Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

Spherigears combines the ideas of the Sphere Gear puzzle (a mechanical maze puzzle by Oskar) and Bramboules. The combination was suggested by Bram Cohen. Spherigears has four spherical gears that each rotate with three degrees of freedom. The cage can be folded open in two ways, such that the spherical gears mesh in pairs, either AB-CD or AD-BC. After scrambling, the object of the puzzle is to get all spheres back to their original orientation.

Unfortunately, the puzzle does not work too well. The cages flexes open and the spherigears are hard to align. For this reason, the puzzle is not for sale.

Watch the YouTube video.
Watch the puzzle at my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Twisty Puzzles Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Nice idea. Try putting all 4 hinges on the same side to bring them closer together and/or use a thicker frame to make the whole thing more rigid?

At least I think that's where the problem is, while your balls are very nice and seem to work just fine.

(please don't quote that in any signature!)

Could you post a link for this one? I did a quite search of Twisty Puzzles and your Shapeways shop and didn't see something called Sphere Gear. I'll check out the video when I get home and I'll try to refrain from commenting on the appearance or functionality of Oskar's balls.

Carl

Sphere Gear is not a twisty puzzle. It is a mechanical maze. I have published it only privately within a community of mechanical-puzzles collectors.

Oskar

Nice idea!

The first thing what I think of when I first see this puzzle:
Why it has only 2 colors? Why not 6 (or more)?

Could you show it in the non-twisty puzzle section? Now that you've mentioned it I'm curious to see it.

As for the question in the video... my take is I can never have too much information. Usually there is even something to learn from a failed experiment so I have no objection to seeing them. I think its wise not to make them for sale on Shapeways. If it were my experiment I might even allow it to be sold but I'd require them to contact me before they could purchase one just so I could verify they are aware of the puzzles issues and that they are fully aware of what to expect before allowing the purchase.

Carl

Kelvin's right that the hinges should all be on the same side. Also they should be made longer, so they're nearly touching, to further reduce flex. Or if that still can't reduce flex enough, go with a Gear Cube style mechanism, with only two directions of freedom instead of three. That should well and truly eliminate any illegal motion.

As for alignment, that's the reason I advocate making them alternating icosahedra and dodecahedra, so there's more places for alignment to be done and it's more obvious where they are.

Overall though, this first prototype moves better than I expected! When you move a single gear it moves the opposite one just fine, which I was expected to be problematic with all the friction involved.