Rubik's Famous Magic Cube in Lego Form

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Rubik's Famous Magic Cube in Lego Form

Posted by Zonk on Saturday October 23, 2004 @05:30AM from the clicky-connecty-cubage dept.

addaon writes "I just came across a successful attempt to construct a Rubik's cube entirely out of Lego. It's an interesting companion to the Lego Rubik's solver featured some time ago."

26 of 85 comments (clear)

Besides removing the labels... by thedogcow · 2004-10-23 05:32 · Score: 3, Funny

Great, now I have to paint each individual lego.

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1. Re:Besides removing the labels... by Rand+Huck · 2004-10-23 05:35 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I wonder what's more difficult, solving the puzzle or figuring this construction out? I think after finally constructing it, I've spent the last of my sanity... which defeats the purpose of the Rubiks cube in the first place.
  
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Thanks a lot by Pan+T.+Hose · 2004-10-23 05:32 · Score: 4, Funny

Now when I have almost finished with my old (simplified) Rubik's cube after years of frustration, now I will have a new thing to "play" with. Thanks a lot!

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Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
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Massive by themoodykid · 2004-10-23 05:40 · Score: 5, Informative

The thing weighs 3kg! Maybe you could build up your wrist muscles while solving this thing.
1. Re:Massive by drinkypoo · 2004-10-23 05:42 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Methinks there are some other problems slashdotters are more likely to solve which also build up your wrist muscles.
  
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  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
2. Re:Massive by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-10-23 05:56 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Not to worry, if the thing doesn't work as a Rubik's cube, the builder can always stick this Lego creation next to it and reenact Picard vs the Borg.
  
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  "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
3. Re:Massive by DrewCapu · 2004-10-23 07:33 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Maybe you could build up your wrist muscles while solving this thing.
  You must be new here. It's common knowledge that just about every /.'er has at least one wrist that gets plenty of exercise already.
I think I have enough colors! by multi-flavor-geek · 2004-10-23 05:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

Oh, I know I have nough, white, yellow, red, grey, black, blue, that's a lego rubicks cube waiting to happen!
And this would be more entertaining then just trying to build riduiculasly tall freestanding towers (my records have been limited by ceiling height) or ridiculasly long suspention bridges (using legos as cables and all)
My record on that one was a 9 foot span that held a couple of pounds!
Of course it would not be as entertaining as building the lego airplanes as smashing them into my bedroom walls to se where all of the passengers ended up in my room!

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Cool by nounderscores · 2004-10-23 05:40 · Score: 4, Funny

Next, we need to create The Cube out of lego and abduct people to put into it.
All that work for nothing by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2004-10-23 05:48 · Score: 4, Funny

They didn't need to go to such lengths just to have a Rubik's cube that can be dismantled and rearranged when nobody is looking, the original thing had stickers that were easily peeled off and reglued to solve the cube.

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"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
1. Re:All that work for nothing by Chris_Jefferson · 2004-10-23 06:08 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  What is more fun is to just swap a few stickers, then give it to someone who claims they can solve the cube. Usually if you swap a few stickers you'll make a new unsolvable problem (it isn't possible to get from any cube to the solution ^_^ )
  
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  Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
2. Re:All that work for nothing by benhocking · 2004-10-23 07:50 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  The simplest unsolvable swap is to swap the stickers from both sides of an edge piece. Then, simply twist it a few dozen times to mask it.
  
  However, if the solver is as gifted as he thinks it is, he'll probably get it to a similar configuration fairly quickly at which point he should be able to confidently proclaim that it cannot be solved. (Those who are experts in the cube, which I definitely am not, should also be familiar with its parity states.)
  
  --
  Ben Hocking
  Need a professional organizer?
Re:Scramble it... by satanicat · 2004-10-23 05:53 · Score: 4, Funny

by picking the the colored plates off it and placing them on in order?? =)

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How Now Brown Cow
Successful? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-23 05:55 · Score: 5, Informative

He hasn't created a working Rubix cube. The gigantic monstrosity which requires belts on every movement layer to prevent it falling apart is not a working Rubix cube. At best, and the site openly admits this, it is a model or a prototype.
1. Re:Successful? by mod_critical · 2004-10-23 06:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It's SUPPOSED to be like that! Can't you see that this is an open expression of the Microsoft Server platform??? It is built with fixed, proprietary parts that, while they connect well to each other, cause the final product to only operates in one out of the three ways you'd expect it to, require external help to keep it from falling apart, and weigh much more than and be much larger than what would actually work! Geeze go take an art appreciation class.
  
  sorry, I couldn't help it =$
Gilligan by Tablizer · 2004-10-23 05:59 · Score: 2, Funny

If the professor of Gilligan's Island had legos, he could have built that nuclear reactor in 1 day instead of the 3 it required with coconuts.

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Table-ized A.I.
1. Re:Gilligan by acvh · 2004-10-23 11:48 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  it's not often that I get a glimpse of the future, but I just had one.... hundreds and hundreds of "Gilligan/professor/coconut" posts on Slashdot.
  
  (or have I been missing something all along?)
Now a Rubick's cube for military! by WetCat · 2004-10-23 06:05 · Score: 2, Funny

Just use only green lego blocks for it!
Re:turnable? by WolfWithoutAClause · 2004-10-23 06:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you read the article more carefully, you see that the designer went to great lengths to make the design completely symmetrical, (for example figuring out how many bricks thickness are needed to make cubical parts and such like) so if it can rotate one side, it can rotate all of them; just like the original Rubik's cube.

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-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
Adult (fan of) LEGO by Anonymous Coward · 2004-10-23 06:32 · Score: 5, Funny

The author of the article calls himself an "adult fan of LEGO". Well, I'm a fan of adult LEGO!
Ye gods. by Fortran+IV · 2004-10-23 06:40 · Score: 4, Funny

Just when I think the nerd community cannot surprise me any more, along comes something like this article. Not only is there a CAD system for building with LEGO, there are enough of them to justify a common graphic interface for them. Jeez Louise.
Perhaps the universe has a reason for giving us such lousy social skills. If we ever really worked together, turned all that creativity and ingenuity to a single purpose, we'd have already built the Earth Mark II by now (probably from LEGO), and uncovered the Ultimate Question: How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

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Slightly less enormous lego cube by jerkface · 2004-10-23 06:44 · Score: 5, Interesting

I know a guy who did a slightly smaller cube based on a different design. His page includes a short video showing the cube in operation.
More uniquely, the same guy also has what is probably the world's only complete page on lego logic circuits.

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A few words about the Rubic cube... by A+beautiful+mind · 2004-10-23 07:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

"A famous recent puzzle is Rubik's cube invented by the Hungarian Ern Rubik. Invented in 1974,patented in 1975 it was put on the market in Hungary in 1977. It did not really begin it's infamous popularity until 1981. By 1982 10 million cubes had been sold in Hungary, more than the population of the country. It is estimated that 100 million were sold world-wide."

That is for the facts, otherwise from the brain twisting solution, there is another way to solve it, as few noted before, to strip all the cover from the cube, making it entirely black, which is a valid solution according the rules of the game.

Oh boy its one of the rare moments im proud to be a hungarian, when there is a discussion about hungarian inventions, that is...

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Be yourself no matter what they say
Re:Scramble it... by Usquebaugh · 2004-10-23 07:55 · Score: 2, Funny

OK,

half of it is in London, the other half in San francisco.
Try it 4D by dark-br · 2004-10-23 08:54 · Score: 3, Informative

While the physical cube can currently not be built, you can solve it through the portal of your computer screen. Try it: Magic Cube 4D
That's nothing, check out THIS Lego item by antispam_ben · 2004-10-23 14:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

http://www.henrylim.org/Harpsichord.html
Yes, it's what the html filename says it is. Some of the pics appear to have jaggies from aliasing, but a closer look shows they are actual Lego blocks.

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