Hey Puzzlers!

Thought I'd post this before going to bed (it's almost 3:00am here in Boulder, CO).

Ever seen a puzzle that can do

this?


AND this?


VIDEO

Meet the Comboctahedron, the Face- and Vertex-Turning Octahedron. I was pretty sure for a while that this would be impossible, since adding the vertex-turning cuts to an FTO would slice the edge pieces right off without any mechanism. Well, I found a way! (Don't worry. No magnets were used. This is all mechanism!)

-π (Eitan)

That's great! Congratulations!

Fantastic! It's about time!

Eitan, this is brilliant!

5-6 years ago, finding a normal Octahedron on ebay was a feat!
Then, winning it, was a Herculean feat!

Today, you have just showed an Octahedron which is as flexible
in movement as the Elastic Man, and I am sure, owning one won't
be any Herculean feat!

A simple design, which has more possibilities than meets the eye: I like!!!




Pantazis

Brilliant. This cries for mass-production!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations finishing this puzzle! Very impressive mechanism I suppose!

I wonder how you made this. Was it a complicated process?
And I suppose it's much easier now, so solve the puzzle Whats your comment on this?

Hard to believe that it can do like this,it‘s really great

Nice!!!! I couldn't agree with you more.

Carl

Wow. Another one of those mythical puzzles people talk about a lot and it's finally real. Great work.

Thanks for the complements!


1. Hours and hours in SolidWorks getting the darn mechanism right. I swear, this puzzle was fighting back when I was trying to figure out the mechanism.

2. Lots of conversations with back and forth with Eric Vergo and Drew Cormier about whether the edges would actually stay in. (Don't worry guys. They stay in great! )

3. Shapeways!

4. wait..................

5. Monday was Columbus Day. The stupid Mail Room for my dorm was closed, even though UPS was still delivering. Had to wait another 24 hours to get my parts. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!

6. Get the parts. Assemble parts. Discover that inner FTO gets out of alignment. Oops...

7. Dye the parts. I am going to do this on all my Shapeways parts from now on!

8. Re-assemble, glue together 5 pieces so that the middle layer doesn't get misaligned. (This worked very, very well!)

9. Sticker.

10. Take pictures and post on the forum.

11. ???????

12. Profit.


Actually, I have no idea whether this will be easier to solve. I know that the Comboctahedron can reach positions that the FTO and the VTO cannot reach. The FTO only allows 120˚ turns, so that makes certain colors only appear on certain groups of faces. The VTO never lets its corners change location, only orientation. This puzzle, however, allows both things to occur!

Can one of you math gurus give me an idea of how much harder this will be?

-π (Eitan)

OK, enough words. Now we want to watch a video!

I cannot tell you how epic this discovery is! It is amazing enough just to hold two puzzles in my hand that look identical yet twist in radically different ways. To combine them into one puzzle would just be beyond epic

Care to elaborate on this point? Is it similar to the need to block the centers on even cubes? I ask this because since both the VTO and FTO have three layers each, I don't see why it's necessary.

And now for the million dollar question: Does it Jumble?

Excellent!

Eitan,
This may address #11. Anyways... I have to say I believe this is the most marketable new puzzle I've seen in a long time. I was worried about protecting a potentially marketable new design here, but this is 10 times better. So I'm curious...

(1) Have you pursured getting a patent on this?
(2) Does showing pictures of a finished puzzle without revealing the mech prohibit one from getting a patent in the future? (This is directed at anyone that knows the answer, not just Eitan.)
(3) Will you reveal the mech at some point? I'd LOVE to see it but if this gets mass produced I'd rather see you get your share.

In awe,
Carl

Eitan has class all day, so he has allowed me to answer some questions.



The reason why there were misalignment problems is because the core of the puzzle is a spherical FTO. During the design phase neither Eitan or I realized 2 very important things. One, there would be alignment problems because there was nothing that attached directly to the middle layer of the inner FTO. And two, the inner sphere that the puzzle was based on could just be a skewb. Neither of these end up affecting the puzzle because the bandaging that was applied by Eitan (gluing the parts together) effectively turned the inner FTO into a skewb. This is possible because the skewb can really be looked at as a buildup in the series of a dino cube -> master skewb(FTO) -> skewb. The bandagin is actually quite simple.



There is no jumbling on this puzzle. Around the vertices, it turns in increments of 90 degrees, and around the faces, it turns in increments of 120 degrees.

As for all the talk about mass production, I don't think that this is really a great candidate. If the design was modified to be perfectly efficient (part count, size, ect) It would still have 9 different parts, plus a core; and that is a lot of molds to make. I would really like to see this mass produced, but I have my doubts that it will be.


Additionally I would like to make it clear this this is 100% Eitan's puzzle. I was just consulted on the design. Eitan and I do this often, two brains are better than one!

Mwahaha. I've got designs for this nearly ready to print. Is this fully printed?

Anyway, great job!

Cheers to the consultant as well!

Phenominal! I've been wanting to see one of these for ages! Well done!

There are mass produced puzzles with more parts. The V-Cube7 looks to have 10 parts plus the core, so I'd say 12 parts total as the core incluces the core and the face centers in this pic.



And there is the KO 11x11x11 that I think qualifies as a mass produced puzzle... even if it is a KO. And to be honest... I think this puzzle has the potential to have a greater appeal then either of these. To the general public and even some puzzle collectors/solvers these high order NxNxN puzzles don't offer much that is new... just more of the same. This IS NEW!! Looks GREAT!! And I think it could be a hit and a blast to solve.

Carl

P.S. Not trying to knock V-Cubes as I will be getting one of their 11x11x11's if they ever come out. But I realize they won't appeal to everyone. From a solving stand point a 3x3x3 is enjoyable, an 11x11x11 would be tedious at best.

I totally agree with you, Carl. I'll get an V-Cube 11x11x11, if it ever will be available from Verdes. I know that it will be no real challenge, just a matter of concentration and it will be tedious.
This is new and something that was not conceivable a few days ago

uuuuh! I thought it was handbuilt! it sorta looked like it! It looks very slick not printed looking..

congratulations on getting this done! what a huge archivement it is!

I cant wait and try and solve one of these some day...

what? it doesn't edge turn as well? come on!!!

I've been waiting for a puzzle like this since the day I got my FTO (about 2 years ago) and now that it exists, I'm speechless.

BTW, do the corners turn too?
Also, this NEEDS to be mass-produced (and I don't say this too often)

This is outstanding. I've been thinking about this puzzle lately. Great work!

VERY IMPRESSIVE!!!
I want this mass-produced!

Can't wait for the video. I Need to watch it

How many parts has? Do you have a photo of the pieces after the assembling?

Congratulations

You mean the trivial tip rotations? I hope not... it would be a much better puzzle without them.

Carl

I agree that it would be a much better puzzle if the tips didn't turn, but since the VTO has trivial tips, I decided to include them in order to have a true combination of the two puzzles. When I sell this one, if the person who wins it doesn't want the trivial tips, they are welcome to glue them down!

I'm not sure about mass production, but this is the first puzzle of mine that has gotten such a huge demand for it. I will do some looking around. Don't expect anything for a while.

Video will be coming soon. I made one this morning, and when I watched it again, I realize that there was an enormous pile of dirty clothes in the background. Oops.

-π (Eitan)

I laughed out loud at that one, much to the chagrin of my colleagues. I can't begin to tell you how many photos I've taken only to retake because of unmentionables in the back ground or a full ashtray......

Oh come on! Haven't you ever heard of abstract art?
(And seriously, I bet your pile of clothes looks much better
than the "masterpieces" made by certain "artists").




Pantazis

I love it and I also want to buy one!

Great puzzle. I always enjoy seeing puzzles with different cuts creating the same outer pieces.

Great puzzle. I notice there is a piece inside. I believe it is the keypoint.

Nice puzzle! I've been looking forward to seeing this made and i'm glad you found a way around the mechanical difficulties.I'm no maths guru but (I suppose this could be considered spoilers so if you don't want don't read it):

Just because it can reach more positions certainly does not make it "harder". In fact this is probably a little easier than a normal FTO as you could solve it corners, though orientation doesn't matter as you could just turn them once in place (even without trivial tips) so it would be slightly easier, then edges like the easier VTO then face centres like the FTO Edit [VTO setup moves would be required but you could still use the FTO commutator].

Actually, unless i'm mistaken, complete reduction to either FTO or VTO would be possible and for the FTO all it would require would be twisting each of the corners once right at the start of the solve, though figuring what orientation to put them in would be a little hard and reduction to VTO would be harder still.

Now the face-turning diamond is possible to be made.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18709

Eitan, this definitely needs to be mass produced. Have you scrambled/solved it yet?

Skarabajo.

Not yet. I have been insanely busy with the whole "engineering school" thing. It's a real bother, isn't it? (I have 2 enormous homework assignments due tomorrow (which is now actually today...), and two major project reports due on Monday. You gotta love school.)

I promise that this weekend I will make a video and do a scramble.

-pi (Eitan)

This time, don't forget to tidy your room before

That looks cool

VERY impressive
i would love to see the mechanism but i fear that it might rip apart the universe

Great puzzle! I've been waiting for someone to figure out the mechanism for some time, as I had a possible mech- I'd love to see yours, and see if it's the same as my (hypothetical) idea!

This looks like it would be difficult to solve, as you can't actually solve it like an FTO...
or a dayan octahedron, for that matter. this is DEFINITELY one of those 'deceptively simple' puzzles some of the geniuses on the forum talk about!
once again, great job!

The video is now up!

VIDEO

I am sorry for the wait. I've been doing homework all day, which makes the brain kind of melt, so it took a few takes to get this video right.

Enjoy!

-π (Eitan)

Why did you make the tips trivial? It's a more interesting puzzle if they only turn with everything else.

I did a major *facepalm* when someone pointed this out to me. The reason I included the trivial tips was so that the puzzle would be a true combination of the two mass-produced puzzles. But all that this removes from the puzzle is the necessity to orient the FTO corners. If the tips weren't trivial then you could orient the FTO corners by doing vertex moves. Not all that special.

After typing the first paragraph of this post, I gave the puzzle a good scramble, and I realize that the trivial tips will probably cause the puzzle to be just a bit more confusing to solve (but only a bit). I think that if I had used only 4 colors (opposite sides identical), then the trivial tips would have actually added some difficulty, and possibly even parity (though I'll leave it up to others to argue that one out).

I'll let you know when I finish solving it! (For some reason the picture is not uploading. I'll try again tomorrow)

-pi (Eitan)

lol. Funny that something "trivial" actually adds something.

Nice video Eitan. I don't think that having four colours would change the challenge from the trivial tips that much. Even though opposite colours are identical, 2 of the colours on a tip are swapped. I'll do a little diagram below:

Tip 1LLLLLLLLLLfffffffffffffffLLLLllTip 2 (opposite)

1iRdbdbdbdbdbbbbdbdbdbdbdbdbdR
B22GrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrG22B
11YffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffYfffffffffffffffffffffR = Red, G = Green, B = Blue, Y = Yellow.

Therefore each tip would still be unique, and it would only be mildly confusing.

Very-Very Nice Puzzle