Hey Twisty Puzzlers!

I'd like to present my newest puzzle:

The Face-Turning Deltoidal Icositetrahedron

Recently, I've been browsing wikipedia's pages about polyhedra, looking for ideas for puzzles. When I saw this shape, I felt it just had to be made into a Face-Turning puzzle.

Each face of the FTDI is a kite, which has two short edges, and two long edges. Due to the different edge lengths, the only turns available are jumbling moves. I will figure out the angles next time I'm in SolidWorks, and post them here. There are multiple points throughout the turn that open up jumbling moves, and sometimes, you can even do more than one jumbling move at once!

Now, there's a little bit of bad news:
1. The puzzle is really small! ("It's not the size, that counts! It's how you solve it!") The distance between opposite parallel faces is ~60mm. Check out the size comparison photos below!
2. Due to the small size of the puzzle, it is kind of hard to turn. The fillets couldn't be very big because the mechanism couldn't take it. This makes the puzzle lock up quite a bit.

The good news is that I will be making a version 2! It will be bigger, and have larger fillets. I will probably sell that version.

As usual, the puzzle was designed by me (Eitan) in SolidWorks, printed in white strong and flexible from Shapeways, dyed with Rit dye, and stickered with cubesmith vinyl cut on my university's laser cutter.

Here is the VIDEO!
Enjoy the pictures!








Enjoy!

-π (Eitan)

WOOHOOWOWWW!!!

Incredibly EPIC!!!

I love it so muchh!!!!

- Greg

You are an amazing architect. The puzzle is beautiful!

Chris

You are bringing the craziest puzzles these days! WOW!

Amazing! The constant jumbling must make it a little difficult to scramble.

This can't be real.

Alex

Oh, but it is!

I just updated the first post with more information and some size comparison photos. I'll make a video sometime this weekend.

-π (Eitan)

Excellent. I've used this shape a couple of times but nothing remotely as good as this.

It BIG Puzzle!!!

Eitan,

Great puzzle, quite unexpected. It jumbles, of course. But can you move any piece to any position, or does this puzzle have some inherent limitations?

Oskar

I'm not sure. I don't think there are any limitations, but we'll have to leave that up to people like Allagem and wwwmwww.

Thanks!

-π (Eitan)

Don't look at me. I don't have a clue how to go about answering that question. Great looking puzzle though.

Carl

Yes, nobody will scramble it because it's so awesome.

Alex

This is really amazing.

I hope to see more puzzles of this kind in the future.

-Sharon-

If (R U' F U R' F') can be done, any piece can be moved to any position, I think.

Before I tried it, my question would have been "What angle constitutes an R turn?". After trying it, I found that it doesn't matter how much you turn it. This move isn't possible.

Here's a picture after doing (R U') on the puzzle. Now it's impossible to turn F. This is due to the bandaging that is inherent in a jumbling puzzle.

Thanks for the info! I'd be interested to hear how this limits the solution space.

-π (Eitan)

I think doing (D L' D' L) will change 3 corners ( 2-->5-->4-->2) with teeth. This will almost bring any corner and tooth to any position.
Doing (F L' F' L) will change 3 edges (y-->x-->w-->y).
I can not figure out how to bring edges(wxyz) to other face.
Perhaps this is the limitation.

I think that to do this, you need to do jumbling moves that change the shape of the puzzle. After I make the video, I'll scramble it (perhaps I'll include the scramble in the video).

-pi (Eitan)

sweet...
keep it up!

Wonderful example of jumbling! I must imagine it would be extremely difficult to solve...
If this is shape-modded into a Rhombic dodecahedron, wouldn't it be edge-turning?
Also, are all the square corners the same, or are they internally different??

Holy ****! That's incredible! Well done. I'd love to play around with one of these.

No. This shape is the dual of the Rhombicuboctahedron. I'm not sure how much potential that shape has for a puzzle, but we'll see.


All of the square corners are identical. The puzzle was cut from a cube shape originally, and I used the geometry of a Rhombicuboctahedron to get it exactly right. If the cuts had been skewed a little bit, then it would end up with some corners being square, and others being rectangular. Good question!

-pi (Eitan)

Shape-modding this into a cube would be really cool...

Amazing puzzle!! cough cough** put on shapeways ** cough cough

isn't this a shape mod of the Dinobram?

I think you're confusing edge-turning with corner turning. This would be an edge-turning rhombic dodecahedron if modded into that shape.

Wow! You have no idea how many revelations I've had in the last few hours. This was the first time that I was able to look at the DinoBram and really understand what it was. Yes, it is a shape-mod of the DinoBram, though I didn't know it until now. Also, I just understood that it is indeed a shape-mod of an edge-turning rhombic dodecahedron, which I thought was impossible. You have no idea how many new puzzle ideas this thread has put into my head.

Thanks everyone!

-π (Eitan)

From what I've read on the geometry of this puzzle, I'd love to see it in a cubic shape. That would be so cool!

VIDEO!

Watch the whole thing, as I make an announcement that I think a lot of you will like! It has to do with Shapeways!

Enjoy!

-π (Eitan)

Very nice. I'm going to have to get together some cash if that's the case. It looks even cooler on video.

Wow... how did I miss this thread of such an extraordinary design???

I have only one more word to say... wait, it's not even a word, it's a... letter!

Δ




Pantazis

Great puzzle. The turning looks great for being so small. Have you scrambled/solved it yet?

Once again, this really is a great puzzle

This is more then just a shape-mod... isn't it? The DinoBram appears to have 5 surface pieces that turn per corner of the Rhombicuboctahedron. This puzzle has 18 pieces that turn per face of the Deltoidal Icositetrahedron. I think 5 of those pieces correspond to the pieces on the DinoBram but the other 13 pieces are new... aren't they?

I think this is akin to calling an edge-only void cube a shape-mod of a 3x3x3. The DinoBram is missing the face centers and the pieces around the corners.

Carl

P.S. Actually the term "shape-mod" can lead to other issues with jumbling puzzles? To me "shape-mod" means the same puzzle, just in a different shape. However a helicopter cube and a helicopter sphere with the same mech and the same pieces are DIFFERENT puzzles. There are moves blocked on the helicopter cube due to overhang bandaging that aren't blocked on a helicopter sphere. So is it even accurate to call the helicopter sphere a "shape-mod" of a helicopter cube? It is... but its also more... not sure how to address that.

Fantastic. Very, very, nice.

Hello,

I'd like to share an analysis that I made about this puzzle, and hope someone could help me to complete the information.
The faces are kites and, when twisted, some sides and corners get aligned and others not. You can see the attached picture.
I made this analysis to the Rhombic Dodecahedron too (= Helicopter Cube mechanism) to compare them.

Rhombic Dodecahedron:
- On situation 1 and 3, the sides "a" and "b" get aligned but displaced, so it can jumble.
- On the situation 2, it's a half-turn, so all the sides and corners get aligned, enabling only normal moves.
So, there are only jumbling moves on positions 1 and 3, and only normal moves on position 2.

Deltoidal Icositetrahedron:
- On situation 1 and 6, just the side "a" get aligned but displaced, so it enables a Jumbling move.
- On situation 2 and 5, the side "c" is perfectly aligned, so a normal move is possible (correct me if I'm wrong), but sides "a" and "e" are aligned but displaced, enabling Jumbling moves. The corners "b" and "d" can move too, but I think it's not a jumbling move.
- On situation 3 and 4, the sides "a" and "c" are aligned but displaced, enabling Jumbling moves, and corner "b" can move too (same case of before: jumbling or not?).
So, there are jumbling and normal moves in the same position (2 and 5).

Fantastic, Eitan!

You are really one of the most creative puzzle builders in 2010.

Cheers - Frank -