I was on Lightake today, and saw that they had a new 2x2x2 in stock. First I thought nothing of it and assumed that it was another ES KO but after looking at the mech pictures I was intrigued. It appears to have a solid 6 armed core with corners that go around it, and no edges! I recall seeing this mech somewhere before- perhaps it was on a patent page? But I can no longer recall exactly where.

Anyone have more info on it, I'd like to find out!
link

I presented this a while back after getting my own at the Toronto Open Winter 2009 competition. The original topic is here.

The K-Ball and K-8 employ that mechanism, as do some globe-cubes and at least one Pyramorphix-type puzzle. I've used derivatives and simplifications of it in my own CAD designs.

It has a few noteworthy features:

• The springs allow the corners to 'click' satisfyingly into place after each turn.
• Each corner piece is anchored independently, so the puzzle is quite stable.
• I you remove the one corner that's anchored to the core, then it becomes a 7-piece moving-hole puzzle instead of an 8-piece 2x2x2. That's how I built an experimental 'pearl' puzzle from a K-Ball last year:

The Star Wars cubes that were used as a promotion in Canadian cereal boxes use this mechanism, it's just.... ....poorly implemented.

I don't know how those are, but I've tried one with this mech. It was baaaaad.

Contrary to your experiences, Kapusta, mine turns quite well.

I too had one with this mech 2 years ago. It turned fine but broke very easily.

I'll bet it wasn't really the same mechanism as the one in Monopoly's post. There have been other mechanisms that look similar but work differently.

A lot of cheap 2x2 puzzles have a similar-looking core, but they are held together by tension and are prone to breaking. The cheap pyramorphix-style puzzle pictured here and [/url=http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=75235#p75235]here[/url] is typical of the other mechanism: the exterior pieces only touch the core where the 'foot' hooks under the curved panels. The pieces are not inherently stable, and each exterior piece depends upon its neighbors to maintain its alignment. If a piece gets unaligned it either breaks or the puzzle falls apart. If one piece is missing the puzzle will not hold together.

The mechanism Monopoly linked to has each exterior piece independently attached to the core, without relying on its neighbors, by squeezing the curved panels from two sides. It's inherently stable and resists breakage because the panels aren't subjected to lateral forces. If any number of pieces are missing the remaining ones stay attached and move smoothly.

I might be completely wrong, but isn't this more or less the mechanism used on the Minimis 2x2x1, applied to a 2x2x2?

Yes! I saw this cube a couple weeks back, and thought that maybe XY was an abbreviation for some other brand. But i didn't see any other links that had anything to do with an XY 2x2, and was left clueless about the cube. To be truthful, it looks pretty bad quality, I doubt it works well. The video definitely turned me away from ordering one, but I'm going to have to sometime in the future, because I hope to have every brand of 2x2.