I was browsing the museum the other day and came across a puzzle called 'Orange Mechanique'. Take a look:

http://www.twistypuzzles.com/museum/large/01006-01.jpg

(the picture is straight from the TwistyPuzzles museum, no copyright infringement intended )

Anyways, did some research on Google starting with the name and found out it's misspelled French. 'Mecanique' is French for 'mechanism', but there's an added 'h' - possibly just a French to English translation for aided phonetics?

I have encountered this puzzle or something similar to this (fuzzy memory) at some point in my life and am infinitely curious - anyone have any information on it??

Ciao,

--JC--

For more information on this Arancia Meccanica puzzle and a similar puzzle, see the following link:
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=21372

Geert

I decided to post in this thread not in the older one of Geert. Sorry for that.
I updated the museum's entry for this puzzle:
http://twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/puzzle.cgi?pkey=1006

Can anybody supply me / the museum with a better description, patents, year, inventor, ... ??
In this special case I am like a blind guy speaking about color.

Another thing which puzzles me is the images of this puzzle on Hendrik's page.
There the puzzle is shown with those circular regions deeper in the solid. Is that a bug or a feature? A different production. Any information is helpful.

Andreas

I think the deeper moving parts you see may just be the box art, similar to how the box art on the 80's original Rubik's Cube displays a perfectly cubic figure with no spaces between the colors. But it being on Hendrik's shop is extremely confusing to me as well.

Thanks for the links and the new museum page.

--JC--

No... I think Andreas is talking about the difference between this picture:



and this one:



Notice how the circle on the orange faces appear to be recessed much deeper.

Carl

Correct, Carl.
Anybody any knowledge he/she wants to share?

Sorry, I misunderstood. Geert, since you have obtained a sample of the Arancia Mecciana, do the deeper circles act as buttons? Friction locks possibly, where you could push them down if you needed to grip your fingers on something? I would think not since there would be no practical way to get them back up once they have been pushed down - any information?

(Haha I'm as confused about this as you are, Andreas)

--JC--

About the deeper circular regions, I checked with Marcel Gillen who bought several of these puzzles some years ago in Italy (btw: all have been sold or traded).
He also has the version with the shallow circular regions and does not remember to have seen the other type which Hendrik Haak (‘puzzleshop’) has.
It is not a matter of an insert, a button or friction lock or something similar, the deeper regions form an integral part with the shells.
In both cases the name of the company (‘Simpaty’) is visible.

Geert

I'm getting a bit off topic but does anyone know if Hendrik still has some in stock in the shop? I am intrigued

--JC--

Instead of getting off topic and posting for everyone to see, why not simply PM Hendrik and ask directly?

Dave

I got one of these several years ago (without the deeper regions). I can't remember where from though. As well as 'simpaty' there is another word just below it. It is ridiculously tiny though and I can't work out what it says.


This writing appears 8 times


I tried B+W to make the smaller writing show better

These are the possible letters, meaning for a six-letter word each letter is one of the two listed.

1 G C
2 L I
3 O G
4 C G
5 A H
6 I J

If anybody knows a way to list all the possible combinations from these letters in English / French then I'm sure we can work it out.

--JC--

VIDEO showing movement.

Thanks alot!

The video shows the puzzle sounding rather stiff and chalky - does it feel like that or is it just a mechanism characteristic (as in it NEEDS that to work properly)?

--JC--

For the name of the company, Marcel Gillen referred to me as Simpaty Giochi (Italy, 1985).
I believe that the Italian word ‘giochi’ translates as ‘games’.

Geert

What's odd is that at first you see it as just some obscure letters that don't seem to spell out anything, and now, after knowing what it says, you can't picture it as anything else BESIDES giochi But if the name is in Italian, why is the half-english name 'Mechanique" French? *confuzzled*

--JC--

Hi,
when I saw this thread I contacte Hendrik Haak about the deepened round buttons.
Yesterday I got an answer and he asked me to post it here for him. He stated, that he had no idea about existing differences due to the fact, that he owns and knew so far only this one puzzle, so no comparison was possible.

The buttons are not moveable, neither in depth nor by trying to turning them. All buttons in his puzzle are at the same depth, means, it seems there was no individual, unintended pressure on them.

Hendrik took some new pictures of the puzzle and the whole box (wow!!) including the instruction sheet and even some red (hmm, why red only?) replacement knobs. Seems, the instructions also do not contain any hints on the potential function of the knobs.

Well, so far no real news - but if it can be found out, that e.g. the buttons have a similar effect, like those of the Rubik's Shells, I'll give an update.
Meanwhile, here are Hendrik's new pictures:

The original faux-French topic title was based on the museum article which has now been corrected. Maybe a mod should change the topic title to "Arancia Meccanica".

Maybe the puzzle has two levels of difficulty: a standard level and an easier two-color level (as indicated by the graphic on the box). So there should be 30 extra red knobs in that bag.

Skarabajo.