More pics later after I've dyed it black and stickered it, but I just couldn't wait. It works!



Update: Here is the video!

OK, finally it is dyed and stickered! Here are some more pics:





Here it is with some icosahedral siblings. The one on the right you know; the one on the left is Wayne Daniel's All Five puzzle.



Finally here it is for scale with a Rubik's Cube and a C4U Gigaminx.



Mine is a fair amount smaller than Jason's -- it has an edge length of 53.3mm; Jason's is 65mm. That makes Jason's about 80% larger by volume.

Turning is very smooth, as smooth as any other puzzle I have -- but only when it is precisely aligned. Unfortunately the many tiny sharp-angled offset edges (Jason's "star arms") catch very easily. And when they do, they easily twist out of place. From what I know of Jason's design -- I am very eager to see it in person! -- his mechanism is more robust, with the corners and small edges anchored more deeply.

My design is actually a second iteration, though I didn't build the first one. This was as robust as I could see how to make it. As this is my first twisty design of any complexity, I'm absolutely thrilled that it works. I was pretty trepidatious about ordering a full print, not having any real experience with how to select appropriate tolerances, filleting, etc. In fact, the tolerances (0.1mm everywhere) were too low in some places, and it took some sanding. Also I think it's probably under-filleted. The real test, of course, will be in the scrambling and solving -- is the turning quality good enough to solve it? Jason says he's afraid to scramble his. But really, it is supposed to be a puzzle, not just an engineering challenge! I'll report back when I've solved mine.

I had originally planned to open this up for sale on Shapeways. However, before I do that it would at least require some retolerancing, and I'm not sure the turning quality is really good enough for public consumption anyway. Plus, Jason has a probably superior design, which I think he might sell in limited quantities.

Nonetheless, if there is sufficient interest, I will do the retolerancing and tweak the filleting, and open it up for sale. The price would be $300 (unassembled!).

As you all know, this is the last of the Platonic solids to be made into a Rubik's Cube analog. Amazingly, it took 30 years to happen, and was then done twice within three days of each other! I actually have sketches of this design going back to 1981. I didn't have the mechanism completely worked out, and I didn't really see it as feasible to build anyway. But when I discovered twistypuzzles.com, and saw the kinds of things people were doing these days, I knew immediately what my first big project would be. Thanks very much to everyone who's posted tutorials (especially Drew) or answered questions.

Great!!! But you said that it'll be in black...

P.S. Oops , I was too excited and missed the 'dye in black' part.

Yesss... i will give anything for a copy !!!!!


im in love!!!

WOW!

I want one so bad, you did a great job making and designing it!

It looks fantastic! Congratulations Bob. I'm glad to see that we've had twins.

Wow! Another one of these! Fantastic. I love it! It seems to have sharper edges than that of Jason. I like that, since some of the pieces are really small and your puzzle is precice enough for the less filleting.
BTW what is going here? This referes to other recent topics and is therefore part- off topic but..
now even the "best puzzles of all times" are built by several people almost at the same time as if they weren't even so special.
This year is starting of like crazy.

Once it's black and stickered, it will be one of my favorites, one place above Jason's white version.
Well, I actually have to wait for an example of the turning to really compare them, I don't care THAT much about the color

Looks great, Bob! Amazing that you and Jason both built this puzzle within a week of each other. Can't wait to see it stickered!

Looks great! I can't wait to see it finished.

Alex

Looks great, Bob!
Very nice work!

-Derek

I have been standing at this bus stop for ages and now this happens. Amazing work!
Face turning Rhombic Triacontahedron anyone?

I think, that puzzle is not that far away from Starminx II.

Update: Video added!

Great!!!Considering selling it on bedard's?

It's gorgeous Bob! I love it in the black!
Congratulations!

I have actually discussed this a little bit with him and he has said that this puzzle probably cannot be cast. He will most likely open it up on shapeways if the interest is sufficient. So because this cannot be made by hand from his design, I would not expect to see it on bedardpuzzles.com

I love this puzzle even more now that it's finished.

Alex

The turning is really smooth! Nice work

Absolutely gorgeous, Bob! I always try to leave the woowing to others (even for the recent amazing designs by Jason, Aleh, Drew, Tony etc.) since compliments seem more valuable coming from fellow puzzle builders. But this time I simply couldn't keep my mouth shut...

Even more amazing that this is your first complex twisty design (not counting the dino cube). This puzzle has quickly placed itself among my 5 most wanted puzzles. Can't wait to see what you are up to next.

Saw the video awesome! Turning looks very smooth and the stickering/outer appearance look amazing! Fantastic job.

So, it's a full print?

Yep. Two of the piece types, in their current form, could not be cast in a two-part mold. One could probably be broken down into two subparts; the other I think could be tweaked to be castable. My experience casting my Dino cube taught me that good casting is hard, or at least that I still have a lot to learn at it. For this project, I didn't want to compound the complexity by casting 183 parts.

After being internally sanded and lubricated, though, I think it turns as smoothly as a cast puzzle -- when it doesn't catch. But the catching is not due to it being printed.

What did you use to dye the pieces?

Rit fabric dye. When I followed TomZ's instructions, and not the instructions on the package, it was easy. (My first test dye, the pieces came out light purple.)

Do you still have the light purple pieces

The FTI is one step closer to the deep cut vertex turning dodecahedron.

i'm always imagining getting my hands on such a puzzle with numerous cuts

One of my favorite twisty-puzzles ever made! Very cool in black. But I´m not a big fan of black sitckers on black plastic. 10-color is probably the better choice though.

Yeah, I had some purple, but it was a different thickness from the other colors, and I couldn't get the vinyl cutter settings right before I used it up. I do have 14 more colors on the way from Cubesmith. Also I'm currently solving it in its 10-colored state. I'll decide then whether to just replace the black or make it 20-colored.

Great! and good luck with that. Only 4 people have solved the virtual version on gelatinbrains java applet page: http://users.skynet.be/gelatinbrain/App ... anking.htm (scroll down to 2.1.1) And the fastest time is over two hours!

I got about halfway done, then lost my place in a transform... it was slow going, because of the need to carefully align it between turns. So I took it apart to increase the filleting on some key edges.

But I'm pretty sure I have all the necessary transforms worked out, and none of them seem that complicated. It's just that there's so many pieces! To me it looks like corners -> edges -> wing edges -> faces is the logical order.

BTW I find the way it looks scrambled strangely appealing, more than other twisty puzzles, possibly because of the contrast between sticker shapes and sizes. Reminds me of stained glass. Jason notes that there are many golden ratios hiding in the sticker area relationships.

i feel crazy to look at this cube...

I really like that scrambled picture!

Nice job Bob!

-Delbert

Bay-area TechShop members (I knowthere are a few here), I'll have this at TechShop tonight for the member mixer.