Hasta La Gadget!

I know there are people out there who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in seconds, but I’m not one of them. I eventually could work my way through the puzzle, but it takes me 10 or 15 minutes on a good day. This puzzle, on the other hand, I’m NEVER solving.

What you’re looking at is a fully scrambled version of the Radio Cube 3, a torturous puzzle based on icosahedral geometry. It starts out innocently enough, looking like a Rubik’s Cube with a personality disorder:

But a few twists and turns later, and it’s a brain-scrambling disaster.

This evil puzzle was created by Shapeways contributor Eitan, and is a cubic transformation of a puzzle called Radiolarian 3 by Jason Smith. Radio Cube 3 looks infinitely more difficult to solve in my opinion, but I’m sure somebody out there will figure out a way to solve it quickly. You’ll notice how Eitan only shows how to scramble the cube in the video, and there’s no indication that he knows how to solve it.

If you’d like to bend your mind, you can grab the main parts needed for it for $150(USD) over on Shapeways. Then you’ll need to pick up 20 flat-head M3 screws at least 12mm long, and a set of stickers. And a sledgehammer. And a trash can.

Dane Christianson’s X-Cube is not the weirdest, most complex or most sophisticated puzzle cube I’ve ever seen. But Dane didn’t really want to make the world’s most difficult or intimidating take on the Rubik’s cube. His aim with the X-Cube was to make a fun and relatable product to raise people’s awareness about 3D printing.

The X-Cube is made of 52 moving parts and 102 stickers, which Dane says leads to 125 decillion possible permutations.

For me, the most impressive part about the X-Cube is that it’s open source. You have to pledge at least $40 (USD) to its Kickstarter fundraiser to get a finished version as a reward, but you only need to pledge $1 to get the toy’s 3D files, which you can then use to print the toy yourself. Dean says he’s not worried about knockoffs; in fact, he says he’ll welcome them if it means more people will become aware of 3D printing.

Solving a Rubik’s cube on a normal day is pretty difficult for the average person. No matter how hard the majority of us try to get all of the colors in their proper places, we end up removing the colored stickers and placing them all in their proper places. Being able to solve a Rubik’s cube is so easy for some people, they’ll go ahead and add something else in addition in order to slightly challenge themselves. This guy, though, is a complete nut as he attempts to solve three Rubik’s cubes while juggling.

No – he’s not juggling something and solving Rubik’s cubes between throws. He is juggling the Rubik’s cubes he is attempting to solve. So not only does he have to worry about the entire juggling process, which already can be mind-glowingly difficult, but he also proceeds to solve three separate Rubik’s cubes. The level of difficulty behind this trick is amazing, which is why he is surrounded by a small group of people who are probably as amazed as I was watching this video.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: 10-Ton Meteorite Crashes In Russia Injuring Nearly 1,000 People, Game of Thrones Season 3 Preview Describes The Nature Of Chaos,

I can’t solve the Rubik’s Cube. All the spinning I do, all the rejiggering I try, all I end up with is a mess of colors with no idea how I got there. It’s okay though! I can now fake it like I know how. Matt Parker has figured out a way to cheat and make it look like you can solve the Rubik’s Cube—even though you have no freaking clue. More »

Despite the fact that there are people (and robots) out there who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in about 5 seconds, my tiny brain stills need at least 20 minutes to solve one. But imagine if you were blind (or even color blind). How could you solve this classic toy, which relies on matching up its colored faces? Well, here’s how:

I spotted this image over on Reddit today, but it actually originated from Brian Doom, who created this “accessible” version of the puzzle by adding tactile elements to the outside of the cube back in 2010. The colored sides have been augmented with screws, felt furniture pads, two textures of rubber dots, DYMO labels, and wooden furniture to provide tactile feedback when using the cube.

Of course, he could have just gone with DYMO labels on each side, with different letters to indicate each color – but this looks so much more awesome.