Metor Madness

Bram · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 3:53 pm

Here is a video of the new Meteor Madness puzzle, as made by TomZ. It's an 'unbandaging' of the Jumbleprism, which you can see a video of here. The Jumbleprism is hard to get to do much of anything because it's so bandaged, but it does have an interesting parity flip which I wasn't able to make happen, but Oskar got to happen as the result of a whole lot of random fiddling.

Jared · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:05 pm

I can't make out much from the videos... have you got any close-up pics?

Bram · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:34 pm

Here are some renderings which should be easier to make out.

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Meteor Madness.jpg [ 85.67 KiB | Viewed 1025 times ]

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Meteor Madness - turned.jpg [ 84.66 KiB | Viewed 1022 times ]

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Meteor Madness - mechanism.jpg [ 57.77 KiB | Viewed 1030 times ]

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Meteor Madness - parts.jpg [ 69.56 KiB | Viewed 1021 times ]

flambore · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:51 pm

Wow! Very nice!

AutoCuber · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 5:54 pm

Very nice! Except, is the ball just to support the pieces moving.

Bram · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 6:41 pm

The ball is the core, it holds the pieces in much like the core of a rubik's cube does.

It's spherical because all proper shells should be spherical. In this case it probably just plain wouldn't work if it were non-spherical, but even the rubik's cube would work much better with proper spherical parts.

Jared · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 7:02 pm

Ah, I think I see now. Thanks for the pics! Wonderful design. Any plans to make these available?

kastellorizo · **Posted:** Fri Apr 03, 2009 11:47 pm

Bram wrote:

In this case it probably just plain wouldn't work if it were non-spherical, but even the rubik's cube would work much better with proper spherical parts.

I strongly agree with both points. There is a lot to learn from the structure of the Meteor Madness.

Pantazis

TomZ · **Posted:** Sat Apr 04, 2009 1:14 am

Actually, in a rage of money saving I went with a five armed core instead of the ball. But I don't think it made much difference.

The geometry used in this puzzle is really crazy. You have some amazing ideas, Bram.

flambore · **Posted:** Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:56 am

And you have some amazing CAD skills to be able to make this design a reality, Tom. Well done both of you.

TomZ · **Posted:** Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:59 am

flambore wrote:

And you have some amazing CAD skills to be able to make this design a reality, Tom. Well done both of you.

That's not quite true, I didn't do the designing on this one. Oskar designed this puzzle and asked me to prototype it for him after seeing my lecture at the DCD. As it turns out I'm not the best caster (and Oskar isn't the most experienced 'twisty' puzzle designer either for that matter) and I still have to learn a lot so it didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped it would. I had some real difficulties casting the thinner parts of the pieces.

Blazemann · **Joined:** Fri Nov 28, 2008 1:23 am

Bram wrote:

... but even the rubik's cube would work much better with proper spherical parts.

Hence the V-Cube 3.

TomZ · **Posted:** Sun Apr 05, 2009 1:17 am

Blazemann wrote:

Bram wrote:

... but even the rubik's cube would work much better with proper spherical parts.

Hence the V-Cube 3.

Uhm... No. The V3 would be conical.

Metor Madness

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