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Pyraminx Ultimate
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A reduced 5x5x5 made from a 3x3x3. The realization of concept almost 25 years old.

This puzzle first showed up as a cardboard mock-up and was published it in Uwe Mefferts famous catalogue from 1981.

In 2008 Tony Fisher implemented the first sample of this puzzle and as a reference to Mefferts he tried to make the puzzle as close to the original mockup as possible. This also explains the name taken from the catalogue in which every new product was labeled "Pyraminx" with some additional words.

It was made by extending a regular Rubik's Cube in a fully functional way in all six directions. During this process Tony also created the Cross Cube as a by product. The new pieces needed were sculpted by hand and then silicone rubber moulds were made.

The puzzle could be viewed as subset of the 5x5x5 since it has the same axis system and an identical number of layers. Compared with the 5x5x5 there are some pieces missing and of the remaining ones each one has three duplicates. The exception are the triangular faces which are not visible on the 5x5x5. They behave as if they were the corners of the 3x3x3 within a theoretical 5x5x5.
Having played with the puzzle a little bit it is quite obvious that the original colouring could be improved somewhat. With groups of pieces entirely the same colour it really cuts down the number of possible combinations.

There exists a patent (under the given numbers) by Udo Krell that dates back to 1981 too. Tony Fisher is still mentioned as inventor here because he made the first working sample.

The Pyraminx Ultimate later could be made from Crazy 3x3x3 plus cubes and pieces from 3 Rubik's cubes for the extensions.This meant a ton of materials and a giant puzzle. A similar puzzle, but sort of "inversed", but trickier to solve, can be made from a 4x4x4 master cube by truncating its edges and corners and stickering it in 8 colours. This would give a 4x4x4 Trajber's octahedron solving challenge. The difference between the Pyraminx Ultimate is that it now has 8 centers, but triangular. The Pyraminx Ultimate had 6 square centers. In order to turn triangular centers on the "inversed" puzzle, one would need to use sequences of 2x2x2 moves to flip the whole block.

The "inversed" version of the Emperor Pyraminx Ultimate(7x7x7 triangular centers, 8 of them) was made from an 8x8x8 by Ilya Toporgilka in 2021. It has proportional pieces.

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Thank you to the following people for their assistance in helping collect the information on this page: Andreas Nortmann.

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