Hi!

I present my new puzzle - Clockwork Master Pyraminx. It looks just like an ordinary Master Pyraminx, but there's a tricky hidden mechanism inside.

If you turn a corner, the middle layer also turns, but by a smaller angle. Every indivisible turn brings all 3 non-trivial layers to different orientation. That is, one of them stays unturned, the two others are turned by 120 degrees in opposite direction to each other. Repeating the same turn 3 times brings the puzzle back to the original state.

You can not turn the layers as freely as you may want to, but neither the puzzle is bandaged. Do we have a term for this? "Dynamic bandaging"?









YouTube VIDEO (because the pictures don't tell much in this case!)

I have been waiting to see this ever since I saw it on your shapeways page. what a puzzle!!

Woah !! That is veeeery nice !

Isn't it essentially exactly what is happening on a gear cube except for the orientation of gears?
In any case this is crazy. WHAT is happening inside?

That's awesome! Though it must be a little annoying to actually scramble and solve, since you have to turn it so many times just to get to the next turn. Have you tried to solve it?

-Eitan

My thoughts exactly... I'd be tempted to call this gear bandaging.

Carl

No, not exactly the same as the gear cube without orientation because the top face turns twice as fast compared to the second layer as the second to the third

How the...

Impressive work Timur. I too have been waiting eagerly for this puzzle to be released, and boy was it worth the wait! Excellent puzzle!

Could I suggest another version where the trivial tip is also geared to the puzzle? I know it's not really worth much because it's trivial, but it feels like the tip is a bit useless if it isn't also involved in the gearing mechanism. Who knows, it might also make it harder.

Great work, but why didn't you dye it orange? Seems like a much better choice to me.

At first I thought this was like Oskars origional geary cube But I guess that it is a little different huh? Very impressive.


If this is about the movie i think it is I just want to say yuck. I don't like that movie.

Yes, you're right, I get it.


Someone needs to explain this joke to me or what movie you are talking about.

Now Timur, I would like to know: Can you hold the bottom and turn the middle layer so that the top layer spins extremely fast? I guess you could but it wouldn't be good for the mechanism?

@ Alaskajoe: I'm pretty sure they're talking about clockwork orange Great movie !

well that was a shocking trailer.
however the puzzle could look something like this
http://www.wsoils.com.my/cone_altglass_2.png
That would fit to the gear cube's first name: caution cube and Oskar's presentation of it.

I'll show it a little bit later
Well, let me explain why the top has to be turned so many times. Let's consider the middle layer fixed. Ideally, turning speeds of the top and of the bottom face (relatively to the middle layer) should be the same so we could turn the top by 2/3 turn and the middle layer would turn by 1/3 turn. But currently I think that it is impossible (at least, with more or less simple mechanism). So, the turning speeds of the top and of the bottom layer must be proportional to 2 small natural numbers with the following properties:
1. None of them divides by 3.
2. Sum of them not does divide by 3.
If any of these requirements is not met, we will not get the required pattern (all layers are in different position) after one turn.
The smallest numbers that meet this, are 1 and 4 (the top would turn by 5/3 turn and the middle layer by 1/3 turn). I tried this design but it was not possible either, because the ratio of these numbers is too big (1:4). The next pair is 2 and 5 (ratio 1:2.5) - and that is what we have in this puzzle. That is, when the top turns by 7/3 (or 1/3), the middle layer turns by 2/3 turn.
I would agree!
I didn't dare to scramble and solve it yet, but I think it's already hard enough.
Yes, from the point of turning layers it is exactly like Geary cube. But because of the symmetry of a cube, the egdes of the Geary cube are only interchangeable within their orbits, what makes the cube much easier to solve. And of course, the mechanism itself is very different.
I'm afraid that you can not turn the middle layer very fast, because I feel that the mechanism can break. Maybe is it were made of some solider material...

Beautiful puzzle and fantastic engineering feat!

Gear cubes, clockwork pyraminxes, 4cube etc. etc. I wonder if someone will make a puzzle which is so fiendishly interconnected that nobody will be able to solve it

Wow, this is such a clever and unique puzzle. I love it.

I really want to buy both of your Master Pyraminx puzzles, they look like great challenges.

this puzzle is very cool! great work.

Very nice!

This is one puzzle where I wouldn't mind having the trivial tips not able to rotate, and attached to their bases. Then you could tell it apart from a regular Master Pyraminx.

Great! Now make a Clockwork Orange

I don't know why that is so funny. Great work Timur! I would love to see the inside of this to get a better look at the mechanism. I have an idea of what it could be, but I don't know if it's actually right.

On a side note... someone make a Clockwork Gigaminx

Here's the inside

Sweet! It doesn't even look that complex as far as number of parts is concerned and such.
I bet a clear plastic version with colored gears inside would be awesome.

Can I give you one piece of feedback: design the cap so it covers the whole piece (like on a regular pyraminx). It's not that much more work to design the caps properly and you end up with an (in my opinion) much better puzzle.
Of course, this applies to everybody who is in to puzzle design (I'm looking at you, Gear Shift )

Yes, you're right - and I've already got this advice recently Next time I'll hide the parting line below the piece.

I agree. Of course the 2 puzzles I've designed so far don't make use of any hardware and therefore don't need caps. I couldn't be more happy with the Doctor Skewb but I know the next version of the Thorny cube will need to be larger and make use of hardware plus many of my other designs will need it as well. Care to make a tutorial on cap design and designing in the use of hardware (screws, washers, etc.) into a Solidworks design. I've got several ideas but would love to get all the tips I can get. Trial and error can get rather expensive on Shapeways.

If there is any replies to this post in particular lets start a new topic. Don't mean to take this one too far off course.

Carl

Timur, I'd love to order a clockwork Master Pyraminx, but I'm a little skeptical of how well this thing will rotate once assembled. I assume the proper way to rotate this puzzle is to hold the base in one hand and rotate the tip in the other hand. Overall, I was very pleased with your Master Pyraminx design and Constellation Six, and my Meffert's factory production Professor Pyraminx and Vulcano.

I've already gotten burned once on Shapeways with a $300 chunk of plastic that required a ridiculous amount of force to move, before the delicate internals started to bind and break, but out of respect, I won't reveal the designer or the puzzle publicly.

BTW, I don't really get the whole Clockwork Orange pun as I never saw the movie. Maybe I'll watch it if it's available for streaming on Netflix.

I can not say how it would work once assembled right out of the box, because I always polish each part with a rotating steel brush (from normal WSF) before first assembling. That is always a good start for breaking in. And I think that if you order polished WSF you should have no problems either.