Back in January I had the mechanism for this puzzle mostly finished. however for some reason or another I didn't get to optimizing and ordering it until a few weeks ago.

VIDEO

The puzzle itself is a deeper cut vertex turning dodecahedron. as the video also demonstrates, this monster can jumble! (how exciting!) The quality of the turning is great, amazing, FANTASTIC!

However it wasn't always that way. Interior parts kept colliding and jamming. Pieces kept flying out of the puzzle. gaps larger than the Grand Canyon formed. So I had to perform surgery on 20 pieces with an exact-o blade then clipped lots of screws shorter and suddenly the puzzle turned flawlessly!

The main catching you see in the vid is due to myself looking through the camera to turn the puzzle, I kept twisting at odd angles which caused parts to twist and collide. however as you can see the turning is wonderfully loose, but stable!

Niiiiice!

(I really like the the way you rotated the slices more than 15 degrees... )

Wow that's amazing!! The Jumbling can be related to that of a Face turning Icosahedron, correct?

-Mark-

P.S. I spy a Cat in a box!

Don't let perspective fool you, that cat is HUGE! I have no idea how he fits in those tiny boxes.....

SO CLOSE! We need the Starminx IV, the deepcut vertex turning dodecahedron, the true halfminx!

Yet another monster! (Both the cat and the puzzle ) I love it.

That wouldn't be a starminx. the cuts make a totally diff pattern on the face

Duh, now I feel silly. I'll blame driving all day and not enough sleep for this one...

Nice cats!

Yeap, after a brief comparison, we *do* get the picture regarding the size of that cat!!!



Amazing puzzle as expected!




Pantazis

Wow, I have to say that this is an amazing puzzle who's mech I will probably never come near to understanding.

Even though I've known about this puzzle's existence for a while now, I am still in awe at how well it turns. It gives me great hope for two huge projects that should come to light in the next few weeks!

Oh, and I totally predicted that the dodecahedral version of the FTI would jumble. This is it!

@ math people: Is the jumbling angle the same as on the FTI?

My dog Poogy declined to comment...


-pi (Eitan)

Yes, the jumbling will be the same that appears on the FTI. This is because the Starminx III is a vertex turning dodecahedron and dodecahedra are the dual of icosahedra. The short explanation of a object's dual is that the faces become vertices and the vertices become faces. Regular dodecahedra have 12 faces and 20 vertices. Regular icosahedra have 20 faces and 12 vertices. So it makes sense that a VTD is just a shape mode of a FTI.

Excellent puzzle again Drew. I know it's simple compare to the other extraordinary you've made, but do you plan on completing the family with a dino dodecahedron? I tried marking up an image to show the whole family. I would love to see an official family reunion photo.

mind boggling! Another master piece from a true artist!

Congratulations!
I tried to do it, but I did not work ...
You are a genius!

Congratulations on yet another amazing puzzle. Now you just need to get yourself a Dino Dodecahedron.

By the way, what is it with that weird ring in the video

If I'm not mistaken, each external piece of this one has exactly one sticker, right? A dyed or colored cast version would look awesome.

Can we get a size comparison with the other two? At first, I was expecting it would be larger than the Starminx II just because it's the one after.

Amazing puzzle. Puzzles like this should be mass-produced. It's a must have for any puzzle lover.
Congratulations Drew, you created another piece of art

P.S.: What is it with cats and boxes? Mine also loves them. Every time I get box with puzzles, he goes crazy until I give it to him

Thanks everyone/ the puzzle was actually fairly straight forward to design, the only hard part was counting the parts which were needed.



I don't consider a dino dodecahedron part of the starminx family because its a very shallow cut puzzle. to me the Starminx can only be a mid cut puzzle. though I should probably print one up since it would me close to microscopic.

This is awesome, I'd really like one of these.

Alex

Can you size compair this the the staraminx 2

Interesting. How many solved states does it have? Can any colored face go next to any of the others in the solved state?

Carl

A family photo would be amazing.

Here you go!


Can someone who is smart please start calculating the number of combination's ^_^

I wonder how many positions it would have if we counted the orientation of the center pieces too....

Just fantastic, Drew. Thanks for sharing.

My guess:



or

3476606290785221955219734953686792024445374138023410640436603042455348428540846667873599712543763401039688541981900800000

or

3.48*10^120

- There are twelve face centers, constrained to even parity: 12!/2
- There are sixty star points, in twelve pairs of five: 60!/(5!^12)
- There are sixty edges, in twelve pairs of fixe: 60!/(5!^12)
- A dodecahedron can be oriented with 12 different faces on top, and 5 different faces on the side: 1/(12*5)

Another wonderful puzzle! If I may ask, how much did it cost to print in full? I can't even comprehend how this works, but has anyone else noticed that this is mechanically identical to the (yet to be finished) Polaris puzzle, just without the huge extentions?

another stupid question, will this monster (in a good sense, of course ) ever make it to ShapeWays and the general public?

This is simply amazing!

Ps. Nice Cat

Awesome, Drew!
totally awesome!

You mean the Big Chop?

Pssht, no. That's a deepcut EDGE turning dodecahedron (1.4.3 on GelatinBrain's app), the puzzle I'm talking about is 1.2.9

Guys, lets keep on subject of the Starminx III. No need to talk about up and coming puzzles until they may or may not get finished.

Andrew please answer this: will it ever get to shapeways?

Great puzzle!

The turning quality looks better than most of the puzzles I own. Compared to my custom puzzles(cross cube), the turning is god like!

Now put the starminx 1 ontop of this, and then that resulting puzzle ontop of the starminx 2. That would be a cool and really big way to finish off the starminx series.

But it already is on shapeways =)

Great puzzle! Excellent video too, I love the tension leading up to what plane it turns on

Could you post a link? I couldn't find it there.

Carl

I never said it was for sale. just that it was at shapeways ^_^

Well, what are you waiting for?

As expected of you, it's Awesome!
I think this is my favorite starminx so far. The starminx I was very cool, but doesn't jumble, and I already know how to solve that one. The II can jumble, but that one is just a bit too huge. This one isn't huge, does jumble, and the most 'symmetric' kind of jumbling; FTI jumbling




I am confused with these posts for a couple of reasons:
1. How could a simple job as counting and calculating EVER be harder than designing a mechanism
2. So which puzzles deserve the Starminx name, the ones with deeper cuts or the ones with the specific pattern of cuts?

I think a dino dodecahdron would be a nice addition for a collection photo, and also the name, but I also think this is a nice finished series with deeper cut vertex-, edge- and face turning Starminxes.

I now already have my two favorite puzzles for this month: This one and Eitans master helicopter cube. Unless Oskar comes out with something REALLY awesome (or if puzzlemaster6262 perfects his 48-cube)

Sjoerd

EDIT: woops sorry for butchering the quote too much...

BOTH.

A dino dodecahedron could be made VERY small. that would make a great addition to the family photo

please put it for sale Drew! We beg you on our knees

btw. PM62 (Puzzlemaster6262) what are you babbeling about? lol what puzzle are you expecting to see (the combination of all those?) effin LOL

Absolutely astonishing! Well done!

Thanks again guys. This puzzle is very expensive to print. and I doubt a cast version would be stable at all. for now I'm sad to say that this won't be for sale on shapeways.

Wow. Couldn't be better. This is just massive greatness. And it's again even turning perfectly. I am just wondering how this is physically possible. It's more like a dream you'd think.
Thumbs up!

But some people might be willing to know the price and give it a try .

Agreed... plus I hope the cost of 3D printers and 3D printing continues to drop over the next several years making puzzles like these much more afordable.

Offer it and I'm sure some with buy...

Carl

I couldn not agree more! Unless its 1000 bucks