The World's Largest Jigsaw Puzzle

It comes in four boxes, has 24,000 pieces and is a gigantic 14ft by 5ft when complete. 'Life: The Great Challenge', created by artist Royce B. McClure is the world's largest jigsaw puzzle and even has a Guinness Book of World Records Certificate to prove it.

Since it's release in March 2007, the puzzle, which can take up to six months to solve, has been completed by only a handful of people.

The puzzle's manufacturer has even created a 'Hall of Fame' page on their website www.worldslargestpuzzle.com/hof.html, and they encourage puzzle enthusiasts to write in and tell their 'story' on how they completed the puzzle.

The first people ever to complete the puzzle were the Slater family (pictured above) from Sacramento, California. Scott Slater and his wife P.J. have been doing puzzles since they first met while in college. They started with small ones and gradually went on to bigger ones, as they got better. All their big puzzles, including one with 18,000 pieces (the biggest before this one), are mounted like artwork on their walls. Scott said he bought this one the day he found out about it. It took the Slaters 34 days (about 400 hours), to complete the puzzle and they are now ready for the next challenge.

Royce B. McClure says that when he was commissioned to create the puzzle, his biggest challenge was to incorporate enough detail so as to make the puzzle interesting and stimulating, but not impossible to complete. It had to be tough but also fun!

He ended up creating a puzzle with four sections, which when combined make up 'Life: The Great Challenge'. He also tried to make each section as different from the others as possible, so that puzzle solvers would not get 'bored' doing the same thing four times. It seems he has succeeded in his mission, for people who have started the puzzle cannot seem to stop until they complete it!  Be sure to check out the website www.worldslargestpuzzle.com for all sorts of fun information about this puzzle and the fun stories each 'Hall of Famer' has to narrate about his/her/their experience.

Sources: world'slargestpuzzle.com