Designed by mf8

Finally! an FTI that will probably be mass-produced!
Though I would have preferred the shallower cut version, I'm not complaining.

Oh my God! Mass produced DeFTI! You're a good company mf8, I think many would appreciate you asking Eitan (pirsquared on the forum) for permission to produce this.

WHAT!

No way! All I can say is, I told you so!

I sure hope Eitan will be credited or at least receive royalties on this one.

Unless Eitan gets royalties, I'm not so happy about this... at all.

Otherwise I really hope it'll be mass-produced!

Finally a mass produced FTI, however I am a bit surprised that it wasn't simply a shapemod of the rex dodecahedron aka Radiolarian (2, I think). I hope that it is released soon and that Eitan will get the royalties he deserves.

Sick! I will buy. Please under $50.

Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm hoping for the same thing. I didn't get the news until I got an urgent call from Eric around noon today (he probably tried to reach me on gmail chat, but I was "busy"... which means I was playing Portal 2. ). He has reason to be worried too, since the Pentagram is just a shape mod of the DeFTI, so they might try to make that next.

I sent a PM to MF8, asking whether they'd be open to at least changing the name. Since I didn't have any intellectual property protection on the puzzle, I have no right to demand royalties, but I was the first person to make it, so I feel it would be courteous of them to at least put my name on it.

I suggested "Eitan's Icosahedron" or "Cher's Icosahedron" (my last name is Cher, pronounced "chair") or "Eitan's DeFTI".

In addition to the awesomeness of having my name on a mass-produced puzzle I designed (or more accurately, "inspired", since this one will probably have a different mechanism from mine, due to the nature of the different material), this would also look FANTASTIC on my resume.

I'll let you guys know when he replies.

-Eitan

Do you believe in life after cubes?

I finally break down and order Oskar's Icosaix on shapeways, and this news breaks, however I think a of this variety would be a better looking puzzle:


Still, I'm happy to be soon receiving Oskar's version, as its lack of star points makes it highly unique.

Someone asks in another mf8 thread how it is possible mf8/Dayan have released so many new puzzles in rapid succession. I don't know which is worse: knowing about new puzzles in advance and waiting a long time to purchase, or not knowing about the puzzles and dreaming about what they may be, aka meffert's "12 puzzles in 12 months" 2010?

As Rox (katsmom) would say "all cats are out of the bag"

no.... way....

finally

perfect!

thank you mf8!

This is awesome.
No more words.

Hey guys,

I got an email from Matin at MF8 yesterday, and here is the general gist of it. He said that he had not seen it on the forum, so he had not known it had been made before. This is understandable, since I gave it the name "DeFTI" which is hard to connect with "Icosahedron" in a search. MF8 also said that they'd be happy to change the name, since i was first to make it, and they even said that they'll send me some copies of it when it comes out!

This is more than I asked for, and it makes me really happy and excited for when this comes out. This has reinforced my impression of MF8 as a company that cares about puzzle designers, and wants to keep producing things legitimately, (unlike some other companies we know of and won't mention here).

Thank you MF8!

For the name of the puzzle, I'm debating between "Eitan's FTI" and "Eitan's Icosahedron". (To learn how to pronounce my name correctly, watch the last 10 seconds of my Twisty Puzzles a la Vi video. It's different from what you'd expect.)

The problem with "Eitan's FTI" is that no one outside of the forum will know right off the bat what an FTI is. What do you guys think?

-Eitan

I think however you go, that was very cool of MF8 and I can't wait to order it.

How about IcosaEitan ( i.e. Icoasa8on as it should be pronounced).
Anyone outside this forum wouldn't know an FTI if it hit them in the face, so you shouldn't worry about that or pronunciation for that matter.
They would just buy it anyway as it is so pretty.
I know I will.

very nice gesture! Well I would say since you are the creator of the original, you will have to come up with the name It would be most nice to keep the original name. But for commercial reasons something catchy such as "Eitan's Star" or something would be nice!

MF8, you're doing some really awesome stuff this year. You've come a long way from making megaminxes!

At last, we will all be able to own every face turning platonic solid. That is indeed a huge milestone! Until 2009-2010 no one had even built a face turning icosahedron.

Eitan's Icosahedron is as good a name as you can get by putting your name. You are probably used to this by now, but your name's pronunciation will be slaughtered so Eitan's Icosahedron is as close as it'll get to simple.

That thing looks too complicated in my opinion. Not to sound pessimistic, but I think this one won't be bought by a large consumer body. But who knows? Teraminx was a success.

Unless you count Jürgen Brandt's version.

Ok now I'm very happy!!

I'll definitely be ordering one!

I want to support this name! Maybe, somebody can make a tutorial (in English) to take away the fear that this complex beast will remain unsolved forever?
The Teraminx is easy from a solution point of view. Most buyers will have known that they can solve it, before buying it.
BTW, is Eitan's Icosahedron on Gelatinbrain?

Yes. It's 2.1.3.

Actually, it's not even that hard to solve! Though I haven't solved it on gelatinbrain yet, I have solved 2.1.1 and I have all the algorithms for it ready. I think as long as there will be some good tutorials and maybe some good posts here on the forum (it's already been mentioned several times in the Gelatin brain's applet thread, but is maybe a bit too complicated for the average solver), people should be able to solve it.

Also, MF8; thank you so much for respecting Eitan and for making this puzzle available to all of us in a legitimate way. I will definitely be purchasing it when it is released!

Not that hard to solve for someone who has solved more than 200 puzzles on the applet so far. I don't know exactly how many you got. But you have been known as a pro in this, Katja.
I would argue that this will be one of the most difficult mass produced puzzles. As a matter of fact, I can't think of a more difficult one right now. Maybe the Square One though. No not really, I just never worked on that one consitently. Yes, with a bit of discussion and Tutorials people will solve it. But figuring the algs out takes a while even if you are into this art and going through a whole solve, even when you are given the algs, will take a WHILE.
So this is definetely not just a toy but a real challange for most people I guess.

The actual FTI can jumble while the java simulator in Gelatinbrain cannot.(tell me if I'm wrong)
I think jumbling will make it much more interesting as what happened in helicopter.

The jumbling on this puzzle is certainly really fun. I can't wait to get it in ABS plastic! I kind of like "Eitan's Star" as much as I like "Eitan's Icosahedron". I'll keep thinking about it.

-Eitan

I vote for "Eitan's Icosahedron"

Yes, it jumbles! Highlighted in red is the region shared between faces 1 & 2. Boundary of faces 1 & 2 are shown in blue for clarity. If we rotate face 1 some irrational angle so that the region highlighted in yellow is shifted to the original red location, Face 2 can then be rotated freely, albeit with a corner and center swapped places. The puzzle is now jumbled.

As others have pointed out, Gelatinbrain's 2.1.3 is this puzzle. It's a slightly easier than 2.1.2 because it is missing those three edge pieces on each face.

I agree that this will be the most complex/difficult mass-produced twisty puzzle yet available. Even ignoring jumbling most people will find solving those 60 tiny 2-color triangle wedges that touch the corners extremely difficult. The setup moves on this puzzle are a bit strange and sometimes you have to do a whole bunch of extra moves to get a piece in the right place to cycle it. Jumbling might make solving these small triangle wedges easier.

I'm not sure how much trouble jumbling will cause on this puzzle. There aren't any orbits to worry about so the difficulty will probably be in jumbling.

I'm wondering if you can twist a single corner using jumbling moves by putting an invisible opposite twist in one of the centers?

Anyways, I'm very excited about the prospect of physically solving an FTI.

I have settled on the name "Eitan's Star". Let's start using that name so that it sticks.

Thanks.

-Eitan

Nice to hear this!!! I kinda of made it up in the very second I wrote it and I liked it a whole lot!
I feel honered I kind of baptised this puzzle! and I really cant wait to purchase one!

all I ask for now, is that it will be in black plastic and 20 different colors vinyl stickers...

I'm starting like MF8 a lot now! And congrats to Eitan! This is all fantastic!

I think Eitan's Star has a nice ring to it.

Congratulations, Eitan!


I always intended to make a rev 2 of this puzzle, for sale on Shapeways. But I have not had time, and Jason's FTI beat mine by a few days anyway.

But out of curiosity... how many takers would I get for this, at ~$300?

For the record, I prepared a single picture with all 9 FTIs currently in existence:



JB = Jürgen Brandt; JS = Jason Smith; BH = Bob Hearn;
EC = Eithan Cher; OvD = Oskar van Deventer;

row 1 is shallow cuts
row 2 is midway cuts
row 3 is deep cuts

enjoy !

I am so thrilled some of these are going to be mass produced...!

You forgot Jurgen Brandt's Face Turning Icosahedron (basically a shape mod of a Dino Dodecahedron).

Hey everyone. Here is some more news:

There were some people here who expressed the opinion the I should ask for royalties on the puzzle. There are some puzzles for which it is very clear when someone has the right to ask for royalties, like on Tony Fisher's Fisher Cube, and Drew's Rex Cube, where they used the exact mechanism. Unfortunately this is more of a gray area, where the puzzle will look exactly the same on the outside, but will have a different mechanism. Also, since I never got any kind of IP protection, (I am not even sure what kind I could have gotten), it's another toughie.

I thought about what I would like to get out of this experience, and I realized that at this point in my career, it is more important to me to get my name out there than to make money. Therefore I decided not to fight for any kind of royalties, even if there is a chance that I could have gotten them, in return for credit on the finished puzzle, and on the description on their website. So I sent the following email to Martin at MF8:



I got an email back confirming his agreement.

He also asked me if I could send him a logo that he could put either on a sticker or on the puzzle itself (I'm not sure which he has in mind). For most of my puzzles I have usually used the design in my forum avatar, which is an ambigram of my name (if you've read Angels and Demons, you'll know that means it says my name with 180 degree rotational symmetry). Do you think this is a good logo to use?

Thanks

-Eitan

Sounds like a very good logo to use, similar to Oskar's signature on the puzzles Meffert's made for him. (Off topic: I love ambigrams, I have one of my name that I use all the time.)

I personally think that it is a great logo. It is unique from other logos and has a bit of a story to it that makes it personal to you. It is definitely recognizable and holds a lot of potential for creating that sort of "personal entity" that a logo helps to solidify. These are my thoughts at least.

If I had the cash...

But honestly, why not just put it up anyway? There isn't already one up on Shapeways. If someone buys it, that's great, but if nobody does, you haven't lost anything... right?

You're right in that it would not be a money-making venture in any case. But the fact is it would take a lot of effort for me to do the v2, to make the turning smooth enough, and it's just not worth my time if nobody is interested anyway.

For someone like Oskar, or many other designers here, who do a lot of puzzles, it might not be a big deal -- they have their tools and workflow down. But this was my first design, and it required a lot of effort. E.g., I was unable to get Rhino to fillet the pieces, so I wrote my own stl filleting post processor. It's not great, but it was more or less good enough. But that's just one of many steps I'd have to repeat after tweaking the profile curve and adjusting the tolerances. I don't have any of those steps automated. Plus I haven't touched any of those tools in a year.

I would recommend not using that ambigram and coming up with something else. Maybe something as simple as an "8" could suffice.

πr² is a great logo. Just "Eitan" is simple enough, as simple as Oskar's signature on the Gear Cube

Maybe just use your normal signature instead of the ambigram.

I think your ambigram is very cool but it does take a bit of focus to pull Eitan out of it. I am slightly ashamed to admit that I didn't notice the rotational symmetry until somewhat recently.

When mf8 works with DaYan, they say mf8+DaYan as the logo. You're real name works better with mf8.

I propose mf8ton (well, that's how it would sound phonetically, I don't know how you would like to spell it).

I love your logo, it's awesome. If you `are` worried about readability, and I don't really want to mess with something so personal, but if you are worried I quickly photoshopped some ideas?

I'd just hate you not to use it because of readability. Black on white on a white sticker, nice.
BTW the puzzle will be AWESOME!!

Rubik's Cube
Eitan's Star

Cheers,
Burgo.

Wow! I like the one labeled "Eitan 2". Thanks Burgo!