Hi, I have recently designed my first puzzle in solidworks. I call it Ark's Barrel. It is a barrel cube with a thinner middle layer, to prevent 90 degree turns on the sides. I got the idea for this cube when making a Fisher Cube. I was halfway done with it (it was in barrel form), and i noticed people didn't realize that it could shapeshift, and i thought to myself, "what if it couldn't shapeshift?" I then designed this puzzle.

The puzzle basically acts as a domino, with an exposed middle layer, so there is an extra step. the difficulty isn't that much more than a domino, but there is a possibilty of a middle layer 3-cycle during the solving of the top and bottom layers.

I don't have any pictures, as I am currently at work, but I will post the CAD pic's when i get home.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/137822/a ... arrel.html

Nice work for your first design but I think there's an issue with the design: what screw size is going to work for that?
It looks like the holes in the centres are just as large as the ones in the core. How are you going to make the screw bind to the core but not to the centre?
Also, it looks like there's nothing that will stop the caps from being pushed too far.

You can only see the front of the caps, they look look standard cube caps, with an extrusion on the other side. Also, I plan on using a bolt all the way through the core, and a nut on the other side.

I can see how one bolt can fit trough that core... but three all at once?

Oh, i hadn't thought of that
Guess i need to make the center holes bigger!
Anybody know the dimensions of C4U screw/springs?

Nice work, you may also want to make sure it has good enough fillets, hollowed out pieces (100 dollars is the price of it) and tolerances. I have a nice tolerancing tutorial here, which should, by the way, be done before fillets and after hollowing.

This design doesn't need any tolerance whatsoever. It's going to be just fine without, adding tolerance will just make it loose.

You only really need tolerance when things need to grip in to each other. Also, you should add tolerances before hollowing or else your hollowing will be uneven (which is a problem when you are hollowing to close the minimum wall thickness).

The puzzle was $200 before I hollowed then out, and tolerance isn't a problem because I don't split my pieces, I model them individually. (yeah, yeah, i know, it may be more complex, but you still get the same thing in the end, and it's much easier to re-size/modify pieces, you just edit the feature/sketch)

I used to try to do that, trust me, it is the hardest thing to do in the world compared to the simple ways you could model it in Solidworks.

I don't think so, if you know what your mech looks like, modeling individually isn't much harder at all. I've been using CAD for awhile now, puzzle building is definitely not my first CAD experience. And also, modeling complex things that aren't in such a convenient shape (like meshing gears), can be harder to do by splitting, and a lot easier by doing the math and rotating around a point.

Here is a pic of the assembly. I should (hopefully) be printing this soon.