Skip to main content

Contact

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The AI method - Gigaminx Tutorial

Introduction The Gigaminx is a great puzzle to solve, especially if it's a well-turning puzzle. Nevertheless, the solve of the Gigaminx, Teraminx etc. can get boring after a while. It consists of 12 centers which need to be reduced, each in the same way. Same story for the 30 edges. This is still reasonable on the Gigaminx, but can get tedious on higher order minx-puzzles. This tutorial might get rid of your daily searches for fun in the solving experience of puzzles of this kind. There are 2 thing I assume you know when you start this exciting adventure: you're able to solve a Megaminx and you're familiar with the AI reduction method. If the latter sounds foreign to you, you might want to consider checking out this  article which explains this approach on a 4x4, or you can consult my 4x4 AI tutorial . Approach Reducing a 5x5 to a 3x3 with the AI method is no different than reducing a 4x4 to a 2x2. The only difference lies within the edges. Therefore, redu...

Tuttminx

Concept The Tuttminx, desinged by Lee Tutt in 2005 and mass-produced by Verypuzzle 6 years later. Verypuzzle has made 3 designs so far, each one getting rid of a particular issue. The idea and geometric design of the shape can me simply put: it's the extension of a dodecahedron to a truncated icosahedron. (Maybe a bit easier: it's a football). Its surface consists of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons, which makes 32 sides in total. But despite this massive amount of sides to wrap your head around, the puzzle isn't actually that hard compared to other puzzles which may seem easier at the start. It's a non-jumbling puzzle, which means that every piece lands into a spot it's supposed to land into, it doesn't get out of orbit  (although I find this term rather deceptive). The previous versions of the Verypuzzle production were able to jumble, although this was never intended. Their last design got rid of this problem, altough it's still possible with the rig...

Axis Cube

Concept The Axis Cube (or Axel Cube) is a modification of a standard cubic 3x3. The way it's designed can be deduced from its looks and the correlation to a 3x3, but can be pretty tricky to people who see this for the first time. In short: it comes down to rotating the cube by 60°, cutting the faces and extending them to make the puzzle cubic again. With this in mind, you can easily see that this is just a shape modification of a 3x3 and is solved in exactly the same way. The concept was first introduced by Adam G. Cowan (the same person who designed the Ghost Cube in 2008). Solving Method Since this is essentially a shape mod of a standard 3x3, the way to solve it is exactly the same. Every method which is used to solve the 3x3 can be applied to the Axis Cube. But there are some difficulties. One way to approach the 3x3 is solving it layer by layer, working your way from bottom to top. This is, in my opinion, the easiest way to solve the Axis Cube as well. Speedc...