Hello everyone.

The general idea is to allow Skewb to make 60 degrees turn which would result in interesting shape-shifting. Renders:

Solved:


60 degree turn:


Partially scrambled:

and few more.

Luckily, it doesn't require fudging or complex mechanism (I already have whole mech in mind). But I have one question .

Skewb has tetrahedral symmetry and because of that tetrahedral core with 4 arms. Half of corners are attached to the core and second half is not. In its case it doesn't matter which ones, they are mostly the same. (As far as i know Skewb could has virtually two cores, because pieces in each group stay always in the same position to each other in that group). But in Mixup Skewb those corners are different, they keep in place different number of pieces and have different shape. And my question here is which one is better to use as pieces attached to core and make puzzle more stable?

Hope you like it,
Krystian

Interesting... I like this. I've been working on my own Mixup Master Skewb but this is something totally different.
Not sure I can help with the following question though as I don't have the mech in my mind. Maybe you could post a few pictures of the mech? But it is possible to make a Skewb where BOTH of the virtual cores are represented. However I think one of them will have to be worn on the outside of the puzzle. My two core skewb idea is pictured here. I just point this out as you may not have to choose one or the other, you might be able to use both.

Carl

P.S. You have a Shapeways Shop yet? You have a ton of get ideas... you should be putting these up on Shapeways. In this case that is another way to answer your question. If you can design this puzzle with either type of core, since its never been done before, I'd thing the only way to be 100% sure which was the best would be to try both. Shapeways enables that type of prototyping.

Great idea!

I think the purple corners should be used as the centers while the grey ones would be floating. The purple corners hold in more pieces and are smaller. Leaving them as the floating centers could make them easy to fall out and pop. The grey corners are much larger and look like they would be strongly held in place without being screwed into the core.

However because the pieces could be interchanged with the different cores I think you should prototype both and see which works best.

why are only some of the corners cut up and the others are not?
Could this puzzle be made symmetrical?

The original skewb mechanism is actually somewhat unusual. Just like a 2x2 usually has a 3x3 inside of it, the logical mechanism for a skewb should have a master skewb inside of it. That way, none of the corners are actually attached to the core, but are instead extensions from the corners of the master skewb. Of course, this is much more complicated than it needs to be, as we all know from looking at the mass produced skewb.

However, that may be the best way to go about making the Mixup Skewb, since it would guarantee that all the corners have the same mechanism, so they can all be interchanged, as this puzzle seems to require.


Seconded. I would love to see some of your puzzles in physical form. PM me if you want help preparing any of your designs for Shapeways.

-Eitan

@Eitan

The corners act the same as a normal skewb, atleast in relationship to the other 3. With this puzzle the 2 cores can rotate but the 2 cores still stay constant.

Amazing idea, I've always wanted a Skewb that can do 60-degree turns (although I imagined it as being able to somehow swap two adjacent corners while in that state since I don't have MAD DESIGNER SKILLZ yet).

Ditto

Edit: Yes I did post a one-word response. (Well now it's 17, but who cares.)

Well sorry for the bump but... I was thinking about this and realized that if you shape-modded Polymaker's Split Jings Pyraminx into a cube, that would be a split skewb. Similar to a mixup skewb.

-Doug