Hey evyerone!

I haven't been on the forums in quite a while. College has kept me pretty busy, a lot more than I expected. But it has also been great for twisty puzzles of all sorts!

Being at a tech school, there's plenty of competition for cubing, yet I still haven't found anyone better than me (If you are at RPI come to Cary Hall to challenge me)


But now the point of the topic.

Since I last posted on this thread, I had mentioned that I was going to build my own Gigaminx mod and a Teraminx. I was naive and didn't realize the complexity of this project. Since then however, I have gone off to college and taken a course on CAD. Lucky for me, RPI has a few 3D printers handy that students can use.

I just completed the course this semester, and now that I'm bored on Christmas break, I am going to start creating the parts for my Gigaminx and Teraminx in CAD.

I have thought of many designs for these projects (pertaining to the inner mechanisms). So far they are only on paper, but hopefully within a few months I will have the part files created in CAD and just send them down to the 3D printer.

I definitely don't see the Teraminx project being completed until at least the end of my second semester at school. Even though I will have the 9 different parts printed out by March (hopefully) I will still have to mold them and create the however many parts the Teraminx is made up of and get stickers for it.

Along with that, I am going to have to go through some legal matters to keep the rights to my Teraminx design. RPI will see it as an invention conceived while at school and thus see it as intellectual property, this forum will help, hah. Seeing as I posted about this plan well before going there.

I have given dates that I would hope to have certain aspects of this project done by, but realize these are still hopes. I will most likely not be done for about a year. This is because of the combination of the difficulty of the project, my procrastination, and the added work of college classes.

-Garrett Dickerson

Yea I do remember you and the topic. The proof below.

viewtopic.php?t=6333&highlight=

I'm very excited that your trying to build these Minxes. I lovely the idea a lot.

Have fun! That's a LOT of pieces to make.

Seeing another gigaminx made would be amazing enough, but a teraminx, now that would be something.

Tyler have you ever tried talking to mefferts to produce the gigaminx.

I recall Tyler taking a year to make.

This might take maybe two years?

The gigaminx has mechanical issues. I own one. It's fine to play with, but you've really got to take your time turning it. Even Tony Fisher's doesn't turn that well.

It took me a year to make because I only worked on it a little at a time. I had a lot on my plate. If Garrett is really motivated, a month or two should be more than enough time. Just ask Tony and Scott ... Once they had the pieces, it didn't take all that long for them to produce a working copy.

And yes, the gigaminx does have mechanical issues. At some point in the future I'll try working those out, but I've got other things to work on at the moment.

If you succeed in making a Teraminx, then that would give a whole new meaning to an Octaminx.

Have fun,

Ron

Are you planning to produce some for everybody for something around 200$, I would buy one for sure. It could be cool if you would do copy, like Scoot!

I doubt $200 would cover costs.

I'm going to work on completing the designs first, hah, then I'll think about production of multiple puzzles.

As of right now, I don't see myself making them on a larger scale (and by larger scale I mean more than 10, I don't even see myself making close to that many). If/when I complete the puzzle, I will probably do a similar thing that Tyler did with the Gigaminx and auction off a set of pieces that you could then create a complete puzzle from.

But first, I have to make one.

-Garrett

Is $1,000.00 to low? Man I'd love to have one of these puzzle badly. Not to forget TBTTyler's Gigaminx that I'd love to have also.

I think have figured out how many piece its going to have but don't quote on this. Heres how I figured it out below.

029 inside pieces of 1 face of a pentagon
X12 faces
058
290
348 pieces

30 edges
X5 pieces not including the corner per edge
150 pieces

20 corners

348
150
+20
518 pieces not including the core

It's 30 pieces per face of each pentagon, not counting edges, corners, or center pieces.

Everything else is right, so just add 24 to your total and that's the correct amount.

And just for the hell of it, let's add the core into the equation as well.

So grand total is...

543 pieces.

Hey, look at that - this topis is 8444 and the previous one was 6333. Hmm.

Anyway... 543 pieces sounds just crazy. If you do make a working teraminx, it will be one of the most amazing builds by a single person to have ever been constructed! Good luck!

I wonder if we could get Mr. Verdes to produce an Olympic Megaminx, Gigaminx, Teraminx, Petaminx, and Examinx? I think a lot of us would be interested in the first few of those, if they're up to the same standard as his cubes...

higher order = higher interest! NO limit!
it sure would be crazy to have those availble qqwref!

I'd definitely want these more then the OC cubes but don't get me wrong I still want the OC cubes to. I love the combanations of a higher order Minxes and I do get bored with the same shape just higher order cubes. I want something new in my life. I'm also willing to pay a higher price for it to.

BTW What ever happen to your 3rd auction TBTTyler? I don't think we ever saw it. I was just curious thats all.

EDIT: I found a picture of what a actual Teraminx puzzle looks like. Its 6 rows down from including the top row on the right side or Its the only Minx on this page that isn't shaded or bandaged.

http://www.ultimatemagiccube.com/

That's going to be massive! What are your intended dimensions?

No idea what my intended dimensions are right now. Just small enough for it to be easily handled.

On all the diagrams I have right now, the dimensions are all written as ratios to the dimension of one side of the center piece which is labeled as p1. So no set numbers, just relative to how large I make the side of a center piece.

just don't make it so small that it is flimsy

good luck!

that picture you posted does show pretty big problem with the high order minxes. The center gets really huge and the rest of the pieces just get smaller.

Just wanted to let everybody know that I'm working on a teraminx as well. (I just joined the forum so that's why nobody's heard this yet). I have all my measurements and designs complete on paper and on my 3d modelling program on the computer. So you know, it's going to be big because I'm going to cut all the 542 pieces (not including the core) by hand: 10 cm to an edge which works out to about 22.5 cm tall (yeah huge I know). I got materials actually yesterday at home depot but I'm still undecided as to what to use to mold the pieces. Epoxy putty? Sculptors clay? Any suggestions you have will make this go faster and I will hopefully put out a decent teraminx within a year!! Thanks in advance!

Ewww. I can almost promise you if you cut them all by hand it will come out terribly, and take forever. Get the masters 3D printed, then make a mold of your masters, and use a two part plastic.

The megaminx family is really growing fast ,but I have one question, in a 7x7 with cubic pieces there is a problem of corners falling out, since you guys are building a 7x7 minx I guess it doesn't happen, but what about a petaminx?(Order 9)

Just curious

I don't think it' possible to make something that detailed by hand.

Take it from me and Etienne DeForas : viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3207
Don't do this by hand. Etienne made his 7x7x7, and I made my 6x6x6. Mine was Horrible, and I understand that Etienne's wasn't much better. They did little more than prove that our designs worked and give us experience with design and casting.
Spend the money to get the masters done right. It'll be better for you and this community.

We are attempting to build the 7x7 minx, hah. It does have that same problem of corners falling out, which is the difficult part of the design. I'm still tweaking designs to find a better fit for those corners. If you were to get to a petaminx as you called it, after finding the fix to the problem for the order 7 minx, I'm sure it would be no problem, just expanding the design to more layers.

I would be interested in seeing a puffed out Dodecahedron, similar to the 7x7x7 V-Cube.

pentaminx? shouldnt it be called the quadriminx?

teraminx in 3rd order dodecahedron, and penta = 5, so i think that quadri (=4) makes more sense

He said petaminx, not penta. Peta comes after Tera.

whoops, sorry

So how can I get the masters digitally printed? I went to http://www.fdmonly.com/ but I don't really understand the whole .STL file thing. How do you make a .STL file out of a design? Also, someone suggested I use two-part plastic to build once I have the masters. What is that and how do I get it? (By the way, this is a picture of the exterior of my 3d model. It's shown next to a scale 3x3x3 cube for size).

What software did you use to design this behemoth? For most packages, you should just be able to do a file>export to .stl

Two part plastic is some really cool stuff.
It's two liquids that, when combined, harden into plastic. I always suggest Alumilite brand and get it off of hobbyengineering.com.
However, before all that you need to make some rubber molds. You use two compounds similar to the plastic, except when mixed they make flexible rubber. You pour this around your piece and it will leave a cavity in the rubber. Fill that cavity with the plastic, and it makes an exact copy of your piece.

There's a little more to it than that, but I'm just trying to give you the general idea.

I used google sketchup. Works prety well. I looked but I don't think the software has .stl as an option to export. And yeah it definitely is a behemoth. I designed it so the layers are thcik enough to comfortably grab and spin. Its 10cm to an edge which works out to about 22.5 cm tall (HUGE I know but it will still be comfortably handheld!)

I don't know how serious you are about this, but you should take Tyler's advice at all costs. If you want this thing to work, and look good, then you're going to have to put out some serious cash.

A puffed dodecahedron would almost turn itself into a sphere. It works with a cube because there's only 6 faces but I don't think a rounded dodecahedron would be practical

I had the same problem with the teraminx corners but after taking apart my megaminx and getting some inspiration from the corner pieces on it, I think I may have come up with a plausible design. Still have no clue because its all only on paper so far.

Google SketchUp = Wrong for your purposes
Reasoning : Google makes you pay quite a bit for any type of export ability, which is something you dearly need for this type of project.

There's some freeware/Open Source CAD programs out there that will allow you to do what you need. I haven't worked with any of them personally though. Just go looking through open source lists and you should be able to find something.

Anyone have any suggestions about good (and preferably free!) CAD programs for download?

Open source list = list of open source software
Check Google, and Wikipedia has a good list

Found a good one. called alibre design. and it has a .stl option for exporting stuff when I finish.

Yes, but you have 30 days to finish the modeling in 30 days(!) to get all the benefits of the pro version for free.

Good Luck!

Whoa, my first comment!

You are going to have to make a LOT of pieces. When do you plan on finishing; I would really like to see the world's first teraminx.

just giving an update. ive broken the design down into ten distinct types of pieces with 6 having mirror pieces. im completely finished designing 5 of them. if anyone knows how, id be interested in finding out how many positions a teraminx has. its a huge number so please write it in scientific notation if possible. thanks & ill give another update soon!

just giving an update. ive broken the design down into ten distinct types of pieces with 6 having mirror pieces. im completely finished designing 5 of them. if anyone knows how, id be interested in finding out how many positions a teraminx has. its a huge number so please write it in scientific notation if possible. thanks & ill give another update soon!

Is it possible to make a megaminx with an even number of layers per edge? aka 4x4, 6x6 etc.

I don't think we've decided what would be a 4x4 equivalent, there has been quite a few discussion about it, but we aren't sure... but no one has made any yet.

There are:
20 corners with 3 twist
20! * 3^20
30 edges with 2 twist
30! * 2^30
60 inner wings (position determines twist)
60! / 5!^12
60 outer wings (position determines twist)
60! / 5!^12
60 +1 centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
60 +2 centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
60 x1 centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
60 x2 centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
60 right Wing Centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
60 left Wing Centers (groups of 5 indistinguishable)
60! / 5!^12
After all that, divide by 2 (for edge flip) 2 (for parity) and 3 (for corner twist)
(I think this is right ... please verify me)

( 20! * 3^20 * 30! * 2^30 * (60! / 5!^12)^8 ) / (2 * 2 * 3) =
11585841547381252341213942550217559592618645775450776289372308217398507541195242102
68956338554629221130481390360613553296675910494208619231704355685498353889994913642
451660607662157924793829472272926830600301820674528175949286207092599448890788203639
60511661684041943407213480053086306449849168955201612963721841450768423121436533138
226777103756868337678478634289854098833148012473670561201716097305202303848283284713
684690271424716723120546307423748218338375965785455903444668863120554038891905024000
0000000000000000000000000
(if I was able to enter it into the calculator correctly)

Comes out to about 1.15858 * 10 ^ 525

This is probably a stupid question, but, uhh, what's a 3d printer?

wow thats a big number. tbttyler i remember you saying the gigaminx had more positions than there are atoms in the universe. not doubting you at all but im just curious how you know that and what is the actual number of positions on a gigaminx?

We recently have a discussion about it in the Gelatin Brain's Applet Thread, we have a picture of how it would look like and it's Icosahedric equivalent(spelling )