HOME
*





Impossiball
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, which is the same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube. History William O. Gustafson applied for a patent for the Impossiball design in 1981 and it was issued in 1984. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Impossiball moniker. Description The Impossiball is made in the shape of an icosahedron that has been rounded out to a sphere, and has 20 pieces, all of them corners. The puzzle has twelve circles located at the vertices of the icosahedron, and on the six-color version opposite circles are the same color. Because of the rounded shape of the puzzle, the pieces move up and down as they are rotated. It is also possible to remove one piece, turning the puzzle into a spherical version of the 15 puzzle. The purpose of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Impossiball Solved
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, which is the same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube. History William O. Gustafson applied for a patent for the Impossiball design in 1981 and it was issued in 1984. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Impossiball moniker. Description The Impossiball is made in the shape of an icosahedron that has been rounded out to a sphere, and has 20 pieces, all of them corners. The puzzle has twelve circles located at the vertices of the icosahedron, and on the six-color version opposite circles are the same color. Because of the rounded shape of the puzzle, the pieces move up and down as they are rotated. It is also possible to remove one piece, turning the puzzle into a spherical version of the 15 puzzle. The purpose of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Impossiball Scrambled
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, which is the same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube. History William O. Gustafson applied for a patent for the Impossiball design in 1981 and it was issued in 1984. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Impossiball moniker. Description The Impossiball is made in the shape of an icosahedron that has been rounded out to a sphere, and has 20 pieces, all of them corners. The puzzle has twelve circles located at the vertices of the icosahedron, and on the six-color version opposite circles are the same color. Because of the rounded shape of the puzzle, the pieces move up and down as they are rotated. It is also possible to remove one piece, turning the puzzle into a spherical version of the 15 puzzle. The purpose of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Impossiball Turned
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, which is the same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube. History William O. Gustafson applied for a patent for the Impossiball design in 1981 and it was issued in 1984. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Impossiball moniker. Description The Impossiball is made in the shape of an icosahedron that has been rounded out to a sphere, and has 20 pieces, all of them corners. The puzzle has twelve circles located at the vertices of the icosahedron, and on the six-color version opposite circles are the same color. Because of the rounded shape of the puzzle, the pieces move up and down as they are rotated. It is also possible to remove one piece, turning the puzzle into a spherical version of the 15 puzzle. The purpose of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Megaminx
The Megaminx or Mégaminx (, ) is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube. History The Megaminx, or Magic Dodecahedron, was invented by several people independently and produced by several different manufacturers with slightly different designs. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Megaminx moniker. It is also known by the name Hungarian Supernova, invented by Dr. Christoph Bandelow. His version came out first, shortly followed by Meffert's Megaminx. The proportions of the two puzzles are slightly different. Description The Megaminx is made in the shape of a dodecahedron, and has 12 faces and center pieces, 20 corner pieces, and 30 edge pieces. The face centers each have a single color, which identifies the color of that face in the solved state. The edge pieces have t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Kilominx
The Megaminx or Mégaminx (, ) is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube. History The Megaminx, or Magic Dodecahedron, was invented by several people independently and produced by several different manufacturers with slightly different designs. Uwe Mèffert eventually bought the rights to some of the patents and continues to sell it in his puzzle shop under the Megaminx moniker. It is also known by the name Hungarian Supernova, invented by Dr. Christoph Bandelow. His version came out first, shortly followed by Meffert's Megaminx. The proportions of the two puzzles are slightly different. Description The Megaminx is made in the shape of a dodecahedron, and has 12 faces and center pieces, 20 corner pieces, and 30 edge pieces. The face centers each have a single color, which identifies the color of that face in the solved state. The edge pieces have t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Combination Puzzles
A combination puzzle, also known as a sequential move puzzle, is a puzzle which consists of a set of pieces which can be manipulated into different combinations by a group of operations. Many such puzzles are mechanical puzzles of polyhedral shape, consisting of multiple layers of pieces along each axis which can rotate independently of each other. Collectively known as twisty puzzles, the archetype of this kind of puzzle is the Rubik's Cube. Each rotating side is usually marked with different colours, intended to be scrambled, then 'solved' by a sequence of moves that sort the facets by colour. As a generalisation, combination puzzles also include mathematically defined examples that have not been, or are impossible to, physically construct. Description A combination puzzle is solved by achieving a particular combination starting from a random (scrambled) combination. Often, the solution is required to be some recognisable pattern such as "all like colours together" or "all ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rubik's Cube
The Rubik's Cube is a Three-dimensional space, 3-D combination puzzle originally invented in 1974 by Hungarians, Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Pentangle Puzzles in the UK in 1978, and then by Ideal Toy Company, Ideal Toy Corp in 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer. The cube was released internationally in 1980 and became one of the most recognized icons in popular culture. It won the 1980 Spiel des Jahres, German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. , 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide, making it the world's bestselling puzzle game and bestselling toy. The Rubik's Cube was inducted into the US National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014. On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. Some later versions ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dogic
The Dogic () is an icosahedron-shaped puzzle like the Rubik's Cube. The 5 triangles meeting at its tips may be rotated, or 5 entire faces (including the triangles) around the tip may be rotated. It has a total of 80 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 pieces in the Rubik's Cube. History The Dogic was patented by Zsolt and Robert Vecsei in Hungary on 20 October 1993. The patent was granted 28 July 1998 (HU214709). It was originally sold by VECSO in two variants under the names "Dogic" and "Dogic 2", but was only produced in quantities far short of the demand. In 2004, Uwe Mèffert acquired the plastic molds from its original manufacturer at the request of puzzle fans and collectors worldwide, and made another production run of the Dogics. These Dogics were first shipped in January 2005, and are now being sold by Meffert in his puzzle shop, ''Meffert's'' until September 2010 when the lack of interest for Meffert's Dogics made Uwe Meffert stop his Dogic production r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Icosahedron
In geometry, an icosahedron ( or ) is a polyhedron with 20 faces. The name comes and . The plural can be either "icosahedra" () or "icosahedrons". There are infinitely many non- similar shapes of icosahedra, some of them being more symmetrical than others. The best known is the (convex, non- stellated) regular icosahedron—one of the Platonic solids—whose faces are 20 equilateral triangles. Regular icosahedra There are two objects, one convex and one nonconvex, that can both be called regular icosahedra. Each has 30 edges and 20 equilateral triangle faces with five meeting at each of its twelve vertices. Both have icosahedral symmetry. The term "regular icosahedron" generally refers to the convex variety, while the nonconvex form is called a ''great icosahedron''. Convex regular icosahedron The convex regular icosahedron is usually referred to simply as the ''regular icosahedron'', one of the five regular Platonic solids, and is represented by its Schläfli symbol , con ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pocket Cube
The 2x2 Rubik's Cube (also known as the Pocket Cube or Mini Cube) is a 2×2×2 version of the Rubik's Cube. The cube consists of 8 pieces, all corners. History In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 "Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups" and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together with magnets. Nichols was granted on April 11, 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube. Nichols assigned his patent to his employer Moleculon Research Corp., which sued Ideal in 1982. In 1984, Ideal lost the patent infringement suit and appealed. In 1986, the appeals court affirmed the judgment that Rubik's 2×2×2 Pocket Cube infringed Nichols's patent, but overturned the judgment on Rubik's 3×3×3 Cube. Permutations Any permutation of the eight corners is possible (8 ! positions), and seven of them can be independently rotated (37 positions). There is nothing identifying the orientation of the cube in space, reducing the positions by a fa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Uwe Mèffert
Uwe Mèffert (28 November 1939–30 April 2022) was a German puzzle designer and inventor. He manufactured and sold mechanical puzzles in the style of Rubik's Cube since the Cube craze of the 1980s. His first design was the Pyraminx – which he had developed before the original Rubik's Cube was invented. He created his own puzzle company and helped bring to market the Megaminx, Skewb, Skewb Diamond and many other puzzles. Puzzle history Invention of the Pyraminx In the early 1970s, Mèffert was interested in whether pyramids, cubes and other shapes might influence one's health and bio-energy flows. Mèffert constructed balsa wood polyhedra and found the gentle stroking of the apexes of the various shapes had a gentle massaging and stimulating influence and instilled a sense of peace, relaxation, and calm. After playing around with this idea for a while, he cut the solids into symmetric slices and attached them with rubber bands to a center ball. With the aid of his brother (an e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

15 Puzzle
The 15 puzzle (also called Gem Puzzle, Boss Puzzle, Game of Fifteen, Mystic Square and many others) is a sliding puzzle having 15 square tiles numbered 1–15 in a frame that is 4 tiles high and 4 tiles wide, leaving one unoccupied tile position. Tiles in the same row or column of the open position can be moved by sliding them horizontally or vertically, respectively. The goal of the puzzle is to place the tiles in numerical order. Named for the number of tiles in the frame, the 15 puzzle may also be called a 16 puzzle, alluding to its total tile capacity. Similar names are used for different sized variants of the 15 puzzle, such as the 8 puzzle that has 8 tiles in a 3×3 frame. The ''n'' puzzle is a classical problem for modelling algorithms involving heuristics. Commonly used heuristics for this problem include counting the number of misplaced tiles and finding the sum of the taxicab distances between each block and its position in the goal configuration. Note that both are '' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]