SCRAMBLE SQUARES® PUZZLES WIN January 2004 CHICAGO’S CHOICE AWARD
REDONDO BEACH, CA…December 15, 2003 — b. dazzle, inc. of Redondo Beach, California, has announced that The Chicago Gift & Home Market™ has named b. dazzle’s Scramble Squares® 9-piece brain teaser puzzle line a winner of the January, 2004 Chicago’s Choice Awards. The award, presented once a year during the January Chicago Gift & Home Market, acknowledges distinctive products and product lines represented in Beckman’s Handcrafted Gift Show™ Chicago and in the temporary exhibits in The Merchandise Mart’s 8th Floor Market Suites. Gift and home décor retailers can see these award-winning products during the Chicago Gift & Home Market, January 24-27, 2004. b. dazzle, inc. is exhibiting on the 8th Floor of in booth C-237.
The Chicago’s Choice Awards are being presented to manufacturers from various categories with products that display quality, innovation, creativity and ingenuity, as selected by a panel of industry professionals. The Chicago’s Choice ribbon on booth signage during the January Chicago Gift & Home Market will make it easy for buyers to identify award winners. Winners will also be listed on a handout available at the Starting Gate on the 1st floor of The Mart during the Market, and online at www.merchandisemart.com (click on “Chicago Gift & Home Market” then on “Chicago’s Choice”).
Exquisite, award winning Scramble Squares® brain teaser puzzles for ages 4 to 104 are at least as popular with adults, seniors, teenagers and college students as they are with children. Although each Scramble Squares® puzzle has only nine 4” x 4” pieces, Scramble Squares® puzzles are Perhaps the World’s Most Challenging Puzzle™! At under $10.00 retail, Scramble Squares® puzzles make inexpensive, but highly entertaining and valued gifts for both men and women alike… for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthdays, get well, graduation, travel and holidays. Scramble Squares® puzzles are Easy To Play, But Hard To Solve!™ 2-2-2/ SCRAMBLE SQUARES® PUZZLES WIN January 2004 CHICAGO’S CHOICE AWARD December 15, 2003.
Over one hundred exquisite styles of colorful original art are available on nature, sports, history, culture, geography, science, technology, occupations, fantasy, gourmet hobbies and activities. Fourteen new styles of Scramble Squares® puzzles will be introduced in January. Store displays come complete with the unique Scramble Squares® “5-Minute Challenge™” in store free puzzle giveaway promotion!
For more information about the Chicago’s Choice Awards and the Chicago Gift & Home Market, visit www.merchandisemart.com or call 800.677.6278(MART).
Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. (MMPI) is a trade show and property management firm, specializing in managing buildings devoted to wholesale showrooms and commercial office space. MMPI produces more than 300 trade shows, market events and conferences each year.
MMPI manages The Merchandise Mart, Chicago Apparel Center, and 33 North Dearborn in Chicago; Market Square, the Suites at Market Square, Hamilton Market, Plaza Suites, Furniture Plaza and the National Furniture Mart in High Point, N.C.; the Architects & Designers Building in New York; the L.A. Mart in Los Angeles; and the Washington Design Center and Washington Office Center in Washington, D.C.
Vornado Realty Trust, owner of MMPI, based in New York City, is a fully integrated equity real estate investment trust. Vornado’s common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and are traded under the symbol VNO.
The 11th Annual report of the Institute for Childhood Resources in San Francisco named Scramble Squares® puzzles as among “Dr. Toy’s 10 Best Educational Products” of 2003 and also one of “Dr. Toy’s 100 Best Children’s Products of the Year” for the second consecutive year. At least as popular with adults, seniors and teenagers as they are with
children, Scramble Squares® puzzles have also been selected by GAMES magazine, having a total circulation of 407,340, as one of the “100 BEST GAMES.”
Current Scramble Squares® puzzle topic categories include nature, sports, history, culture, geography, science, technology, occupations, fantasy, gourmet, hobbies and activities. New styles are added approximately every six months. The suggested retail price for a Scramble Squares® puzzle is $7.95 each.
The Scramble Squares® slogan, “Easy To Play, But Hard To Solve!™,” is very accurate. In the April , 2002 issue of Journal of Computing in Small Colleges, Central Plains Region, four mathematics researchers, Keith A. Brandt, Kevin R. Burger, Jason Downing and Stuart Kilzer of the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Physics at Rockhurst University, a Jesuit university in Kansas City, Missouri, wrote in their paper on artificial intelligence (AI) computer programming, “The scramble squares puzzle is very complex. Indeed, there are 49 x 9! = 95,126,814,720 different arrangements of the nine pieces. This puzzle is actually an instance of what is known in AI as a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP).” Of the 95 billion different puzzle piece placement combinations, each Scramble Squares® has only one solution, and once a Scramble Squares® puzzle is solved, it is just as difficult to solve every other time it is played.
Each Scramble Squares® puzzle package includes a panel of fascinating factual information on the subject of the puzzle, as well as a trivia question and hidden answer, all packaged in a unique and handy heavy duty 101/2″ long x 53/4″ wide x 3/8″ deep resealable vinyl travel pouch, which may be collected and stored easily in a standard 3-ring binder. The vinyl pouch is crystal clear, enabling the consumer to see the extraordinary beauty of the puzzles’ realistic original art, while achieving a very high amount of retail value per square foot of store space for the merchant.
In 1996, Learning magazine selected Scramble Squares® as The Best Educational Game in its “Product Picks for Math.”
Scramble Squares® teaches:
o Critical Thinking/Problem Solving Skills
o Patience
o Perseverance
o Statistical Probabilities
o Cooperative and Solitary Productivity
Scramble Squares® also helps maintain mental agility, sharpness and memory in seniors and adults, while providing hours of quiet and stimulating entertainment. The nine 4″ square puzzle pieces of a Scramble Squares® puzzle are easy to hold and easy to see, yet Scramble Squares® puzzles are as challenging as a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, but without the little pieces to lose or the mess all over the table.
b. dazzle provides a free 24″ x 36″ full color “WIN A FREE PUZZLE” promotional poster to any store offering its customers the Scramble Squares® “5–MINUTE CHALLENGE.™” Retailers can give a free Scramble Squares® puzzle to any customer who accepts the challenge and successfully solves the nine piece Scramble Squares® demonstration puzzle within five minutes. b. dazzle promptly replaces the stores’ puzzles awarded to consumers at no cost to the merchants. b. dazzle’s permanent wood counter, floor and slat wall displays each feature a demonstration puzzle on an interactive playing surface with an electronic timer to time consumers in the 5–MINUTE CHALLENGE.™ b. dazzle also offers a free, very compact, corrugated counter spinner display, including the timer and poster, with the purchase of any 72 Scramble Squares® puzzles in any quantity per style.
Our company’s mission is to produce a wide range of beautiful, wholesome, entertaining and informative gifts for under $10.00 retail for all ages of adults and children that can be selected by style to appeal to the personal interests of the gift recipient ,” says b. dazzle founder, puzzle designer, president & CEO, Kathie Gavin.