I do not know if others have seen Katsuhiko Okamoto’s new cube. He has a new masterpiece. It is posted on his website.
http://puzzle3d.hp.infoseek.co.jp/voidcube.html

It is pretty wild. I have to think about how the mechanism works. Only way I can see is to use the internal rails slots that others have discussed. Others thoughts?

WOW.

besides rail, i suppose magnets could work

Now that is a *real* keychain cube!!!!
Brilliant design!




Pantazis

I have no clue how that could be held together besides with magnets.

Thats crazy, it has to be magnets locked in somehow! *shrugs* I don't really care for the mechanism, its looks cool!

Wow! This is absolutely amazing! Very beautiful.

...

After studying the pictures for a while, I think I know how this one works. But I probably don't

Thomas

Brilliant!

Amazing! Wish I had one of those...

Katsuhiko doesn't use magnets, that would be too easy. He is a skilled machinist and cuts each piece from solid plastic.

There are some visual clues as to how it works, but the details are harder to guess. I have never seen one of his puzzles disassembled, so I don't know his design style.


Also, I like the way he posts the puzzle on his website and lets some one else "find" it and post it here. (even though he is a member and I saw that he was online today...)

Cage method would be useful here

Looking at it, I can only think of slots as Lee said.

Maybe Geogres will be able to confirm, when his arrives

This looks very cool. Something I would be interesting in learning more about... it probably uses a rail... and magnets.

Fantastic!
The whole new dimension: centerless cubes!
Vadim

Gives new meaning to a black hole cube.

Very nice. Can you show a video of it in action? I am sure the creator will be posting soon.

cage works on normal 3x3x3 too

-Per

It's called a joke Per

I found link that reminds me of this cube.

viewtopic.php?t=6187&highlight=

This cube would be possibly harder to solve due to the lack of center colors.

A parity is possible! I occasinaly take the center caps of my DIY and solve it, but I havn't found a quick way to fix the parity.

Me too, especially when i'm adjusting the tension.

It's beautiful. (As always!)

My question is this: when you turn a middle layer, how do you make sure that the four pieces move as a unit and not individually?

The pictures seem to indicate that the middle layers do turn as a unit, which would eliminate magnets. It could be done similarly to the groove system though.

Not really.

do you know of a way to define the center colors? I have been shocked before when i don't have the caps on to run into the parody.

Parody? is that a joke Parity?

What's the parity? Must be 2 edges that need to swapped right?

I think that Katsuhiko Okamoto indeed made this cube similar to the design that wwwmwww proposed (see viewtopic.php?p=47425#47425).

I guess the four pieces move as a unit because, while there are a few pieces missing, there is something in the tracks there. Am I making sense?

Thomas

Wow, this is amazing.

The parity would exist because you could get the wrong color scheme when you are solving it, resulting in a parity.

I don't think that would be a problem. It's just like solving with no center piece stickers. The way that the stickers are arranged will allow you to know which piece goes where.

like this...

edit: oh god, sorry i uploaded the original file, let me resize that...

That is an impressive piece of machining and design.

Very impressive as always.

And yes, it would be made with a groove/rail system that uses the inner edges of cubes with interlocking rails machined in such a way that you can't otherwise see the pieces moving. Very clever but not something I'd recommend for someone without a machine shop behind them.

Why couldn't it be an ingenous variant on the conventional 6-armed spider?

It would be easiest to understand using a Mefferts assembly cube spider because it has no screws and no moving parts. You could take the center caps off and drill a small axial hole through the spider to the other side. Obviously these would be tiny holes, so it's obviously not Okamoto's solution yet, but you could certainly look through each hole to the other side of the cube.

Now imagine you could somehow expand the core, holes and all, until the openings were large and the spider was concealed (overlapped) under the cubie faces.

It wouldn't be easy and might not have anything to do with Okamoto's method, but I've verified the geometry is schematically feasible. But that just means there is adequate volume and area in the outer slices to hold such a hollow-core spider and both inner and outer grooves for the feet to slide in. A genuis would still have to figure out how to do it!

So what's my point? I just don't want to rule out a spider-like mechanism unless Okamoto denies it or other evidence rules it out.

The rail mechanism is truly genius, I think my shop teacher could make it, he is crazy good. (he used to help design rollar coaters for univeral studios!)

Thats why I would really like to buy one!!

Please add "edit2: oh god, sorry i uploaded the huge png file, let me change that to the much smaller jpg...". Should be about 14KB, not 300.

Incredible mechanism... If only Mr. Okamoto's creations could be mass-produced...

I guess that the same idea could also be applied to megaminx?

Frankly, I don't believe it was made with a groove/rails mechanism. That's looks too complicated even for someone with a machine shop. I'd rather think that the cube has a hollow six-armed spider as it's been mentioned in this thread already. I also think that's how it's made considering the tendency of Mr.Okamoto to use miniature cores and build them up.

Anybody have pictures of an assembly cube spider?

Very nice

Nice?



Very nice?


It's bloody amazing!

Thomas

I concur. Quite mind blowingly impressive for using a standard rubik's cube design. This is what makes it so great. Much like a bump cube. This cube takes a well recognized iconic puzzle idea and gives it immortal status.

It is unbelievable. I can't give enough credit to Katsuhiko.
It's just that sometimes I'm going bonkers

Of course I know you do Georges. After all, you own some of his puzzles.

Thomas

Once again, great work. I immediately thought of this thread when I saw the puzzle: http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3836. From the photos it looks like Okamoto used a design very similar to this to make his void cube.

-Bill

The two circular lines visible on the inside surface of each edge cubie, are those rails (so the part between them belongs to the edge cubie) or is there a ring (like a flat donut) on the bottom of each outer layer (so the part does not belong to the edge cubie which just slides on it)?

Here are pictures of two assembly cubes.

The first shows the one-piece spider (clear pink plastic) exposed within a partly disassembled cube. The top arm is broken. The arm at right shows how the spider pokes through a center cubie. The one at left has a cap installed to hide the spider (notice the distinctive "keyhole" for disassembly).

The second picture is an intact disassembly cube. I took two center caps off and shined a light through the spider. I don't know if it proves anything, but it's a dramatic effect!

Hi :)

What is the problem with middle slice turns? It's just 2 outer slice turns and a cube rotation. I don't see the problem.

The parity is trivial to fix. Do any middle slice turn M, E or S and then do an edge 3-cycle on that layer. Voila >> edge swap on that layer!!

I would like a super-version of this hollow cube

-Per