Rubik's Magnetic Cube prototype: Done!
The end result is a little tricky to get the hang of, and you could never speed cube with it, but it remains fun, and everyone to whom I showed it at work really loved it. Also, every single person gave it back to me with pieces oriented wrong. The labels will help with that. The cry came back from all that it needs LEDs, and that speaks of another idea I've got in the works. Hopefully much more on that project in the days to come, but that one is all kinds of way harder than this one was.
The final tally:
27 acrylic cubes from 3 sets of 10 from Tap Plastics
108 D32 magnets 1/ea sets of 100 and 25 from K&J Magnetics
Duco Cement from the hardware store
3 hours of drilling and gluing - an hour each over 3 days
with shipment times, about 2.5 weeks from conception to final model
Of course, two days before I finished, my friend found this. $5 from China, and you can have a perfect, machine-made version. My prototype here, with all the parts and shipping, probably ran about $80. Alas, it was just one of many cube ideas I've had lately, and I had fun designing and building it, so the project is a success in my view. I searched for magnetic rubik's cube and got nothing. He searched for magnetic rubix cube. If only I had misspelled it, too, I would have known it existed. Actually, magnetic rubik cube finds it, too, but that didn't occur to me as a search term. I'm glad I didn't find it, because it felt good to just make something again. I'm bringing it along to the Maker Faire next weekend.
I'm considering building one or two more (and picking up that Chinese version), but if I do, I'm going to use much bigger disc magnets for the 6 axle connections to the central cube. They're a little weak right now.
Rubik's Magnetic Cube prototype: Done!
The end result is a little tricky to get the hang of, and you could never speed cube with it, but it remains fun, and everyone to whom I showed it at work really loved it. Also, every single person gave it back to me with pieces oriented wrong. The labels will help with that. The cry came back from all that it needs LEDs, and that speaks of another idea I've got in the works. Hopefully much more on that project in the days to come, but that one is all kinds of way harder than this one was.
The final tally:
27 acrylic cubes from 3 sets of 10 from Tap Plastics
108 D32 magnets 1/ea sets of 100 and 25 from K&J Magnetics
Duco Cement from the hardware store
3 hours of drilling and gluing - an hour each over 3 days
with shipment times, about 2.5 weeks from conception to final model
Of course, two days before I finished, my friend found this. $5 from China, and you can have a perfect, machine-made version. My prototype here, with all the parts and shipping, probably ran about $80. Alas, it was just one of many cube ideas I've had lately, and I had fun designing and building it, so the project is a success in my view. I searched for magnetic rubik's cube and got nothing. He searched for magnetic rubix cube. If only I had misspelled it, too, I would have known it existed. Actually, magnetic rubik cube finds it, too, but that didn't occur to me as a search term. I'm glad I didn't find it, because it felt good to just make something again. I'm bringing it along to the Maker Faire next weekend.
I'm considering building one or two more (and picking up that Chinese version), but if I do, I'm going to use much bigger disc magnets for the 6 axle connections to the central cube. They're a little weak right now.