Yup, I've been away from the forums for some time now--things dragged me away from the puzzle game, but I have had a little spare time as of late, and have been finishing up my incomplete projects from last year. Tonight I finished this one. Can you guess what the mechanism(s) are?

Enjoy!

[EDIT: I've taken some clearer pictures and included a video as well]













The movement is GREAT, by the way!

what is the mechanism? A square 1 ?

what is the name?

Nice puzzle

Square-1 + puck?

Really clever idea!

I'd like to see some more pictures please.

Thomas

Nice! Looks really cool.
It's a "Brick-1"

I guess it is a four layer puck, since I think the square one mech is impossible for 4 layer, a 4 layer square 1 is made from a puck

I'm certainly not sure how you have done this, but I have recently been considering a simplified version of this sort of thing (i.e. it didn't occur to me to "wall cube" it).

I wanted to do a four layer square-1 type puzzle but with two vertical rotation planes. I have done no work on this whatsoever (other than a bit of thinking). The two methods I was considering were:

1. Bandaging a rubiks 4x4x4, so the middle two layers are effectively 2x2x2, but splitting the top and bottom layers so that the pieces didn't rotate 90 degrees, but by 30/ 60 degrees a bit like your puzzle. I'm not sure if the top and bottom centres could be modified to do this.

2. Modify an Eastsheen 2x2x2, but extend it top and bottom with a L-shaped groove/ hook, (I think like 2x2x4 are usually extended). With the groove/hook extension method there is no reason why the extensions should have 90 degree rotations.

The second of these would probably be my best guess.

Nice Puzzle by the way, executed really neatly. I love it when we are kept guessing as to the construction method. Congratulations!

Hi, is it fully functional? I mean the 2nd and 3rd layer, are they different from a square-1 middle layer?

If so, I think that the core could be a UFO mech (with top and bottom layer added square-1 style?)

Oh my!
I love this thingy, whatever it is!
It might be a combination of UFO in the centre and square-1 outside???
Great work anyway!
Vadim

It can't be a puck, or a Square-1 mech, because there is no place to rotate the mechanism to allow all the pieces to be scrambled. Puck and Square-1 pieces might have been used, but their mechanisms were not.


I'm guessing it's a 4 layer UFO.

[EDIT] Great Job of course, and welcome back. I was afraid you had died or something.

Also, I noticed the layers are 'walled' in a fashion that the pieces are identical, just rotated 180 degrees. Was this done so less molds had to be made?

Dead?!? Sorry to disappoint, but I'm alive and well

For those of you that guessed correctly, good work! It doesn't pay the rent, but it's always still nice to be correct. And here, being correct means noticing that this is a combo of a UFO "middle" with a square one mechanism attached as well. Technically, two square ones, as there are only 8 60 degree bits on a square-1, I used 12 of them.

For construction, no moulding was done at all. This puzzle was built from 3mm ABS plate, with polyester filler used to fill in the non-loaded gaps. The puzzle was then painted, clear-coated, and sticker-ed.

I got a new camera that allows me to take decent pictures and videos even, but the batteries were dead when I took the above blurry pictures, so I'll put both up tomorrow. After that, me being me, I will be putting it up for sale.

Thanks for the compliments, I'm glad you all like it.

Cheers!

Oh come on! Please admit that you had used the Astrolabacus mech!

On a serious note... Great puzzle!!!




Pantazis

Congrats on another great looking puzzle, i'm using the same mech for a couple puzzles that i'm building right now. perhaps i could ask you which way you attached the square 1 to the ufo.

It's a testament to the builder's distinctive creativity: I clicked this topic without noticing who wrote it, but when I saw the picture I immediately thought "Hey, that looks like something the.drizzle would build!"

My respect,
there are not too many puzzles using either of these mechs, esp the UFO. To combine them is an intelligent evolution step.
This shows, that the ideas to use existing puzzle cores are still not exhausted.

More of this!

- Frank -

UFO + Square-1 was my guess as well. Nicely executed.

I can guess how the mechanisms were combined. Take a UFO, make it square. Attach the sq1 "rails" to the top and bottom, then thread on shortened sq1 pieces on to those.

I was completely wrong! I am not surprised, I have never seen a UFO puzzle except in pictures.

This idea has so many possibilities. The Square-1 rails could be added to other base-puzzles for all sorts of interesting new concepts.

I hope more work will be forthcoming from the.drizzle!

Good stuff.

Sorry, total bumpage on my part, but I was so pleased that I got a video of this puzzle working that I just had to share it

Cheers!

wow, very cool to see it in action

This is a beautiful puzzle. Great work and I hope you show us more about how it was made. looks great!

And the name is?

Square-1^4 ?

the drizzle´s cube?

UFO-1 ?

Square-UFO ?

(oh, I forgot my compliments to the.drizzle for the smart building! )

Brick-1?

I like "the.drizzle's four layer thing"

nice puzzle!