Thought of this one, has it been done before?






If not unfused cube sounds pretty good to me. Again sorry its a pretty crude design. After I finish a nice looking AI cube I will make a nice one of these.

Another great design! I don't think I've seen this done before either. It reminds me a lot of a bandaged cube. I'm trying to visualize how this would be solved and it looks like a lot of fun. I wonder what you'll create next!

i havent seen this myself..looks good..would like to see the 2nd of this one too

Dpurdu, I am afraid you are not the first one, building this mod.

But don't care about it. Great minds work the same.
I was so stupid, that I didn't register in this forum and not to show it to the audience here for the last year.
The name "3 Quads Cube" I have given this mod is far to obvious. So I would appreciate some better ideas, too.

To Sean:
In my opinion it is harder than a bandaged Cube. It took my 2 months (with an average of 1 hour per day) to solve this beast after I had it scrambled.

Andreas

Dpurdu's puzzles remind me of Frank Lloyd Wright's stained glass designs. How about a name like "FLRight" or "FLwR" or "flWr".

(Sorry for the bad pun. I just couldn't help myself.)

I decided to build one of these cubes a few weeks ago, and indeed, it is very complex to solve. I have solved it two times so far... but I still do not have a general algorithm for all cases.

I would be interested in hearing how people rate the relative complexity of the different bandaged cubes. Obviously, there are two very different cases here: a) How difficult was to find the general solution algorithms in the first place, and b) How difficult it is to solve once the general solution has been found.

If we restrict ourselves to the family of bandaged 3x3x3s we have:
- Bandaged cube, produced by Meffert (does anybody know who invented this one?)
- Special 2x2x2
- Fisher's 2 cube
- Unfused / 3 Quads cube
- others I'm missing?

Based on my own experience, the Bandaged cube is the most complex of them all, with Fisher's 2 cube as a close second.

Any other opinions?


Jorge

It may have been Raoul Raba, the inventor of the Rotascope:
Cubic Circular 5/6, page 6
It is not clear though whether it was his idea to cut up the 2x2x2 block at the rear of the picture shown there.

Here are my 2 cents.

The special 2x2x2 is by far the easiest 3x3x3-Mod I have ever seen, besides the all-stickers-in-one-color cubes.
Besides that: It depends on whether you consider computer calculations as fair methods. If not, I will agree and Mefferts Bandaged Cube is the one of the hardest puzzles.

When computer puzzling is allowed, this puzzle becomes fairly easy with only 360 possible permutations after fixing the orientations of faces and placing the seventh block opposite to the single free corner.

In that case I consider a puzzle as the hardest that is not one your list: Think of the 3 Quads Cube and now glue three of the remaining corners to one edge cubie. On this cube you can still do all the things possible on a standard cube (position and orientation of the unglued corners and egdes) and you are even more restricted as with the 3 Quads Cube.

A word to the Fisher2 Cube:
When you compare the two pictures here one twistypuzzles:
http://twistypuzzles.com/cgi-bin/puzzle.cgi?pid=614
and on Dodds website:
http://home.wwdb.org/drsevern/rubik/C-Fisher_2.jpg
the two puzzles are different.
That leads to question: Which one needs to be renamed or are they both the same and the photos are just shot from different views?

Those two pictures don't offer enough information. The pink face in Dodd's picture would be the face on the puzzle opposite the green face in the TwistyPuzzles picture. The other two faces shown in each picture match correctly.

Sandy

The top and bottom layers are the same, but the middle layer is different. The one here on twistypuzzles has the middle layer unfused, but Dodd's has two edge-center fused pieces.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "placing the seventh block".

Playing with the 3 Quads cube I've found that sometimes I get to a position in which only 2 edges and 2 corners have exchanged positions. (All of them on the same side of the cube where there is a Y made by the free cubies).

This permutation of cubies appears to be not solvable by moving only the three faces where the 3 squares appear, and requires messing up with the 2x2 block on the other side...

Have you experienced this situation?


Thanks,
Jorge

Browsing through the puzzle database I just realized that the Windmill Cube is also a kind of bandaged puzzle (the middle layer has the four centers bandaged to one edge each).

I know the list of potentially doable bandaged cubes is extremely large... But restricting ourselves to the ones actually built we would have:

Meffert's Bandaged cube
Fisher's 2 cube
Dodd's variation to Fisher's 2 Cube
Windmill cube
3-Quad cube
Fused cube
Special 2x2x2

Does anybody know of any others actually built by somebody?

Nice to see that I am not the only one who seems interested in bandaged cubes.



Look at Jaap's solution page:
http://www.geocities.com/jaapsch/puzzles/bandage.htm
I meant the block he calls "LBD piece"



I think you are right: You have to mess up the 2x2x2-Block.
On this cube I did "corners first" strategy, although on this cube the term "last layer" makes no sense:
-place the corners
-orient the corners
-place the edges
-orient the edges

maybe you can post a picture of your actual configuration?
I touched this cube last time a year ago. Therefore it was difficult to understand even my crude notices.

Andreas

I am afraid, that is not true: When you look at the pictures in scrambled state, it is easy to see, that the centers can be separated of their neighbors. Anyway: such a bandaged cube wouldn't make any sense because the four blocks (each consisting of a center and an edge cubie) would block any possibility to turn a face other than UP and DOWN.



Maybe it is not as big as you think. In fact there are only "a mere" 7336 variants. Inlcuding the standard (non bandaged) Cube and other fooleries like a "Master Boob".



Others are:
-The Siamese/Triamese/Quintamese Cubes
-The Barbell Cube (in the database)
-The variants of Duane Cash:
http://www.dilaigraphics.com/rubix_shop.htm

This variants are built of more than one cube, but since it is never possible to exchange cubies between them, you can take one standard cube, glue the correct cubies together and you get a functional equivalent.

The 1x3x3 built by Juozas Granskas is a bandaged Cube...

and there are the cubes you can see in the attachment.

Wow! That is an impressive collection of bandaged cubes. I see one that looks like it operates like a Fisher 2, and one homemade version of the Meffert version. I've never really thought about bandaged cubes that much but after seeing that picture, my curiousity is piqued.

That is really impressive!!

Is that your own collection or someone else's?

Which ones are your favorites? Which ones are the most challenging ones?

I have to admit I am also a fan of bandaged cubes (although so far I only have 3...). To me, it is a great and easy way to create completely new Puzzles that force us to re-learn and invent solutions from scratch (same feeling and experience as when we all confronted The Cube for the first time).

I too, must express my excitement on your Bandage Collection! Makes me want to buy up several dozen cheapies and some glue!

Has anyone ever calculated how many bandaged variations could possibly be made with a standard 3x3x3?

(and yes, you must show your work... )

_pink

Correct impression on the Fisher 2! (BTW: it is the variant presented here on twistypuzzles )
With the homemade Meffert version there is a misunderstanding:
The cube in the bottom row (fourth from left) is the official Mefferts cube; my fault, that I took it in here.
The cube two rows higher is my so called "Half-Bandaged cube". Some detailed pictures are attached.
Again two rows higher and one column to the right is the "Bandaged Fused cube". Again some detailed pictures are attached.

Maybe I should have shot some other pictures from different angles and some from the back


Indeed! They are MINE!


My favorite is still the original bandaged cube from Mefferts because it is by far the smoothiest turning one of all seen.
The most challenging one is the one which still has no name but which i tried to described in a post above. It is in the second row from the bottom and in the fourth column from the left. Again some pictures are attached


I love them out of the same reasons. There is nothing more to add.



You got me.
I am going to start a new thread for that topic.

Hi entor_perdia,

Great collection!

Are those stickers made of colored duct tape? (That's what they look like in the photos.) If not, what is the sticker material? If so, how well does it hold up, how easy is it to work with? Whatever it is, I like the texture!

Doug.

It is colored duck tape.
It holds up very good but it is difficult to work with. You can forget precutting and then placing the stickers on the cube. It dealt with this by taping a whole face at once and then cutting the stickers directly one the cube.
You get some "scars" in the cubes plastic but that doesn't effect the functionality and since it gives the cubes together with the mentioned texture some kind of personality I tolerate it.