Hi Non-Twisty Puzzles fans,

Gear Maze 3x3 is a set of nine mazes, coupled by gears. Each gear has 17 teeth. A tiny metal ball runs through the maze. The maze has very peculiar properties. What looks like a dead end can be a through path. What looks like a through path can be a junction. And the only visible junction in the maze is actually a dead end. The object is to move the tiny metal ball from the circle to the triangle/arrow.

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle at LaserExact.
Check out the photo below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Very nice. Have you thought about putting different numbers of cogs on each wheel, so that the solution can change depending on how they are registered? But maybe you would need to make them all even or all odd so that you can't just keep the turning until you get any connection you want...

Brilliant puzzle Oskar! Would it be possible to design a version where the tracks also have gears in them, and instead of two balls, it's a disk with gears on them, that turns as it moves along the maze? That way the puzzle could also have an additional challenge of making sure the gear disk is orientated the correct way.

Is this a maze or a labyrinth? From what I can tell, the two balls only ever have 1 possible channel, which would make this a labyrinth.
Thanks,
Tanner Frisby

It's a maze. Consider when the balls are in a dead end in the cog in the middle of the puzzle. Potentially, the balls may then be transferred to each of the four cogs touching this cog, hence there is a choice of which path to take. This means the underlying structure is not that of a labyrinth.