i'll get some more pictures up once i clean it up and sticker it. i was just too excited to wait. tell me what you think.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SquareAntiprism.html









i was surprised to not find much on antiprisms on the forum. just 4 or 5 threads. i got the idea while admiring tony's skewb icosahedron. if you remove the tops and bottoms from an icosahedron, you get a pentagonal antiprism. only problem is, the skewb placement in the picture would draw ugly cuts across the shape. im stumped as to how tony oriented his, lol.

very nice. i too is impatient. but now that it's summer, i plan on making a lot of mods.... =)

the design is very nice. great work. a couple questions: where'd you get the plastic sheets? are those from other cubes? and are u gonna make your own stickers or call in the pros... amba,adam

Nice job on the square antiprism, I was tossing around that idea not too long ago, and instead took on the pentagon instead.

I've finished about half of the pentagonal antiprism now, and will have it done in a few days. Man, you gotta be quick around here!

Alignment has been a royal pain in the ass, and has led to a longer build than I had planned. No problem though, it's been a learning experience! Anyway, a run of 6 of these puzzles with a skewb mechanism--a puzzle I have dubbed "Hildegaard"--instead of the 3x3 will be up for sale in the next few weeks.

(Not to hijack your thread, just wanted to put my 2 cents in as it was so applicable!)

looks pretty cool. I actually think that the 2x2x2 ended up making nicer looking cuts on that particular shape than a 3x3x3 would have.

That is pretty cool. I was hoping that you'd align the 2x2x2 mechanism so all the pieces were the same shape, but this works very nicely as well. Great idea!

What a great idea p|astic!
I wish I had thought of it first!
Please post pictures of it finished and stickered!
Vadim
P.S. I love your project, the.drizzle, too!
It just shows how many unexplored twisty shapes there are!
Vadim

oddly enough, i had a strange feeling some one else out there had a similar idea. yay for healthy competition.

im a little iffy on the stickering. i've stickered my own puzzles in the past, but never one with so many sides. i only have 6 colors, but there are ten sides. should i go out and get some more colors or do you think it's possible to double the colors somewhere?

i got the plastic sheet from http://www.mcmaster.com

There are 8 trianglular faces, so you could make opposite pairs of those have the same color. Then two different colors on the top and bottom gives 6 colors total.

i can't double the colors because opposite faces are both upward facing triangles. i'll just have to wait until monday.

Wow, that texture looks machine produced!

Very well done, now hurry and sticker it!

Hi

Why are 90% of mods today shape-shifting puzzles and quite enormous in size? I'm a fan of non-shape-shifting puzzles primarily. They're more appealing to me

-Per

Is that another version? Or the same puzzle? Because, it looks reallly nice!

Like pembo said, can't waitt to see it stickered!

i think the problem is that most polyhedrda don't have many ways to cut them that yeild interesting non-shape changing puzzles, especially when you imbed one mechanism inside a different shape.

but by the way, how does the opposite faces being both up-facing make you unable to make them the same colors? does it make the puzzle trivial or have parity problems or something?

either way, I agree, the finish looks GREAT.

Great mod!

Unfortunately, I dislike how you can "look into" the original mechanism. Maybe more plastic sheet can hide this?

im surprised by this comment. enormity is relative. i always felt puzzles were too small. im quite larger than the average person. perhaps im compensating for everything in my life that is too small. the prison cell that is my school desk / car seat / handheld anything. this maybe why i built and adore tony's mental block.

here it is stickered.

what did you do to get that texture?
I've been playing around with plastic sheet, but I haven't been able to get anything looking that good.

http://doitbest.com/Main.aspx?PageID=64&SKU=777382

something along these lines that i got at my local home depot.

thanks for the compliments / criticism, everyone. i was sick of ending up with trashy mods, so i took my time with this one. i just wish rick were still here to see it.

I agree: this finish is absolutely brilliant.
I think only few people on this forum can achieve this!
That does not include me!
Vadim

im flattered! i still envy your work however, vadim.

Well. to me it's different. I was always a fan of shape shifting puzzles, because for me that is a kind of extra-spice to a puzzle and allows a reduction of colours instead. Tony's GC is the most confusing representative of this category (for me).

The current 2x2x2 antiprism can of course be solved in the same way as any 2x2x2 or any 2x2x2 Comic Head cube, but the high quality and the geometric base shape of this puzzle are what it makes it remarkable.

- Frank -

Hi

I guess it's the speedpuzzler in me who likes to not be disturbed by shape shifting effects I haven't even bought a square-1, simply for the reason i dont like the changes shapes. It's just my subjective opinion anyway. I used to like the snake in the 80s. Though that's an entirely different puzzle of course. The 3x3x3 barrel is not appealing to me. It looks ugly scrambled

-Per

does this puzzle have a name?

for sale for those interested.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0146817980

PLASTIC IM HERE.... i need this one. i might give it a go. very very nice job can you give me the dimensions of the plastic sheet you used

RIIIIICK! glad to see you're still monitoring the site every now and then.

it's a 1/16th x 12 x 24 inch sheet of abs from http://www.mcmaster.com

Congratulations on a very nice puzzle!

Some years ago, Jürgen Brandt also proposed a kind of Square Antiprism puzzle made from a 333 cube.
The sketch he made (as copied below) is also in the article section.

At the time, Jürgen was only planning to make such a puzzle.
I do not know whether he actually ever made one.
However, it appears that using some filler material and truncating the parts, this would be an interesting project as well for a puzzle.

Geert

I think, he didn't, but I did... after I saw Jürgens sketch.
Strangely the Half Truncated Cube is more popular than this thing, despite the difficulty in building is the same.

Nice job Andreas; it looks very fine.
I am glad that the puzzle indeed has been made.
Thanks for sharing this.

Geert

aha. from the looks of it, the puzzle doesn't have a horizonatal line of symmetry. the square on top is smaller than the square on bottom. it would be much more difficult to build one with equal tops and bottoms. (such is the shape of my puzzle) all pieces would have to be modified.