Someone asked me to put the pictures of my new puzzle on somewhere,
but I think they belong to Twisty. I came up the ideas after I viewed the Wayne's post -
"Real 6x6x6 photo? You decide", so I prefer to put them here, but I could not do that.

Thank Sandy, she is helping me to do the work.






The puzzle is a working prototype, not just a model, and we can play it with
different way:
For example, take 8 small cubes from the corners of the solved Cube Puzzle,
we can play it as a Rubik's 2 x 2 x 2 Cube, but more fun.

By the way, I had post "New Mathematical Problem" on Abuzz yesterday
concerning this puzzle, there will be some mathematicians here, I think.
http://nytimes.abuzz.com/interaction/s.254484/discussion/e/8.70602/

First off: Curse my parents. (I'm a guy, Daniel. Please don't feel like you should apologize!)

Secondly: Doesn't this look fun to play with? Like Rubik shaped Lego blocks. I'd be terrified of dropping it on the floor.

I've been thinking about how this thing works (since Daniel is playing his hand close to his chest), and have only come up with crappy theories that don't hold up for all combinations of the cubies.

I've wondered about fridge magnets. They generate a much less focused pole, and can easily be made to stick N-N or S-S as long as you don't try to do it straight on the middle. Could this be the solution somehow? Doesn't feel entirely right to me. Although you could easily get it to work for a regular 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube (using all N-out cubies and all S-out cubies), you couldn't accomodate all shapes (like the dinosaur shape) without some trial and error during your build.

Assuming the stickers are just stickers (ie, the attraction force is somewhere UNDER the stickers and uses a field to attract) I just don't know of any other material that could have this kind of attraction power.

Could these be small horse-shoe shaped magnets with their points towards the center of the cubie, and their arcs just beneath the sticker? Is there enough room in each cubie for 6 of those!?

Anyone have any better ideas or comments on mine?

Sandy

it seems there is a bump under the stickers... anyone have an idea what it is?

They look like air bubbles to me. Sorry to give such a boring explanation.

My suspicion is that the "mechanism" is merely magnets.

I was thinking some kind of magnetic iron ore on each face, under the sticker. Realize, daniel's prototype is wood!
Also realize, each cube sticks to ANY other.
Every cube has a force in it.
How this exactly works, confuses me.

(1). The Cube Puzzle can form all combinations of a normal Rubik's Cube, No problem.
(2). The Magical Attractor is made from Neither fridge magnets Nor horse-shoe shaped magnets.
(3). When I built the shape of dinosaur, I just put the small cubes together without some trial and error
.... for connecting the small cubes with turning their faces.
(4). The stickers are just stickers, mostly they are the product of ARLON. (CALON II Vinyl Graphics Films.)
(5). Yes, I tried to drop the Cube Puzzle on the floor, and ... of course, I had to reorganize the small cubes.
.... It is another fun to play with, I can put all the small cubes in my pocket at random, and
.... when I took them out from my pocket, a new Cube Puzzle was formed already, I can flip it.
(6). Sorry, my English is not good for it's my second language, I am a Kiwi from Taiwan, I sometimes misspell my friend's
name or said incorrect words. (e.g. I told my friend about my daughter "He is in Hamilton Girls' High School.")

It is not possible to fix magnets in place so that poles always line up when the cubies move, therefore, why not have the magnets move too?

Perhaps a circular hollow could be made within each face with a bar magnet allowed to spin in this hole. When two cubes are brought together the magnets would spin into alignment within their respective holes.

I was thinking of a magnet per face - I think some rare earth neodymium magnets would be small and strong enough to do this.

Your English is perfectly understandable. Clearly, your puzzle has generated excitement. Thank you for sharing it with us. I wish you would hurry and submit your patent so we can find out what the secret is.

Wouldn't the magnets in each cube have an effect on each other? I think they would, but would the affect be small enough to make no diffrece?
Have you considered the cost? The magnets would have too be very small, and although there are ones that small that would be strong enough to work i'm not sure if they would be cheap enough to make into a cube.

This is a good idea, and if its not whats being used it might be worth looking into.

Chris Witham

Rare earth magnets could easily be small enough yet strong enough to support the structure.

Doug.

OK, but if you then tried to fix other cubes to one particular cube, you'd end up with the problem of some of them repelling one another when you'd want them all to attract ... surely?

Perhaps there is one central strongly magnetised cube, and the others merely contain a centre of iron (or other magnetic but not magnetised metal)? They would pass the magnetism along them, without containing magnets per se.

would work for any CUBE, but Daniel's invention doesnt have a "center" ANY 2 blocks can rotate around eachother without the otehr 25

I guess the magnets would have some force on each other. However, if all are allowed to spin wouldn't they reach a stable equilibrium? I guess the material used to make cubes would have an impact on the size of internal forces.

A cost effective solution? Not really. The magnets would be expensive and manufacturing a nightmare. But who cares? If folks round here will pay $500+ for dominoes and dinos there might still be scope for a small profit margin!

Im a poor uni student who cant afford $500 for a puzzle!!!!!!!!!!!!

im a 15 year old high school student who has no job

Then you must have a hell of an allowance! You're not pulling those dominoes and dinos out of thin air! Even if you are making a profit, you need overhead!

Sandy

OK, so maybe not magnets (or it's magnets, Jim, but not as we know it) ... could it just be the attraction of the stickers themselves? Like those little "Today" stickers you get for your Sasco Year Planner - ie. made of that soft vinyl material that sticks to glass and other shiny surfaces (including ... itself).

In which case, the cube is rather uninteresting - it's just a load of smaller cubes that can be attached any which way. I hope it's not just that.

Well 16 but basicly the same, high school student with no job. Whats wrong with you and me? The cube craze ended a year before I was born. On the other hand everyone who sees me with one wants to play with it so maybe it's not so weird. Even so I am, becuase I always seem to end up spending my time figuring out exactly how to make my system work and comeing up with new puzzle concepts, rather than hanging out with peers.

Strange isn't it? I can make a 7th order cube, which Meffert's website says is imposible, but I can pull off normal social skills. I wish that I had half the skill at social things that I have a this kind of thing.

I hope knowing my age doesn't make any of you doubt whether or not I can really make what I've said I could, It all works on paper and by this time next week i should be well into prototyping, the only reason i havent started yet is that the materials seem to be taking their time in ariveing.

Chris Witham

you can take the top layer off and join it to the bottom layer, etc. so the centre cube can get to anywhere on the cube it wants to.

I always wonder if anyone can understand my incoherent rambelings, I think I've been doing a good job of making sense though.

Regardless that should read "... but i cant pull off normal social ..." of course you can probably figure that out from context.

And if i did anything else that makes it so it doesn't make sense, like say leaving out half a sentance tell me because i probably wont notice.

my allowance is spent on movies etc.
my "funds" came from un-used birthday money and hannukah money that has been collecting in my room ovre the years

I suppose it could be "sticky stickers", but that doesn't really seem like something that can be patented. Neither does magnets. I sure hope it has nothing to do with magnets. Given how much magnetic media I have (audio tapes, video tapes, floppy disks, and hard drives), I'd be terrified to have such a puzzle in the same house, much less the same room. L8r.

Re: "I wish that I had half the skill at social things that I have a this kind of thing."

Although this won't sound helpful, it's something to look forward too:

You're smart - at least, I assume so, given that you're playing with these toys and posting on this forum. In school, smart is a stigma. When you hit the "real world" you'll find that smart is critical. If you go (e.g.) into a high-tech field you'll find yourself surrounded by other smart people and that being smart is important, so you'll start feeling important. With that feeling importance you'll gain confidence, and stronger social skills arise out of that self-confidence. It'll just happen.

Or you'll just find yourself surrounded by other introverted geeks with similar interests. In that case, just know when to actively alpha-geek and when to just smile knowingly.

You'll get along just fine either way.