I finally feel comfortable enough with my new puzzle to show it. Here is my new puzzle the Holey Megaminx. I had wondered if I could extend the wonderful work of Katsuhiko Okamoto' Void cube to the megaminx. As I have never seen the working's of his cube I had to come up with my own mechanism (which may be the same as his). I am not a master machinist like him, so I had I did it through rapidprototyping and mold copying.

Anyway I have made two and am still not completely happy with them. The first is stickered and the second is tiled. The first is a little tight and the second a little loose. The spider can not be adjusted because there is no spider! This means the pieces have to be very accurate. Assembly is tricky also. They are exactly the same size as a regular megaminx allowing me to use stickers and tiles made for the megaminx. One trick I discovered that works well and my number two may be the first puzzle incorporating this. The corner pieces have small necks internally. Alumilite (which is the plastic used) is somewhat brittle when thin. There was a tendency to break this corner piece. To curtail this a small carbon rod fiber was inserted which alleviates any tendency to breakoff!

There are only three unique pieces. The hole through is fun to look at because the S10 axis ( rotate by360/10 and mirror perpendicular to the axis for the nonchemists) gives the projection of a decagon.

This was by far my most difficult Build! But even with though it does not turn perfectly yet, it still works!!!

Lee

I correctly interpreted the title and still wasn't quite ready for the full reality of the pictures. Simply stunning.

WOW! This is one of the msot impressive things ive seen in a long while. Just WOW!

What are the other two? Looks like a cool mod that you have there.

Whoa. I don't believe it. That's AMAZING... I didn't think it was real at first, but now I can see... it's just beautiful :O

By the way, I am pretty sure there is no parity on this one, because everything is 5 cycles Have you solved it yet?

very impressive. does it create any parity problems? if it did, that would be one mean algorithm, but from my experience with megaminx patterns I dont think that the void-cube parity would be an issue if you start from a single corner and expand out

Truely great!

Corner, edge, and internal piece. Not a mod, a complete build.

qqwref: I have not solved as I am more a builder than a solver. I have solved the megaminx but am very slow at it.

Lee

incredible

Oooh centre permutation parity!

Incredible work Lee! Can we ask how much the printing and moulding set you back?

Absolutely amazing how much did the entire project cost you ( if you don't mind me asking)

My God! This puzzle is truly astonishing! Yet another great puzzle from Mr. Lee T.

Right click the picture, "Open With", "Choose Program", Find photoshop, tick the button that says "Always use selected program..." and it should open with photoshop from now on.

I don't believe it... That's simply incredible. There's my vote for puzzle of the year 2008 right there (most likely)

Lee, that is very impressive.
Both Batman and Robin are proud of you!




Pantazis

Considering the fact that I thought of the Void Cube as the greatest custom puzzle ever... I now believe that this is the most fantastic custom puzzle made to date. Fantastic work.

,,,speechless. Lee, you are a master.

wow NICELY DONE! congrats on the creation. Let's hope for a void dogic now :p

Outstanding.

If possible, I'd like to see a void Halpern-Meier Pyramid next.

Thomas

Holey Minx!
Wow!
Absolutely wow!
Vadim

As is Superman and the Justice League!

Astounding

What?!?!?!?! This is ridiculous. I'd love to see detailed drawings or pictures of the mechanism. What a fantastic build. I love void puzzles.

would it be possible to make a void 5x5?

Amazing!
Void Gigaminx anyone?

Void 4x4 first please.

First reaction:

That has to be a fake. Cleverly done, yes, but fake.

Second reaction:

The photos are just too convincing.

Third reaction:

Absolutely stunned.

I can say no more.

That is what i was thinking. Any way very nice job. At first it did look fake, but then i was amazed great job.

I was also wondering if you'd post a video soon or later, that'd blow me away

I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't.. if you think about it.. how would the middle slice rotate?

Do you think a 5x5 void cube would be like a 4x4 void cube with only the outer edges or just no centers, or their could be two kinds or 5x5 void cubes.

It might be possible to make one with just the center tiles missing. I was thinking of one with only corners and edges.

I think it's entirely possible, the middle slice would work just like the middle slice of the Void Cube because it's an odd N order puzzle... i think

I'm calling a fake. something is wrong with the first picture. I caught the error on the first picture at first glance. I'll give you that the others look more believable, but i don't have time to download them and zoom in to discover those problems.

one photo draws line as they would need to be. the other photo continues the edges of the pen.

The brightness doesn't match first either.

I don't think so, but I'm sure Lee T can clarify.

It seems to me that there is a light source behind the puzzle (or shining onto that region), which is illuminating the pen brightly. The dark "object" you can see through the hole (you've drawn lines either side of it in the second photo) is probably the shadow of the pen.

Amazing.

If that is a shadow, then why do we see the inner edge of the megaminx glowing bright. I would expect to see a shadow along that inner edge. Although account for that as a shadow does make me doubt me first call, but it still smells fake to me. The lights and the angles just don't seem to match. Gotta see a video to believe.

I admit, I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw it, but if you look at Lee's earlier work, I'm sure he doesn't need to fake anything.



Thomas

Read the file comment, it says it's the pen under glass, under the puzzle.

Correct. It is not a fake. The reason the first looks a little funny is the puzzle is sitting on a sheet of glass elevated over the pen. The spot of light is directed at the pen under the glass while the flash lights it from the top. The glass gave more reflection than I would have liked to the flash.

For the ones who asked how much it cost to make it. In parts and materials less than 75$. In time, I do not want to think about that. I have been working on it off and on for 6 months I am still tweaking and adding internal ball bearing stops to try to align turns better.
Lee

Please make a video! This thing is incredible.

Calling shenanigans on this one seems rather odd. The concept of a void puzzle has already been demonstrated. The megaminx is very similar to a rubik's cube, especially in the way that the void cube puzzle can be extended to a 12 sided puzzle.

Granted the puzzle he is a departure from his previous body of work (the majority of which are custom angle designs of essentially the same thing, the rubik's cube), but given that most of his work has been designing internal mechanisms this would be well within his lofty skills as a puzzle maker.

Fantastic work, Lee. Need I say more? Nope.

I think it's real, but it would take nothing more than a 30 second video to prove it

If it was April, it would make clearer sense it was a hoax

I wouldn't doubt it's real though - Lee is a great puzzle maker.

But then again so is Tony Fisher and he made us the Great 9x9x9! lol

Either way, it does make the megaminx look pretty cool that way.

This is a wonderful compliment for you Lee! Congrats on completing an amazing, and apparently even unbelievable, project!

Could someone explain this? I'm new here, and I've heard about this, but I can't find anything through the search engine.. only references to it..

Ah, thanks for the links, everything's cleared up for me now

mech pics?

Since it is a void minx, there isn't a mech