a while back i spent some time and made a 3x3 cube, completely out of Legos. Needless to say the turning quality was AWFUL. it was 12x12x12 Lego snaps wide and was "fully functional" (it fell apart after every other turn XD)

I never took the time to sticker it because the turning quality was just so bad a solve would be impossible

But i challenge anyone with a good Lego collection to build one that works pretty well. I want to see what you guys come up with.

I am going to go build one.

Thanks for the pics .

I have a big box of lego's in my basement so I might give it a try if I have time.

Did the pieces fall out of the cube on yours, or did the legos themselves come apart?

the core would fall apart because the lego axles didn't have enough friction to stay in

I might try this....

First off, I must commend you on actually building a fully-functional cube core entirely out of legos. I believe that many of the videos previously seen on youtube involve cube mods in which the faces have been capped with skinny legos.

One problem with Legos in general is that it is very difficult to make perfect cubes with them. The height of a standard 1x1x1 brick is just shy of 150% it's width and depth. The skinny plates are 1/3 the standard height of a normal brick, but two overlaid are slightly smaller than the width of a block, so no exact cubes, unfortunately. I'm not sure what the exact ratios are, either.

There is also the issues of bumps and such, which are conducive to the locking together of the bumps/holes, but don't glide very well. Therefore, all the pieces will have to use the much rarer slick-top pieces. Looking at your design, I am much impressed by your usage of the 2x2 and 4x4 round Lego pieces to help to negate the effects of hard edges slamming together. I'd imagine that your corner hooks catch a lot on those "bent pipe" pieces embedded within the edges. Have you considered using diagonal-cut Lego bricks (which are often used as roofing tiles and such) in place of the bent-pipe pieces? Also considering the fact that you are limited to whole units with the overhangs, gives little margin for error. You can't very well have an overhang of 1.5 Lego units...

I have a theory about what may make a better design, but it would require a larger cube size: I've always dreamt about building a "frictionless" cube that maintains a very small empty space between the cubies. Rather than the puzzle relying on large surfaces sliding across one another to support the mechanism, instead wheels or ball bearings could be employed. There would always be a small air space between the layers, with contact supplied by wheels embedded into the edge and corner pieces. The difference in terms of friction would be quite dramatic, imagine that you had to haul your luggage on a flat-bottom raft, dragging it across city streets. The forces of friction would be terrible! Now add wheels to the sides of the raft and you get a free-towing trailer that offers very little in terms of resistance.

I believe that such a cube would rotate almost effortlessly, and Legos would be the perfect medium to employ the tiny wheels and axels embedded into the cubies. There is a large assortment of lego wheels available, which could potentially improve your design idea. You could use the shock-absorber struts, or tiny rubber bands, to supply the necessary tension to hold the parts flush together.

Very good work! Building a Lego cube is a hard task, I have built two cubes of other people so far, both did not really work: http://users.skynet.be/maarten.steurbau ... _small.jpg
and http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/sebas ... ubik18.jpg
And there are 4 or 5 other ones.
I also tried making one but I had always problems keeping everything together.
However I started making cuboids which is easier (and they turn really well). Right now the biggest one I designed is the 2x2x5 Would love to see a video of yours.

Wow, only from Legos? No Glue? This is amazing.

Quite a word wall there stardust. But yes with Legos it is difficult to make a perfect square but is is indeed possible (the cube I made is fully proportional) For anyone attempting to make this it is possible if you have the equivalent of five of the 1/3 bricks with a smooth 1/3 brick on top.

Now stardust the ideas of wheels is excellent and i will attempt to implement it if i ever take another stab at making one of these again. it actually may be the best way to remove friction from the turning surfaces.

I made a video of this but i think i deleted it and the cube is now disassembled so unfortunately, no video for now.

and ztwist there is no glue or tape. this is completely Legos.

http://goldfish.ikaruga.co.uk/rubik.html

This was just an attempt to make one.

http://users.skynet.be/maarten.steurbaut/Rubik_Cube.htm

A slightly larger one.

http://users.skynet.be/maarten.steurbau ... _Small.htm

This was an attempt to make the smallest possible one.

There was a smaller one.
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/sebas ... ubik01.jpg

I made one it does not really turn