Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

Gear Shift is based on an idea by Bram Cohen. This puzzle has eight gears around a cube. All gears can turn together. But it is also possible to pull the gears apart in two sets of four. Each set of four can be turned individually. And there are three ways to split the gears. The object of this puzzle is similar to Rubik's Cube: scramble it and then try to solve it.

There are four 8-teeth and four 5-teeth gears. Some people may recognize this type of gearing motion from Haruki Nakamura's famous Gear Cube sculpture or his equally famous Gear Heart. I used gears before in the Meffert's Gear Cube and Gear Cube Extreme. A somewhat related pull-and-turn mechanism was used in Daqing Bao's fantastic Magic Ball puzzle.

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle from my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Yet another great puzzle. Is it about the same size as the Take Apart?

I hope you'll take it to DCD in Emmen next week!

You mean Turn Apart? Turn Apart is 50x50x50 mm. Gear Shift is 60x60x60 mm.

Oskar

That's great Oskar. I really love the look of it.

That is amazing, Oskar!
I was really impressed by the added twist of pulling the gears apart.
Another one for Meffert's?

Wow, I really hope that Meffert's produces this. I know that Meffert's has produced several gear puzzles but I'd love this and sadly cannot afford the Shapeways price.

Alex

I agree. Please talk to Meffert's about this. I would love to see more of your puzzles being mass produced, such as the Redi Cube, Fadi Cube and Jumblix.

Wow, i've always liked Nakamura's gear cube sculpture and this is just that little bit more amazing.

I'd say this is definitely one of your most appealing puzzles and i find it much more interesting than the gear cube. I also feel Meffert's should try to make it as i think they would sell really well.

I was also wondering if it can be in a cubical shape and have scrambled colours, or in other words are the stickers necessary or do they add nothing to the difficulty? If the latter a stainless steel version would be amazing.

Tell Uwe! Gear Shift can be made cubic in three ways, only one of which has matching sticker colors. The stickers actually reduce the difficulty, as they help you keeping track of the faces.

Oskar

You can't tell from the video, but this one is a very fun and interesting solving experience as well.

Wow! This is a brilliant new type of movement! Awesome work!

Very interesting idea; having the cube be somewhat pulled apart to be turned is very interesting indeed. Great job Oskar!

Indeed, that is true for certain puzzles. There is a fine line between the "merging difficulty" of
a physical puzzle and a matching puzzle. For the shape-changing and pattern-changing designs,
using more colors makes the puzzle easier, in contrast to the fully symmetric ones which need
to be as colored as possible.

Yet another great puzzle, for which I agree, it would be very pleasing to play with!




Pantazis

Very interesting "turning" mech. It's cool how it can expand on 3 different axes. You must have something to prevent it expanding on more than 1 at a time right?

That would make it really easy. Say you had one piece turned the incorrect way, you just pull it out on all three axes and turn that corner.

Correct.

...

So who wants to shell out the $ 604.83(€ 440.65) ( Excl Vat ) for the gold plated glossy?

Amazing work as always Oskar.

Is it correct that the pieces can only change orientation, and not position? I think this would be a quite difficult puzzle to solve.
I too am looking forward to seeing this next sunday.

Looks like it... I was wondering how hard it would be to add a 2x2x2 type rotation to this. Pull opposite faces apart and then rotate one 180 degrees relative to the other. 90 degree rotations I don't think would be doable unless all the gears could be made identical and I doubt that is possible... but this is Oskar we are talking about here so you never know.

Carl

Nice puzzle. but personally I cant wait to see the Gear Octahedron

Would a higher order version of this be possible? I'd love to one that looked a bit like a 3x3x3. That would be fun. And PLEASE contact Uwe about mass producing this. I'd love to own one.

It goes without saying that this is another amazing Oskar/Bram design.


But I'd much prefer the gear octahedron over this puzzle for mass production.
By the way Oskar, where can I pick up a Dual Rings puzzle?

I must say, until I watched the video, I wasn't overly excited about it (I was still excited but not super excited). Once I saw the video, I was more than impressed. Really quite cool and special, I'd love to have one.

Could you post a picture of one of these other cubic states?

Thanks,
Carl

Not now, as my Gear Shift is still scrambled. But I can describe it to you. You can reach the three different cubic states without pulling the puzzle apart in halves.

If you start from a cubic states, and you turn the eight-gears five full turns (5x360=1800 degrees) while turning the five-gears eight full turns (8x360=2880 degrees), then you return to to the original cubic state. However, at one-third of those turns you reach another non-sticker-solved cubic state, having turned the eight gears by 5x360/3=600 degrees (mod 360=240 degrees), and the five-gears by 8x360/3=960 degrees (mod 360=240 degrees).

So turning from one of the cubic states to the other two is a rather trivial activity. Just keep turning all gears together.

Oskar

Ditto!

This is my FAVORITE puzzle by Oskar! I emailed Uwe to tell him that this piece would complete his gear cube line up and that it should be mass produced for all. lol.

If enough people email Uwe at: Uwe@JadeClub.org

I bet he will mass produce it

Chris

Wonderful puzzle Oskar! very interesting to see that the only thing you have to do to solve the puzzle is orient the parts, not solve their position! Just another unique concept implemented in a clever way.

I have loved this puzzle ever since I discovered it on Shapeways. Even though in my opinion it would be easy, it is a must buy for my growing collection

I think it is easy becuase the pictures show one piece can be rotated while all others are solved. This means each piece could be solved on its own using a single long algorithm.

I wouldn't say that's true at all. Due to the number of cogs (I'm guessing that's what they're called.) being different of some pieces, you could make one piece do a whole 360 rotation, whilst the other pieces are scrambled.

If you look there are 4 types of one gear and 4 of the other. So it may be possible.

Magnifico!

UAU!!! MEFFERTS need to mass produce this one!!!
Fantastic job!

Wow, this has got to be the coolest gear type cube yet. Outstanding!

I just ordered one!

Me too! I cant wait to get it. I bet Uwe will mass produce this though lol. Thats just my luck.


Chris

I'm very happy and more than a little bit surprised with how well this came out. The general intuitive concepts behind the motion were knocking around in my head for years, and it didn't seem like I'd ever come up with something based on them which was worthwhile. After I figured out the eight gears concept, Oskar figured out the mechanism (I had some other clever mechanisms figured out, but none anywhere near as good as this) and also how to size and orient the gears (which I still don't really understand!) I *might* have suggested the cube shape, I don't really remember.

Much congratulations and thanks to Oskar! This puzzle has gotten some of the best reception of any puzzle I've been involved in.

Oskar-Bram yor Genius!!!

Love the pull apart motion
Also think it's really cool that you only have to solve for orientation

It seems that a reasonable solution would be to solve for cubic shape, and then keep twisting all eight gears for the win.

If this puzzle, does get mass produced by Meffert's, nobody would be able to tell from just one picture how it works
That's why I think Meffert's should to a demonstration video for many of their puzzles