More than a year ago, I started working on a Pentultimate design. I was actually working on what has been called an icosamate (the icosahedron dual of the pentultimate) until I realized this ground had been covered by others before in the dodecahedron form, including Christopher Pelley, who coined the name "Pentultimate".

I started with a pencil sketch in early 2007, and finished my first Pentultimate tonight, March 19th at around 8 PM.

I now see exactly what everyone is talking about when they say building puzzles is hard work. I'd say this is roughly 10 or 20 times the amount of work I expected. Really fun, but lots of brick walls at every turn. I now really 'get' the prices of custom puzzles. Man, I've got some stories to tell...

Anyway, here are some stats:

The puzzle is fully custom.
It is made up of 760 individual parts.
92 of those are machined (some ABS internals, and Acrylic tiles)
Another 416 of those are hand cast (Urethane) from machined masters, with some hand machining afterwards. Yikes, the memories!!
2 wooden jigs were machined and used for assembly.

The mechanism works, but it tends to hang up. Luckily I know why, and I'll be taking it apart later this week for some sanding and other tuning until I'm happier with the movement. I'll follow up on this post later on with some fun (if you're a puzzle geek) mechanism images and video.

WOOO HOOOO!!!!! IT FINALLY SHOWS IT'S FACE!!!
Congrats

Really amazing! Puzzle of the year?

Thomas

*speechless*


Pantazis

That looks absolutely amazing! Even though it is so close to the start of the year, I can (and I'm sure I speak for others) , say this will be in the top 10(if not top 5) puzzles this year!

I actually gasped when I saw it.

Are you willing to part with it? Because I'm willing to part with most of my collection (and it's sizable too) to be able to own this thing. Seriously, I'd be willing to part with all of my rare puzzles for this thing.

Now that you have made it once, how hard do you think it would be to make other copies (now that you know exactly what you're doing).

What are the tiles made of? They look amazing.

How big is it?

Have you scrambled it yet? I wrote a solution for it already if you need one. It might not be optimal, but it works.

Can we get a video?

Are you planning on revealing the inner workings?

Are you planning on making the Icosamate? Hey! Wait a second. Didn't I coined that term? (Well, Kinda. Icosaimate is close, isn't it?)

Are you planning on contacting any puzzle producer for mass production?

Are you aware I will not be able to fall asleep tonight because of the adrenaline flow that is causing me to grin ear to ear.

Honestly, I think I just piddled a bit.

WOW ......

could you show a video .?..

congratulations

Unbelievable. A thing of great beauty. I can't wait for a video.

Unfortunately I could not start to muster the kind of cash/ rare puzzles for exchange/ building expertise to ever own one of these. Just looking at the pictures will have to suffice.

Congratulation: The best new puzzle I have seen in ages, possible THE best. Period.

Beautiful! Perfect!

This is certainly going to be in the running for Puzzle Of The Year 2008

Great job!

I laughed. It's just that good.

Looks like you beat me to it

Outstanding!!!

For nearly two decades I have wondered if this puzzle would ever be built. I never dreamed that the first working version would look so professional! GREAT JOB!!!

Chris

That's simply amazing. It looks beautiful, and it's amazing that you finally managed to construct a puzzle that has been in people's minds for so many years... It sounds like there are really a huge number of pieces, though (more than a teraminx, in fact, would you be willing to make one of those as your next project?). I'd love to see some pictures of the internals... they must be crazy-looking indeed!

Noah: That's a pretty good offer, you must REALLY want a pentultimate! Isn't it sort of odd that, for someone who wants to play with one so badly, you still haven't solved it on gelatinbrain?

wow
i knew this would have to have an obscene number of parts, especially for only 32 visible parts.
How long until we see the icosahedron one or the evil pentultimate ultimate (probably of a rhombic triacontahedal shape)?
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/RhombicTriacontahedron.html

AMAZING. This is the first real one, no?

And Noah, that's stealing!

Amazing! Frankly, I expected it earlier from another member of this forum. I'd be interested in learning details.

Impressive! Now we *must* have another Berkeley meet up really soon!

Dave

P.S. Welcome back the.drizzle!

I do agree with Noah what he had to say there and all of it. If you only do one of these comments I hope its the last sentence thats in Noah's quote that I posted. Please talk to Mefferts.

Awesome [Censored. Please be nice!] puzzle you have there. Do you take a payment plan because I really have to have this one badly? I'm going to have to take out my first loan for this but I don't mind. How big should it be? I swear it was in Meffert's catalog that Tony Fisher post a while ago but I can't remember or find it. Nice Tiles. I love the tiles.

This definitely belongs in the Database when they get that up and running again!!! Which I hope that is soon!!!

I find puzzles easier to solve (and more fun) in person. I just haven't been motivated to sit down for an hour on the computer to do it. Now, to be the first 'owner' of a Pentultimate in the world, I think it would be worth it. But odds are in the far fetched scenario where he does part with it, he probably wouldn't want 100+ puzzles, but several thousand dollars in cash.

IO, the offer still stands though.


Well, the way I saw this coming to life was suggested by Bram. It was a Megaminx, inside a Pyraminx Crystal, inside the Pentultimate. However, this only yields 125 pieces, so I'm eager to see the inner workings as both a puzzle fanatic and a mechanical engineering major.

Well, adding 72 pieces for the tiles, that means 197, which still falls severely short of the 760 Jason mentions.

Holy blank! I never thought of that shape. I love both it and the Rhombic Dodecahedron. It's one of my favorite shapes. I'd love to see even an applet of that.

With my solution, I don't know how to orient centers, so any one that requires that will be quite the challenge.


Offering several thousand dollars in puzzles is stealing?


Well, using some numbers to assume on, 92 pieces were machined. 72 being tiles. Therefore we're left with 20 masters. That's a lot of masters, considering the Gigaminx only had 6 if I remember correctly. That wouldn't come cheap.


Yes indeed. I had been mentioning your absence. I had thought you died! (Until I saw you logged in last week). Please, still reveal yours! Oh my, this is a happy day for the puzzling community.

It...lives...

Well done. Really well done.
@Noah: Don't ever think about bandaging this beautiful thing. You would have to pick out of exactly 22162 different variants.

I meant the avatar.

I couldn't ever do such a thing. Not to mention I have only solved it in theory. I haven't actually gone and solved it yet.

This here puzzle represents one of the main reasons why I like this forum. I've concocted pentultimate mechanism drawings before, but never bothered trying to realize it, mainly discarding the idea as too much work. Yet here it is.

Now give us a few shots of the puzzle spun up a little.

Truly amazing
really excited about video and mech pictures

WOW! Now that's an amazing thought...
I'm trying to figure out an easier way to make them, and then I'll try to figure out if it's possible to sell some.



I think making another would be quite hard. I have been completely amazed at the labor involved. It kept reminding me of the chessboard and the wheat. With this many pieces, the math catches up to you! Just casting 500 or so pieces and cleaning up flashing at 5 minutes or so per piece is more than a week of work full time, which I don't have, of course. Then add drilling, pre-assembly, etc. etc...


They are machined opaque acrylic sheet. I'd like to polish them a bit after I reassemble it.


45 mm on an edge.


Yes, but the lockups got a bit frustrating, and I was concerned I'd force something and break it, so I've taken it apart to fix the problem the right way.


Yes! I'll be tuning it up on weekends when my kids will let me, and I'll post a video when it's reassembled. I anticipate I'll need a few weeks to scrape up the needed free time.



Yes, I'll post some mechanism pictures too.



You know, I think you did coin that term...
And the icosamate only requires one new piece, which I have already modeled in Solidworks. So I think it's just a matter of time...



They might not be too interested, unless I can lower the number of pieces. But it WOULD be cool...

simply amazing, is the pentultimate a dodecahedric skewb?

Better late than never, I too agree this is amazing!

I really love the tiles too.

I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said before hahaha

Keep us posted with follow ups!

WOW !!! Amazing work, it just look like meffert's stuff ! Can you post pictures of it twisted. Would to see how it move, it looks like a pentagonal skewb !!! Really freak !!!!

WOW !!!!!

That is awesome, super, crazy, cool, STUPENDOUS!!!!

nice job


I hope they will eventually be manufactured with a good smooth design.

Thats astounding.

I'm blown away. This is absolutely fantastic! I can't wait to see the mechanism pictures!

Excellent work!
It makes you wonder what's coming next.

Simply stunning!

Spectacular. Well done.

Fantastic work!

When I saw your avatar I had to search until I found this thread.
Congrats to this ingenious idea and build.

- Frank -

that is very impressive.

I cant wait to see the mech. How many unique pieces does it have?

This question made me realize my original piece count was off because I left out some of the custom pieces. And my wording was confusing, too. So here's some more detailed and corrected information.

This count would come down drastically if (when) I make this puzzle again.

TOTAL PIECES 820

568 parts are custom made, counting the 72 tiles.

416 of the custom pieces are cast from 26 masters.
152 of the custom pieces are machined in copies of 15 shapes
252 parts come straight from hardware suppliers.

It has 41 unique shaped pieces if I count the 2 shapes of tiles, and 39 otherwise. All shapes were designed and constructed in Python, Maya and Solidworks.

Of those 41 unique masters, 26 are initially machined and are molded in silicone and cast in urethane to make 416 pieces.

The other 15 are machined multiple times for a total of 152 including the 72 tiles. They go into/onto the puzzle as originals.

My my...

So when do we get to see the guts of this thing?

My mind has been churning trying to figure this beast out.

Incredible build! For me the most interesting parts of puzzle collecting/building are people. I am impressed by your ambitions, io, even more than by your skills and ingenuity. Congratulations!

It finally has been made! I second Noah's question. I, like every puzzle builder on here, have thought about building one but, like most, decided it was one of the most difficult to do and have stuck to simpler puzzles. Kudos to you and it will be interesting to see how it works and how it matches up to our thoughts of how it could be done reliably. Looks wonderful.
Lee

I have set up a page where I'll post updates on my progress reducing the lockups over the next few weeks. The idea is that interested folks can go here to see how it's coming along without me bumping this thread every few days.

These are the fixes I would like to make before making a video and showing the mechanism. Once they're complete, I'll post an update here.

I also included an image of the unstickered puzzle, and the bare bones form that can become dodeca or icosa based on extensions.

http://www.puzzleforge.com/pentultimate/progress/

By the way, thanks everyone for the comments.

That's a master piece!!!
i am not surprised that i took 20 more times that you thought, it's a beauty
do the maths x$ per hours..cost a lot to do that

I'm finally done with the improvements, and it moves much better now! It's still very sensitive to alignment, and I need to make sure it's lined up well before each turn. It doesn't fully lock up anymore, but occasionally needs to be wiggled past a rough spot. But it moves and scrambles. And works!

Now I need to work up a solution. (I will not read Noah's... I will not read Noah's...)

Video to come next (soonish)...

Out-stand-ing!

So when do we get to find out what your mechanism solution is?

Noah is sure to love you for this.
I'm amazed by this! if I ever played with a custom puzzle I'd want it to be this!

Magnificent, looking forward to that video

Now let's see the mechanism

Since it seems your not going to sell the puzzles are you considering selling masters for the puzzle?

Good luck with the solution! It's a hard one.

I'm eager for the video and internal pics still. Gosh, this puzzle always makes me smile when I look at it.