Hi Twisty Members,

I believe that some of you may have noticed the hint on our homepage.


While actually I posted the picture below in prior to the hint, in the Puzzle Photography group(http://www.facebook.com/groups/105764382903363/) maintained by John Hache.


The later being not quite a hint though. Anyway, starting from this product, we'll continue this way: hint before release.

Before continue, let's take a look at the brief history of void family:

2007, Katsuhiko Okamoto, Void Cube
2008, Lee Tutt, Void Megaminx
2009, Tony Fisher, Void Skewb
2009, Tom van der Zaden, Void Octahedron
2010, William Kretschmer, Void Gigaminx
2010, William Kretschmer, Void Petaminx
2010, Karl-Heinz Diekmann, Void Tetrahedron
2010, Gregoire Pfennig, Void Dino Cube
2010, Evgeniy Grigoriev, Void 2x2x2
2010, Oskar van Deventer, Void 5x5x5
2011, Mark Segedin, Void Icosaminx
2011, Mark Segedin, Void Master Skewb
2012, Evgeniy Grigoriev, Void Pyraminx

I got all these information from the museum[http://www.twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/pdb-search.cgi] by searching 'void', there you can find more void puzzles. It's a great place to read and record history of puzzles.

The Void Tuttminx


The conceptual mechanism of Void Tuttminx was originated from the Void Cube. The manufacturing design we are using has been iterated many times to reach a state of simple, stable and generally applicable without breaking edges/corners and no visible parting lines.


Features:
- 32 axis of rotation, 43 color sticker set.
- Mechanism design: manufacturing oriented design of mechanism/parts for better part quality, particular design of cuts and tolerances to ensure smooth movement.
- Aesthetic design: curved cut combined with sharp brim, no splitting edge or visible parting line.
- Handmade rare wood key to improve solving experience.


- Dimension: 150mm(6 inch) in diameter (which is 115mm for tuttminx, classical tuttminx). Edge
length: 30mm. Maximum opening on hexagonal face: 36mm, pentagonal face: 24mm.

- Weight: 330g.
- It comes with a transparent acrylic sphere for displaying and preservation.


Video will be uploaded to Youtube later.
[EDIT]: video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVncX2OGiig

[EDIT-Nov 29]: turning bare hand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qkNx1g5v4o

Item will be online in days at verypuzze.com.

Enjoy!

Leslie

Museum friendly pictures
http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=33851
http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=33850
http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/download/file.php?mode=view&id=33849

It's huge! Looks great

Wonderful, I hope that I can afford to get this beautiful puzzle. Is the turning tool absolutely necessary? Or with lube and breaking in a hand turn would be possible? BTW, it looks great in the spherical display case.

Leslie you nasty little man! I'm so mad at you right now I could spit! You should have released this at the same time I ordered that classic tutminx. Then I could have ordered two.

Now to make it up to me you'll have to meet me in GZ on the 7th and hand one over OR come to the HKTGF in January and deliver it.

One question though, can they be fused? Triple like?

Nice work. As Rox said, I think this would be a perfect candidate for a good 'ole fusing!

-Doug

Wow, incredible . I know what I while buy after christmas !

congratulations !!!!

When I saw the hint picture, I thought it's something concerning innner mechanism and didn't realize it's a whole new puzzle.

So it means I have to buy a snow mistery to hold the sphere.

Key to a puzzle! New concept & beautiful big big Thing! Just wondering which one should I order.......Black or White?

That is one very nice looking puzzle. Two questions:

(1) Is the key necessary or can the faces be turned by hand?
(2) Can the hexagonal faces be scrambled with 60 degree turns or are they limited to 120 degree turns?

Carl

congratulations~

The video really sells it for me. The Void Tuttminx is awesome and completely unexpected (at least by me). It's so big it comes with it's own house! The turning tool is an easy way to interact with the puzzle. It is a design decision that makes the puzzle that much cooler. Unless the clear cover folds up somehow, that is going to be one big box arriving at my local post office!

I wonder what kind of parity issues a Void Tuttminx would present? Can we look at void dodecahedral minx for answers or does the icosahedral Void Tuttminx rest in it's own unique category?

There should be even more puzzles that require special tools, jigs and safety equipment to operate them!

Another great puzzle ! Congratulation again !

Wow!
Never thought that would be possible!
Vadim

Great work, congrats!

By the way, I really like the spherical display box!
I wish all my puzzles had display boxes in their own shape!

Great work! I'm also wondering about if the key is necessary to make a turn. I also can't figure out how you put the puzzle in the transparent sphere. I can't see a seam or such things. How do you open it?

That is incredible! Very well done!

-d

I never would have believed this in 2008. How quickly things have changed. The singularity is upon us!

Well done, Leslie! I hope that it can be turned without the tool, but I'll buy one regardless.

I don't see why I could be turned with out the tool. As from what I can see the tool help start the turn, because the shape of the tuttminx faces are a bit tricky to grab, and it look like there is some kind of clicking mech or something.

Thank you guys for attention!

@ Gus @schuma @io: Yes it can be played without the key.

@katsmom: I'll be there if time permits by then. I believe with Tony's hands, triple-fused-VT is just a piece of cake.

@keyfan: You know that...one of the motivations for actually producing Snow Mystery is that it can serve as a nice holder for things like puzzles or cups.

@wwwmwww: the standard answer to question (2) has been 'no it doesn't fudge or jumble'.

@Pete the Geek: After a month's playing with it, I finally decided to pick up my lesson on fundamental woodworking. You are right, this is an easy way to interact with the puzzle, so long as it is a void tuttminx in standard shape. It is an important design decision based on practise.

@Drake: there's no clicking mechanism. The void mechanism determines that only very limited tolerance is allowed. Clicks are collisions actually.


The wood key.

I know that questions around the wood key will emerge. Actually the core logic was based on the percentage of failure attempts of movement. With void mechanism, tolerance of misalignment will be small and the force exerted on hands is in steep relation with amount of misalignment. This requires that you either apply a constantly varying expected force to turn a new face or be cautious at the end of every move to achieve accurate alignment. Otherwise, failure attempts will rise quickly and could be very annoying. This applies in general to puzzles with void mechanism.

In the case of tuttminx, I believe most buyers know that it is not any more easy to grab a turning face since the angle between two adjacent turning faces are significantly larger than dodecahedron. This will magnify/randomize turning force notably.

Sum up two of the above, use a key to keep a constant expected force(you may want to have a look at the leverage design of the key) to turn a face at a visually easily achievable misalignment range.

One more, specific to this design. In order to achieve our claimed(or expected, before design) aesthetic effect, brims of edges, center ring and corner piece are sharp. If you put finger into the hole, it could be dangerous(this is likely to happen when playing with bare hand while failure attempts occur). Also, fingers could be scratched by sharp brims when rotating faces bare hand.

That's all the way wood comes into puzzle, steel and plastic key don't work for obvious reason.

I'm confident that, if there's a square block on every face of the VT, then it will turn much better than expected. This is what you'll get by using the key.

I'll present a video using bare hand anyway. After I finished the discount week things.

Excellent images
Excellent history
Excellent measurements
Excellent way of presentation
Excellent post
Foremost
Excellent puzzle

You are setting standards!

@Andreas Thank you for the HUGE compliments.

I've uploaded a video demonstrating bare hand turning of VT.

This is really nice, and the turning quality is much better than I thought it would be.

...But, how many Tuttminx variations is VeryPuzzle going to release? I'd like to see new puzzles too.

That second video is wonderful to watch. For a puzzle that is larger than a Petaminx, it is still very light. The relatively light weight combined with the void mechanism makes holding the face and turning the puzzle possible. I still might prefer to solve it by turning the faces, but at least for this monster-size puzzle I won't need a table to support it.

I can't wait to get it. Any hint on when it will be available on VeryPuzzle.com?

Void Tuttminx is now online for only 68$ including shipping!
http://www.verypuzzle.com/index.php?rou ... duct_id=97

@Jared: We start from Tuttminx and we think it is just our task to make up the list. Commercially or technically, variations need not be our first choice. Anyway, thank you for your suggestion, new puzzles will come for sure.

@Pete the Geek: VT can be contained in the acrylic sphere we provide while Petaminx can't. So the radius of petaminx is slightly larger than VT, while the distance of opposite pentagonal faces(height) of VT is very close to petaminx. There's one more thing to be said about hand turning: since it can't be grabbed easily, you'll tend to push radially, this will cause even tighter tolerance. Anyway, you always have the choices, right?

Leslie

I missed this thread completely some how. That's a truly amazing puzzle.

What a wonderful job!

The details you put into this puzzle (the key, the display globe) really show how much you care about presentation, and such details are very appreciated.

Dave

I received one yesterday and did an unboxing, review and comparison with the regular Tuttminx and a Petaminx- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFm27pnG-LI . This was one that had been worn in and used. Obviously the rest of you will get a brand new one.
The quality is really good and you can make minor tension adjustments to the many screws though you will need a long screw driver. These adjustments should be tiny since you can easily undo them completely and then you'll have a real puzzle putting them back in. I found the wooden key slightly better than using the puzzle without.

Looking forward to seeing a crazy modification of this Tony

-d

Here's my disassembly video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRz_WUKVa9M
If anyone else is thinking of taking one apart my advice is DON'T!

One amazing puzzle. Five years ago, I would not have believed this possible. It is a truly wonderful piece of engineering!
@Tony; Now for the.......... reassembly video.... (please!)

It's done and coming soon.

A look at the parts and assembly video now uploaded- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z4T10QiXVQ

Phew! I love taking puzzles apart and reassembling. It can be more fun than solving. However, there are moments when you wonder whether dissassembly was wise.... I think I spotted a couple there. What an amaizing puzzle, and a great, revealing video. Really enjoyed it, thanks!
Tim

Today my Void Tuttminx has arrived.
I think a little Bump is justified, because not many others will have received their puzzles, yet. Maybe, others are waiting for more reviews before they are going to order one.

I ordered it on December 16th and given the heavy Christmas parcel traffic, I think the shipping time is quite OK.
It arrived in a large box (much larger than the one in Tony's unboxing video) and it was VERY carefully packed.
Usually I prefer black puzzles, but I ordered this one in white. In think, white emphasizes the transparency of the shape even more.

Sitting on the table besides me is a wonderful piece of engineering and a wonderful piece of art.

I like the Leslie Tuttminx and the classical Tuttminx, the Void I like even more. At least how it looks!
The turning is currently not similar to the puzzle shown by Tony. (His arrived stickered and obviously it had been broken in.) At arrival time, I could not turn several faces at all, wooden key or not. After a lot of lubrication, the puzzle got promoted to the category "turns quite nicely".
I compared very often doing a turn with or without the key. The wooden key is a big help. What a clever idea!

Please, have in mind that I'm talking about my sample and others may turn better depending on the screw tension or the kind of plastic (Tony's was black) or whatever.

The puzzle is completely stable and if an edge cap becomes loose occasionally, it is easy pressed back again.
Some plastic spare parts and a lot of screws came in a separate bag.
I hope that I#ll never need them and I have no plans to fiddle around with the screws or even disassembling it.

I'll break it in for a few days, give it another round of lubrication and even if this will not improve the turning, I shall be completely happy.

I can clearly recommend buying this puzzle!

My wife finds it beautiful in plain white, imagine what she will say when I will have stickered it

@konrad

Thank you for the update and compliments.

The Void Tuttminx I sent to Tony was the one I made videos and pictures from. I've been playing with it for more than a month and lubed it right before shipping. That explains why it turns much better than new ones. I was just intending to share the turning experience after broken in with him. The original package was just like yours(void tuttminx and display sphere separated) but the shipping proxy changed the package to a smaller one for some reason. Anyway this will not happen again as we agreed.

I believe Tony actually got two puzzles, the other being putting it together without any hint from me

Yesterday, I posted this in the "less rare puzzles" thread. I asked Dave and he feels that a BUMP here is appropriate.
This is an "homage" not only to the Void Tuttminx, but to all four puzzles from Leslie.
Thank you Leslie for these beauties!

A few days ago I finished stickering my Void Tuttminx:
(You can click onto all "thumbnails" to enlarge the pictures)

I stickered it using the same colour scheme as my Classical Tuttminx

And here we have all three together (The Void, the Classical and Leslie's):



My wife found it beautiful as well and it is now hanging from the ceiling of our livingroom together with a wooden "puzzle" that is there since thirty years



A month ago I assembled and stickered another beautiful puzzle, the Super Star, from the same shop (http://www.verypuzzle.com)



I used a twelve colour scheme but this meant that I had to define similar colours as being identical. A second sticker set is on its way, though.