........1982- Uwe Meffert's cardboard mock up................................21st March 2008- My working puzzle

This is my fully functional realisation of Uwe's idea from 26 years ago. I have tried to make it as close to the catalogue picture as possible. As usual with my puzzles I made it entirely by hand. I am happy with the way it looks though rotational movement can only be described as poor. I am not going discuss the mechanism at this time but probably will in a week or two. I would love to make more to sell but I don't consider it currently good enough. If I have time I will look into improving it. See bottom of page for video. Please excuse dirty hands.
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.












VIDEO

thats pretty awesome

Fantastic. I'm surprised I remembered what this puzzle was from the catalog.

Hmm... I'm trying to deduce what puzzle it was made from. Possibly a plain DIY?

Of course it functions like a 3x3 extended on each face in the 3x3x5 method, who's ever it is, also with 3x3 corner permutation and orientation required.

It wouldn't be hard to solve at all, but would still be an awesome puzzle to have.

I see what you mean by the color scheme. But it still looks pretty cool.

Weird, interesting. At first I thought it must be 5x5x5 based, but that mech couldn't cope with the trunctation, so Taylor must be right I think.

It still looks like it turns pretty well if it is properly aligned. I hope any problems are minor, it would be great to see a few more of these around.

Is that Apoxie Sculpt damage to the fingers? It certainly looks like it!

I don't know how you keep coming up wit the goods!

Looks Great Tony!

I was pondering a way to make one of these also. The way I came up with is taking an ordinary 3x3x3 and extending it out the way you do a fully functional 3x3x5, but in all disections. After that you just shape the peices until you get the right shape of the Pyraminx Ultimate. The same as what Taylor said.

Another myth has turned out true!
Another legend has been discovered!
Another imaginary object has become reality!

Thank you Tony once more.

Your designs are always fantastic and mesmerize our minds!




Pantazis

WOW--is there anything that hasn't been made from the Meffert's 1982 catalogue?
Link: viewtopic.php?t=4887

download/file.php?id=2372

The barrels.

The dirty fingers are from ink.

This is great! I love the fact that you make the pieces by hand. Your builds are always amazing.

Wow! is all I can say.

amazing...

Someone had made them





As everytime, great job Tony, very clean, looks smooth to turn

That is truly amazing. I realy hope that you will produce a few of these for sale.

How is this puzzle related to the pyraminx?
For that matter, was he just using the pyraminx name on all of the puzzles in that catalogue? none of them seem related.

Provide me with a link and I'll believe it.

An ordinary Pyraminx is a 4-pointed puzzle in which the slices rovolve around each point, and the Pyraminx Ultimate is an 8-pointed puzzle in which the slices revolve around each point.

The Pyraminx Ultimate is more closely related to the Tetraminx due to the truncated tips, but the Tetraminx is unmistakably related to the Pyraminx so you could say the Pyraminx and Pyraminx Ultimate are like second-cousins.

Yeah, the main reason all the puzzles bear the Pyraminx name is Uwe Meffert thought up the puzzles and the names. But let's give Uwe Meffert the credit he deserves, and that's enough to justify the names!

It is actually a 6 pointed puzzle.

Sure enough. I didn't even count them, did I?

In that case, maybe Pyraminx Sextamate would be a more...uh...nevermind.

I think this puzzle would make a great octahedron, That would, in my opinion, be the REAL pyraminx ultimate.

Great work, as always, though.

Wow, this is excellent. I know you wanted to make it as close to the original as possible, but maybe some trivial tips should be in order..?

The name Pyraminx was just tagged onto the puzzles Meffert sold, not necessarily designed.

For example, Tony Durham designed a 4 axis puzzle. Uwe Meffert named it the Pyraminx Cube, to sell with all of his other puzzles in the Pyraminx line, and then Douglas Hofstadter named it the Skewb and the name stuck.

I did think of making an octahedral version since it looks straightforward to turn it into one. However you couldn't simply build it up since the pieces (extensions) would clash.

I was planning on making a rhombic dodecahedron version at some point, though I never actually thought of it as a Pyraminx Ultimate. I think that would look good and mostly solve the current problem of having groups of pieces entirely the same color. On the other hand it would effectively bury eight of the pieces so it could be considered a different puzzle I suppose.

Further information about my Pyraminx Ultimate and Cross Cube can be found here-

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9223

Tony,
Fantastic job. You beat me to it. I am 75% done with my version (which probably means months away anyway). I will be interested to see your mechanism if you post it. You continue to amaze me with your ability to do modeling directly. I had not expected you would tackle this (I did assume somebody would soon do it though) since it requires substantial modification of the interior which is much easier with solid modeling (assuming a 5x5x5 is not used which would be difficult at a normal rubik cubie sizes). It would not surprise me if you came up with a simple clever way to modify a 3x3x3 interior easily.
I look forward to whatever you next come up with. Beautiful puzzle!
Lee

Excellent, love it. You should collaborate with Uwe like you did with the Golden Cube to get it produced.

I showed it to Uwe and he simply said good luck with it. I assume he has no immediate interest in producing it.

I want this puzzle so bad. get Uwe to make one for Rick Mazzante and send it to: LOL

great job Tony, this is probably my favorite puzzle ever

Looks great, Tony. From one hand builder to another, I love it.

as usual, proffesional Tony
thanks for rocking the forum!!!! it's really exiting to see a post from Tony!! , sorry for my frenglish
props!