I made a Mental Block!! So this is my second mod. it took me about 10 hours, about 6 on thanksgiving and 4 on black Friday. I made it out of plexiglass and i left the stickers on it so people could see how it works.. i have pictures of the process ill post later or if someone wants them.. but for right now i HAVENT sanded , filled in the gaps, or sticker it. i know plexiglass isnt the best to use but i dont know where to get the abs plastic, also my only tools were a drimmel tool and super glue! i dont have any other tools. im a poor college student! please comment. id love advise on how to make these mods better.. yeah the pictures are out of oder look from the bottom up!!!

It's a good effort given your tool and material constraints. The only advice I can give you is to take more Time. That's usually the biggest sacrifice people make when constructing a puzzle when dealing with inadequate equipment.

Beyond that, let experience be your teacher by making more and more such puzzles and learning from them.

Nice. Thanks for sharing. The point actually is to pay great attention to details and make mods as perfect as you can. That way you and others will be most satisfied.

I find it very interesting to see an extension mod made of clear plastic so that you can see the original puzzle enclosed inside. What a great idea! I wish more extension mods were done this way to show how to make them.

I love it! Looks way better than my second mod (master cuboctahedron.)

I think that this would be good, but I like how the pictures are in the air so we can see through it. Maybe some pics over text

wow, that looks very impressive. if you "sticker" it with a non opaque paint, it will presserve the clear effect, but you might want to polish it up a bit first.

thanks for the comments! yeah ill post a picture of the mental block next to a rubiks cube. and ill get it cleaned up and stickered and ill get it posted... if anyone wants pictures of the process let me know and ill post the to.

please post the pictures

Please post them. This forum is just a pool of information for the puzzling community. People will probably find this on the search list years from now and use it as a reference.

Cool!
I would call it an Ice Block!
Vadim

ok well im having trouble finding pictures of the steps on how to make the 4 big corner peices but if i cant find them in a few days ill just make one take pictures and share. But here are a few pictures i do have as well as the finished cube alongside a rubiks cube on the table.


ok to make the cube you need 8 squares the same size of the center skweb, 8 of the same squares but WITH the triangle cut out. 16 of the little pieces thats is in one of the pictures on the floor by its self.(these are used for the 8 edge pieces, 4 are part of the mech. and 4 are free.) 16 of the same pieces BUT LONGER are used to make the 4 big corner parts.( 4 each) you need 8 of the pentagon looking pieces. and finally 8 little triangle pieces that go on the ends of the 8 edge pieces. REFER to the pictures and this all should make sense. Let me know if you want close ups of each piece.

this is the picture of the little piece on the floor

Wow great mod,

My favorite part about it is that you did it with the clear plastic, now I understand how it works, I never did till now.

lol, the frosted look is rather seasonal... well, if i lived in a place where it actualy snowed every once in a while it would

Nicely done! Love the plexiglass approach.

thanks, well heres the thing i used Plexiglass because i dont know where to buy the abs plastic everyone else uses haha. the plexiglass was a freakin PAIN to work with!. but i guess it paid off. ill have this thing cleaned up painted black and stickerd this weekend when i should be studying for my finals!!

Here's where I go to for my plastic needs, and this is the plastic I use pretty much for any build:

http://www.indplastic.com/index.cfm?id= ... &pageid=71

They deliver.


For NorCal residents the most convenient option is probably http://www.tapplastics.com

Don't plaint it black because all that you'll need would be to put transparent stickers from Hidetoshi(if he still has soom)and that would look awesome next to a light source.

OK im finally done!!! im so stoke i can finally play with it. well heres the thing i had to paint it black (hah sweet song). I wish i could have done the clear plastic with transperant stickers but the foggy plastic was on the inside of each piece and it would have looked weird. plus the black covered up a whole lot! so i just went to a local sign shop and they gave a ton of scrap vinyl for free. --P|astic -- i took you color scheme. i really liked it so i thought i should do it as well.

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really nice building !!! Nice job, are you planning to sell it to me .
I love the sticker color !

Those stickers look very nice.

Cleanly cut and applied.

Very neat job. the only thing I did good on mine was the stickers and make it funtional, but it looks horrible. Your is made with peiches cleany cut, and with a perfect stickering job. Very nice job.

are those vinyl stickers or tiles?

final prod looks great

They are stickers: you can see sort of imprints on some of the white stickers.

does anyone know how to solve the parity on this thing. its driving me crazy, i just scramble it back up and hope that it solves right

No but it's one of the best "first mods" I have ever seen!

By parity I assume you're referring to corners being flipped 180 degrees.

I believe your odds of solving such a parity at random are 4 in 15, although you probably boost your odds (to 7 in 15) if you start with at least one corner oriented correctly. Still, ouch!

This is the same problem as flipped "edges" on a Skewb Ultimate. Try adapting a Skewb Ultimate algorithm for turning two "edge" pieces, such as this one at Meffert's website. (Don't overlook the "x2" to repeat each column.) To best match the pictures I suggest you hold the block vertically, with one of the corners to be flipped at the bottom facing you. (I should probably draw a picture...)

Here's my best effort at adapting Meffert's algorithm to the Mental Block in 16 moves. I don't have a Mental Block so I can't test the moves myself, but I'm pretty sure I got it right.

Hold the puzzle firmly in your left hand, gripping the corner marked in bright green in the picture. The corner to be flipped is identified in red.

Make all four moves in the top row twice then all four moves in the bottom row twice. When that's done, the near-right corner should be flipped (as well as the top face, but that has no visible effect).

The puzzle will change shape after each move, but my diagram doesn't show that. Try to use the stationary block in your left hand to keep track of the puzzle's positions. (That may be harder than it looks.)

out of curiosity how did you get such a clean cut on the stickers?

very wet paint thanks bro! khjs534 i went to a sign shop and they gave me thick vinyl for free i and drew and cut(with normal scissors ) one out of each, made sure they were right and replicated it how ever many time.. i just made sure that the sides of the cube were very very smooth 320 grit paper . and just took time putting each on.

VERY nice final outcome! it looks way better with thte stickers on! and very nice job on them btw.

I want one too now!

overall, would you remmomend this to a fellow beginner?

I just wish keychain skewbs were available, to be honest I never liked the size of Mental Blocks..

im pretty sure i saw keychain skewbs on cube4you

doubleyou this was my second mod ever. yeah its really not that hard of a build once you figure out how it works. i think it might be a little harder with the key chain skewb though

here is a video with the cube in action!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dQWHMjrRY