I found a UK website with this twisty puzzles

Anyone know more about them? looks good

http://www.mouldinginnovations.com/

http://www.dioctipoid.com/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jvR7uETAT0

Hm. It looks like nothing but a spherical rex cube to me. I haven't heard anything about this before.
Good find.

Quite. Nevertheless, it should make it easier to solve then, so there might be a chance of winning the competition.

Niiiiice!!! It remembers me in some way the marusenko's balls.

I like them a lot!

Just bought both

Will let you know more when i get them!

By the way - in order to get some feedback and spread the word they are currently being sold at a discount on a well known auction site in their country of manufacture!

can't decide which I like more, its logo (try reading it upside down (; ) or the puzzle itself.

Yeah it's look's like that, but hmm...

Funny how we look at it and say, "oh, it's a spherical version of this cubical puzzle", when it has octahedral geometry! I can't look at a Rex Cube without seeing a shapemodded FTO.

Yes, you're right. Saying it's an FTO is more straightforward. I guess I saw the Rex cube first, just because of the fact that it has curvy cuts and even though the ball has planar cuts, they look bent when you look at it. These "flours" on the faces of the rex cube look just the same.

They don't ship these to the US. Is there anyone in the UK or Europe be willing to buy one of these and then ship it to me? I'd pay the puzzle cost and shipping expenses of course. These look really nice.

I am more than willing to buy puzzles for people and ship them to wherever they need to go.

Conditions:
1. Payment is in advance - as soon as i know the total (total = puzzle + shipping to me + shipping to you)
2. I will only send the puzzle to you by registered post - you can check here for an idea of prices: http://postage.anpost.ie/ i will only be charging what it costs me, i do not want to make anything from helping you out.
3. If this becomes extremely popular (more than 20 people) i probably will start charging something for my time/effort

Other people may be able to provide you with better postage options as i know postage from Ireland can be quite expensive.

If you don't trust me to send your puzzle then simply don't ask me.

PM me if you are interested

PS this will only be possible for about 3 weeks as i have something starting after that that will keep me busy.

Edited to add: Please let me know if you want version 1.0, 2.0 or both in your pm and also where i need to ship to so i can accurately calculate postage.

Reminds of the ball Tony Fisher made from a FTO.

Good point.
I would say it is exactly like Tony octaball. The cuts are planar, not spherical like they have to be when the puzzle is made from a FTO instead of Rex Cube.
Tony's two cents?

This is a difficult one. To me the important factor would be if it was actually copied from mine. My feeling is that it isn't but we'll probably never know. To make life easy I won't object to this or any other Octaball.

I'm going to have to discontinue my offer to get these puzzles for people outside Europe. I have ordered 10 puzzles for people but it has been very time consuming. As i am in the middle of moving house it is not an ideal time for me to be taking on something like this!

So congratulations to the lucky early orderers, i hope the order is delivered soon and to anyone else looking for one i hope someone else can help you out. (oh and if you are thinking of helping out, don't forget to factor in the paypal fee for receiving payments - doh! )

Sorry about the double post - my unboxing video for these puzzles is finally uploaded if you want to check it out. And yes i know, if you hold the knife the other way around it is probably easier to cut with!

Very nice puzzles indeed! I can't wait to get mine!

Thanks Kevin!

good news

now with paypal payment and new website

I order both now ¡¡¡¡

I've just received my Dioctipoids, and the mechanism is quite novel:





The outer coloured pieces just clip into the inner white parts. As you take off more of the outer pieces, the inner ones separate easily and you realise that they are not connected to a "core" or "spider", just floating on the smooth inner sphere. Has anyone seen anything like this before?

wow- that's amazing. reminds me of the Pentultimate mechanism, only on a puzzle that requires many fewer layers...

does the puzzle turn well? any lockups? it looks like it would be very sensitive to alignment, but I very well may be wrong.

This is a lot like the Void Cube mechanism... It is used in a lot of puzzles and is especially useful in deepish cut puzzles because you can skip the shells buildup (but rotation is worse). Something like this plus a clever trick for alignment was used in Jason's second Pentultimate.

Wow, I might buy this puzzle now- if only to see the mechanism

Seriously though- could this sort of mechanism be used for any other deep-cut puzzles? As I understand it, there are various rails around the turning axises (sp?), and each piece kinda locks into the adjacent pieces. The colored clip ons then reduce the overall tolerances, and make the puzzle keep together. Maybe with this mech, a better turning 48 cube could be designed (no offense intended puzzlemaster6262)

The puzzle turns quite smooth, although it feels "loose", and sort of clicks into place when it is correctly aligned. It does not lock-up at all.

Hi all, I have been following this thread with obvious interest!
I have to say, all this surprised us somewhat to see our Dioctipoid on here, and I am glad to be on here to post as well! Great to see the comments you all have put.
Since seeing this forum I have been amazed how many variations there are around, and hope Dioctipoid will be talked about as much one day.
Anyone got any questions, feel free to ask
Thanks

DIOCTIPOID

I just received my Dioctipoid puzzles and they both look very nice. Looking forward to giving them a little more attention tonight when I have some free time.

They also arrived rather promptly after the postage was confirmed.

Thanks

Great Ryan, I would be pleased (as I am sure others will!) to hear what you think after more attention!

I got mines

An interesting challenge ¡¡¡ Recommended puzzles

I made the movie about "Dioctipoid". "Rex Cube" changes to "Dioctipoid" in this movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJDeu5iDmQw&NR=1

To make sure:
This is more video about "Rex Cube" transformed into Octaball. The Octaball uses the mechnisms of the Rex Cube. The Dioctipoid uses a completely different mechanism.
Sorry if these has been obvious to everybody.

Hmmmm...could this mech be used for more complicated puzzles that would otherwise be difficult to design? Like the little chop for example.

This mechanism is an easy shortcut to making "master" puzzles like the Master Pentultimate or what would be a "Master" Big Chop (which would still be very impractical due to the sheer tinyness of the pieces). However it usually does not result in good rotation (think Void Cube) as you would get with a normal shells mech. For making true deep cut puzzles it's useless on its own as it does not present an easy way to bandage the inner layer (any shells mech puzzle can be easily bandaged). Jason used this mechanism combined with a very clever trick to achieve alignment in his second Pentultimate.

I like this puzzle! But I only like black plastic - do you think its possible to make a run in black plastic?

Hi Sigurd,

The answer is "yes, it is possible", however there a lot of things to consider as we have a factory set-up to produce the versions you can see.

May I ask what you would want to do with a black plastic one?

thanks

Is it possible to send Dioctipoid-puzzle to Kazakhstan?

Many puzzle enthusiasts prefer black plastic with stickers rather than colored plastic.

Me too.
I prefer black plastic than colored plastic.

I agree with the uniform color crowd. Stickered puzzles look better with the rest of my collection for one thing. However, I think the main reason I prefer stickers is that other people instantly see the puzzle and think of the Rubik's cube, while tiled puzzles seem to look more like a children's toy.

I like black plastic with stickers.
However, it is more important to ship to Japan. I am kept waiting and am very pain.

There have been many comments on preferred puzzle colors over the years, here is one that shows 68% of us prefer black, but is a small sample size.

Most any time a new puzzle comes out with molded colors the first request is for black.

Call us sentimental, but I think Mr. Rubik got it right

Dave