on the kitchen table for a week.
There is no timer and no score. The failure state is a staircase that arrives at the top facing the wrong way, which is a very quiet kind of wrong.
Specification
| Pieces | 96 blocks + 48 challenge cards |
| Material | Solid beech, 8 mm ply step deck |
| Finish | Water-based matte, EN71-3 tested |
| Assembled size | 28 × 18 × 22 cm |
| Build time | 1–2 hours per route |
| Age | 8+ |
| Challenges | 48 cards, 4 difficulty bands |
- 0148 graded challenge cards, answers on the reverse for 1–36
- 02Block budget forces geometric reasoning, not trial and error
- 03Each block is 8 mm beech — heavy enough to stay where you put it
- 04Doubles as a marble run when the cards are put away
