My new Megaminx mod

Vadim · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:09 pm

Hi all,
I have just finished my new Megaminx mod.
It was inspired by Jürgen Brandt's creations.
Please have a look.
There are 10 colours. It was cutting out 150 stickers nearly killed me!

Vadim

nicky_uk · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2005 5:29 pm

Wow! It looks great!!

I really love the way it really brings out the "star" shape of the megaminx on the top.

Aleksey · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2005 6:42 pm

Vadim, I really love the shape of your new puzzle! So nice!

pelley · **Posted:** Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:50 pm

Cool! Can you post a photo or two of a fully scrambled one?

t_goodchild · **Joined:** Wed Jul 17, 2002 3:08 pm

Wow! wonderfully unique mod! It brings to mind a question I've always had tho: is there a sequence
that just turns 1 or 2 center pieces on a megaminx? I realize you wouldn't need to if you just set them as you went, but how could you do it after is was solved?
I don't see any way to turn just 1 like on a cube since it would require a 5-cycle of edge and corner pieces. You couldn't do 2 centers using a commuter because no two center pieces lie on a seperate movable "layer" like on a cube, but maybe doing two 5-cycles around 2 centers and then re-orienting both whole sides? Or could you even do two 5-cycles around one center piece? hmm,
off to mar up my megaminx

perfredlund · **Joined:** Fri May 06, 2005 10:13 am **Location:** Norway

Hey!

It is possible to rotate the centers any way u like on the original megaminx. To rotate a center one step involves an edge-5 cycle and also a corner 5-cycle. Both of those are possible using basic commutators. A 5-cycle is constructed with 2 3-cycle 8-)

-Per

away · **Joined:** Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:00 pm

To rotate a Megaminx center I prefer doing a 5-cycle of corner-edge pairs: (R'dR - U*i - R'd'R - U*i)*3 with d meaning everything below U and i being the rotation of your choice.

t_goodchild · **Joined:** Wed Jul 17, 2002 3:08 pm

ya, I figured that out, wasn't too hard. I guess I was under the impression that a 5-cycle of just corner-edge pairs wasn't possible because a 4-cycle isn't possible on the cube (except when adding the twisting of the center piece). Is it because it's an odd numbered cycle? I'm confused about exactly what's possible and what's not on twisty puzzles, how and why those rules change from puzzle to puzzle, how the "math" of these rules work with the combinations of swaps and orientations. It's impossible to swap 2 edge or corner pieces on a cube, but is it possible to do if you add a corner twist to it? I can't think of how to do it with regular commuters. can anyone point me where I could learn more on this?
(crap, sorry if I hijacked this thread)

Carter · **Posted:** Thu Sep 01, 2005 7:37 pm

Nice mod!

Mike G · **Posted:** Fri Sep 02, 2005 4:54 am

t_goodchild wrote:

a 4-cycle isn't possible on the cube (except when adding the twisting of the center piece). Is it because it's an odd numbered cycle?

Yes. A quarter turn of one face is an odd perm of corners (and an odd perm of edges), so the parity of the corner perm changes every time you make a quarter turn. Hence the total number of quarter turns in making your 4-cycle (of corner-edge blocks) must be odd, matching the parity of the corner (or edge) permutation.

Quote:

I'm confused about exactly what's possible and what's not on twisty puzzles, how and why those rules change from puzzle to puzzle, how the "math" of these rules work with the combinations of swaps and orientations.

The "rules" don't really change... but you do have to think about the parity changes induced by an elementary move, and these changes can be different for different puzzles. For example, for the megaminx, a one-fifth turn of one face is a 5-cycle of corners (and of edges), so it's an even perm of corners -- that's one way of seeing the "difference" compared with the Cube.

There are indeed puzzles where the permutation parity and the "twist" are coupled (e.g., the brainball, but not the Cube or the megaminx). Again, you have to think about the action of the elementary moves on both those quantities...

Quote:

It's impossible to swap 2 edge or corner pieces on a cube, but is it possible to do if you add a corner twist to it?

No, because it turns out that the basic move (a quarter turn of one face) preserves the total corner twist, modulo 3. Also, the overall permutation parity of corners and edges taken together isn't changed by a quarter turn of one face. The twist and the overall parity are separately conserved here.

You can find all the material you need collected in one place: Jaap's Puzzle Page, especially the maths pages there, and he has many applications to specific puzzles.

chris_joe · **Posted:** Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:08 pm

That's a very nice mod!
so, what's the name of this mod?

-chris joe

Vadim · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:23 am

I haven't thought of any yet.
The shape looks like a Chinese lantern and it has 20 sides, but only 10 colours.

Any suggestions? I would really appreciate!
Vadim

chris_joe · **Posted:** Mon Sep 05, 2005 3:33 am

how about, the azn cube 8-)

Vadim · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 7:51 am

What's azn cube?
Vadim

away · **Joined:** Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:00 pm

Vadim wrote:

What's azn cube?

It's what people who can write English would call "asian cube". And maybe "Asiaminx" or "Chinaminx" would be better.

aphid_greene · **Posted:** Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:22 pm

Chinaminx sounds cool. Kinda cute

nicknicknickandnick · **Joined:** Mon Jan 10, 2005 11:30 pm

Neat, from the top angle picture, it looks a bit like a space capsule like the moon landing astronauts returned in. Lunaminx?

Thom · **Joined:** Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:48 am

Lunaminx sounds ace.

away · **Joined:** Tue Oct 07, 2003 10:00 pm

Kudos to the one who came up with the "minx" suffix. Though, uh... I just looked it up at dictionary.com:

minx
n : a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men

So that's why I can't let go of my megaminx?

Bryan · **Posted:** Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:38 pm

Megaminx - twelve sides? Shouldn't there be 1,000,000 sides? Or call it the dodecaminx?

That's it. I'm making a million sided deep-cut puzzle and calling it the dodecaminx. There will be 45,290 shades of read, 20,204 shades of blue, 30,284 shades of green, and then the rest will be various degrees of black, and maybe some other colors. But not the dark dark orange that you can't distinguish from the red. I hate that color.

Thom · **Joined:** Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:48 am

A dodecaminx would be a megaminx with twelve sides. Hence a megaminx.

you'd probibly call yours a polyminx.

Vadim · **Posted:** Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:46 am

Thanks to everyone who helped to choose the name.
However it's all too complicated...
I think just "Trunkated Megaminx" would do the job.
I am just a bit snowed under and just can't get my head round anything else.
Vadim

David J · **Joined:** Tue Mar 04, 2003 11:17 am

StefanPochmann wrote:

Kudos to the one who came up with the "minx" suffix. Though, uh... I just looked it up at dictionary.com:

minx
n : a seductive woman who uses her sex appeal to exploit men

So that's why I can't let go of my megaminx?

I think that the original idea may have been to name it "megamix," as in millions of possible positions, and "mix" sounded too prosaic. "Minx" certainly fits for something which is deceptively complex.

blogan wrote:

Megaminx - twelve sides? Shouldn't there be 1,000,000 sides? Or call it the dodecaminx?

That's it. I'm making a million sided deep-cut puzzle and calling it the dodecaminx.

Because it takes 12 years to solve!

blogan wrote:

There will be 45,290 shades of read, 20,204 shades of blue, 30,284 shades of green, and then the rest will be various degrees of black, and maybe some other colors.

You could do much of the whole spectrum of light put out by the sun!

blogan wrote:

But not the dark dark orange that you can't distinguish from the red. I hate that color.

I've seen "orange" shades which seem to me to be only brown. But there are so many more colors than are being used. Why not make puzzles with burnt sienna, lavender, puce, amber, etc, etc.

Let each of us submit a color scheme for a cube. Does anyone know a good web page for lots and lots of color shades?

Hey Chris, how many colors can you make stickers and tiles?

David J

Ben Picolo · **Joined:** Sat Aug 20, 2005 1:36 pm

To tell the truth, it kinda looks like a rocket ship capsule.

Jello33 · **Joined:** Tue Mar 15, 2005 2:18 pm

"Hey Chris, how many colors can you make stickers and tiles?"

David J

Currently I've got about 14-16 different colors. I try to order a new "different" color each time I have to order "standard" colors. I'm slowly building up a small collection of colors. The tiles I'm only planning on producing in the standard 6 colors.

Chris

My new Megaminx mod

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