Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

The Heptagon is a twisty puzzle of the Hockey Puck type. It is a variation of The Pentagon, but with seven-fold symmetry now. The Heptagon jumbles, which results in some unexpected states and moves.

The core of the puzzle is sphere that is cut in two halves and topped off to create two centers. The core has a set of dovetail-style grooves. Twenty-eight hidden edge pieces slide in these grooves. The puzzle has fourteen corners. I used CADding to have the corners move smoothly over and under eachother. The object of the puzzle is of course to scramble the puzzle and they to try and solve it.

Each move either turns a center with seven corners, or a side with four corners. Each side can be turned by 180 degrees, which is a regular move. But a side can also be turned by +/- 90 degrees, which are jumbling moves. Once there are corners turned by 90 degrees, then some of the side turns are blocked. This feels like bandaging, but as this puzzle cannot be unbandaged, Bram Cohen calls it "jumbling".

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle from my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

great job
i've been waiting on some more of these odd number of symmetry puzzles

great - this is the kind of twisty puzzles I like -

I love the puzzle. I just don't like the jumbling. To me jumbling doesn't appear to give a skill in a mechanism, even though you could probably easily do that.

Very nice...I took a look at the 3D view on shapeways and the mechanism is designed very professionally...especially how the big centers are hollowed out

I would've never thought that would shapeshift. Amazing stuff as usual.

Great work.

love it! I love jumbling because I think designing a puzzle that jumbles shows ingenuity!

Amazing! And it Jumbles Too! Great puzzle Oskar, the turning is pretty good.

to me, this doesn't seems like a jumbling puzzle, (in my head) this could be shape modded so that it was just a regular puzzle. although my reasoning might be a little off =/

why is there a circle?

So you know which side the red and orange are on. It would suck if you got parity at the end. I wonder if it's possible to get parity...

Great puzzle, Oskar!

I was looking forward to seeing this one!

Great job as always, Oskar!

-π (Eitan)

Without a circle (like The Pentagon), it would not be possible to have two adjacent 90-degrees turns. The size of the circle was designed to make this move (just) possible.

You are completely right. I stand corrected. According to Bram's definition, a jumbling twisty puzzle cannot be unbandaged into a doctrinaire twisty puzzle. This puzzle can, so it does not jumble. The sketches below provide a side view of the internal sphere, showing the result of the unbandaging. It would be interesting to find out what an unbandaged The Heptagon would look like.

Oskar

I've always thought that heptagons have beautiful symmetry. Pentagons are beautiful too, but Heptagons have some very unusual geometries, such as being prime, not having any 3-dimensional analogs, being mathematically impossible to draw using a compass and straightedge (though I know of a top-secret way of doing it via Neusis construction ). 7 is also a Holy Number.

This is a really elegant puzzle. I love the idea that the corners can be rotated through a type of jumbling mechanism

And, heptagons are also the shapes of the turny handles on sinks.(one of the only things in most households that is a heptagon)