Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

Over The Top is the offical Guinness world record highest-order "Rubik's" Cube, a 17x17x17 with a total of 1539 parts.

The concept has been extensively discussed in this thread. Different design styles have been discussed in detail, like binary versus linear and pagoda-style.

When Shapeways published a blog post on the successful third prototype, it took the on-line and printed media by storm. Just search the internet for "17x17x17" and find several hundreds of related hits from different blogs and websites.

Today, I presented the prototype at the New York Puzzle Party Symposium, organized by Tom Cutrofello. This Tuesday, I shall be presenting the puzzle to anyone who wants to come to New York and join the little party organized by Shapeways.

I thank Claus Wenicker for sponsoring and building the first two prototypes, and Shapeways for sponsoring the third prototype. Without their support, Over The Top might never have seen the light of day. Again, thank you!

Watch the YouTube video.
Watch me "speedcubing" this puzzle after lubrication.
Have a look at the inside of this puzzle.
Buy the puzzle at my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Brilliance! 10 minutes, 10 members online, and no posts?

Fantastic job to both of you! You should both be proud for bringing this fantastic puzzle into the world.

I read the post, watched the video. But I didn't post coz I was speechless. The turning is better than I thought. I wonder who would be the first one in the world to properly solve it.

But it's not finished!

Sky is the first one to turn it from a "scrambled" state to solved.

I have been waiting for this for a LONG time. I love it. I am amazed by how well it turns. I can't begin to imagin what it will look like scrambled.

Incredible. Thanks for sharing, Oskar. I hope to see one of these in person someday.

All I can say is that I'm amazed, Oskar. It is absolutely amazi- wait, hold on. A black hole just appeared in the sky. Dang it, Oskar, why did you do this?

John F. Kennedy said: "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." One of those other things may have been building the 17x17x17.

Oskar

That is seriously an awesome puzzle. I am so jealous of all the people that got to see it today at the NY Puzzle Party.

-Eitan

Over the TOP. It is totally truth.
You're ROCK!
Really really wonderful work.

-JEC-

While I agree with your motives, my comment was a joke (the whole you breaking the universe thing).

I think Oskar's comment was a bit of a joke too.

I suppose you're right, I didn't think of it that way

Oskar, this puzzle is very nice. Ever since I saw the first "Over the Top" I always wondered if you would ever produce a working model.

But the question is: Do you plan to go bigger? I'm sure that a 25x25x25 wouldn't be THAT hard, would it? (Please take a nice vacation after all of your hard work)

How long total do you think you spent, start to finish, on designing, assembling, dying all 3 of these puzzles?

Congratulations! Just an outstanding achievement, and a great dedication to your father!
Cheers!

Brilliant as always ,Oskar! You are truly in a special , very elite class of designers/builders. Always a pleasure to see your work.

I assure you, Oskar is not joking.

This is legendary! Of course, it's not a puzzle to play with, although one could, as it is fully functional and moves well. This is actually a great technical achievement. The effort and a the big investment from Oskar should be admired.

Congratulations!

This is absolutely amazing.

Alex

Great work Oskar, it looks amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVid11O_ ... ture=feedu

not posted yet?

http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20440

Alex

Ahem.

Can't you get this to become an official record?

Alex

Incredible Oskar, just wow.

How much does this puzzle weigh? In the video you seem to maneuver it with great ease. I notice the holes in the peices, im sure thats to reduce weight overall.

Again, fantastic puzzle, even if its hard to turn.

Turning is great for its number of layers however due the large size its hard to turn one your own, alinement of layers is also a pain but once it starts turning it is smooth, as oskar said it better to have 4 hands

A cool thing about this cube is that you can scramble it with like 20 turns and still easily find the way back.
Try that on a 3x3x3. You wouldn't be able to scramble it any further.
Ok the 20 is exagerated. But still it's funny how after so many moves a child could still see what has been done.

That may be true, but what if most of those moves were made within the same layer? That would mean it would be just like mixing a 3x3x3. 20 moves is a lot, you know. It's easier than you might think to get lost with that many turns.

I'd love to see this thing finished.

I agree with this. I want to see that picture of you holding it in the Guiness Book of Records. Take a look here Oskar- http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/nl/

You mean this?

Incredible, Stunning, and Brilliant. Puzzle of the Decade, no doubt. Congratulations.

It looks so light...

AWESOME!!!

It weights just over 1 kilogram.Nice photoshopping, I'll hang a copy in my office

Oskar

I'll be proud if you have it in your office

I'm sorry, but your quote is not correct. It should say:

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Apparently the long and thin style of piece really does work. I have a memory of discussing that sort of mechanism, but it's like something out of a dream, I can't remember where it was or exactly who said what, I just remember the imagery of the pieces, and how they keep from rotating, and that the big issue is keeping them from slipping straight out.

Should I ask for a scrambled picture?

O YES, and then a solve vid!

One that's 16x forewarded and takes 3 hrs.
Or even better. Do you know these kind of vids on youtube where someone takes one picture of something like himself or a plant or whatever a day and than posts 2 years of progress in a sort of stop motion vid?
You could do that here. Just solve it Oksar and take one photograph a day. After a year or so you can call it a solving video. Except that Noone will ever know your 3x3x3 method because it's going to be only one picture if at all.

No one scramble it until it's finished! It's not done yet!!!

Okay, I'll bite.

What the heck are you talking about?!

If you mix this up... you'll only have to solve the centers. The reduction method is boiled into just a babyface puzzle.

Oh.

I thought that you were deeply hinting at something

I wonder when Tony will finally finish stickering his... (kidding)

Sorry for the double post, but I was just skimming the other 17x17x17 thread and found two things that I would like to share:


UMMMM, this was written before the 2nd model was announced. I'm starting to think that Tony is actually a supercomputer robot, you sure hit the nail on the head on this one...


I REALLY want to see the video of this prototype, however it is private. Oskar, could you please make it availible to viewing by only those who have the link so we can see it? You don't have too, but it would be great if you could.

Again, congrats on the AMAZING achievement.

Here you are: first prototype.

Oskar

Too bad it didn't work though

Sly has met his match looks like.

I have agreed with Oscar, that I will offer the 17x17x17 cube stickers at my shop.
Of course I do not think I'll sell many from this, but it is nice to have a puzzle sticker like this at my sticker shop.

Oscar asked me to make some Picture cube variant just for fun (and to offer really special stuff for crazy people... ).

So I have made two designs for this unique cube:

Yes, this is the good old Earth cube:
(Rubik's Cube version of a sharp-edged globe from Vadim Grishin and Walter Randelshofer.)



And my new sticker variant, the LSD cube (or RGB gradient cube)
(Rubik's Cube version of the RGB scale by Alexey Gurov.)



I hope, you like them!

PS.: The stickers will be available within a few weeks.

Nice, 17x17x17 LSD Cube is just crazy. You must have excellent color perception to correctly solve it.