Jurgen Brandt has presented us already a couple of times with some very nice puzzle designs.
One of his creations is a puzzle he calls "Edges Only".
Basically, it is a 333 cube without corners and with thin pieces (sheets) attached to the edge pieces.
Jurgen made a sample using metal sheets.
Pictures of that puzzle as well as pictures of some other of his new designs will soon be posted here (Wayne and I are working on a kind of survey article of his puzzles).
Below is a picture of a replica of the "Edges Only" puzzle made by myself using plasticard.


I am sorry that the quality of the picture is not very good.
Apparently the image-uploader doens't accept the JPEG pictures I made with my digital camera and I had to print and rescan the pictures in order to get them "uploaded".
For those interested, I have some more pictures (just e-mail me).

Geert.

It is turning around middle square on each side.

Milan.

Here are some more pictures:







As you can see, the "new" edge pieces move "inside" or "underneath" the neighbouring pieces which makes the puzzle rather unique.
It also requires that the dimensions are rather precise and that the edge extensions are rather thin at the edges.
It will never be a "speed cube" and the solution is realtively easy (you only need a permutation sequence for the edges in the top layer), but I believe that it is a very nice design (by Jurgen).

Geert.

Its a lovely puzzle Geert. Tricky one to make! Am I right in thinking that there are "corners" in there, but rounded off like George Helm's edges only 3x3x3?

Max

Beautiful!

The amazing thing is the insight it took to see that such a thing is possible by allowing the edges to pass to the inside of the other edges. Very creative.

It looks somewhat like a Dino cube but turns differently. Could a puzzle be made that does not have (or show) the centers? It would look like a Dino cube but turn around the faces!

Walt

That was one of my first thoughts. I don't think it can be done. You could round off the centres no problem, but the extra triangular extended parts on the edges would have to have clearance behind the other edges. This wouldn't leave anything to hold the edges on.

Mind you this doesn't take into account fudge factor! The above edges only puzzle "can't" work! The covers for the edges need to have no thickness otherwise they would catch and jam the puzzle. BUT it can clearly be built. I would suggest that this requires a certain amount of fudging to make work, a bit of rounding here and there. And a little practice to be able to twist it. (Geert?)

So if those "extra triangular extended parts" were rounded a bit, then a little space could be found to hold on the edges. This might need to use metal rods to get the strength from such a small area.

Max

About the "fudge factor", Max is right.
In order to make it work there has to be a bit of space between the neighbouring edge pieces.
The trick is a bit not to make those spaces too large (because that would make the puzzle less attractive to look at) and not too small (because that would make the puzzle "catch and jam" all the time).
Furthermore, the added edge pieces indeed are rounded a bit and also some material is removed from the inside of these added edge pieces, both especially at the position of the obtuse (= "non-sharp") angles.
Even then the puzzle will "catch and jam" a bit and that is why I mentioned that it is certainly not a speed-cube.

Geert.

How the BLEEP does it work!??!

A simple equation.





Max ;)

Indeed Max, the "inner" parts of the corners are still there (as they are needed for the "mechanism"), but they are as much as possible rounded off.
This is both needed to create space for the edge pieces as well as to prevent that the corner pieces hit the inside parts of the center pieces while rotating the pieces.
I used 1 mm thick plasticard to cover the edge pieces.

Geert.

OK, I get it now. That's what I thought but it didn't look like it could turn that way. Very cool!

Too cool. Jurgen Brandt is amazing. What does he do for a living?