Category: Twisty Puzzles

It was discovered yesterday that we didn’t get the cubes we thought we were getting. Calvin liked Ryan’s cube enough to decide to order it, but Ryan sent Calvin the amazon link to the second generation DaYan cube instead of the third generation one. We took them apart and the third generation one is significantly more sculpted on the inside, which probably means smoother cornering, but it also has a reputation for having pieces pop out easily, so Ryan’s is tightened down to the point that it doesn’t corner as well as mine does.

Either way, I’m happy with mine. It’s a very significant upgrade over my old cube and with it I’ve improved my times nearly to the point they were before I switched solve methods.

Not helping my times is the weather. It’s been well in the negatives the last couple days, and even though my heater is on it’s still chilly inside my apartment, so my fingers are a bit lacking in speed. Tuesday the high was -2 degrees Fahrenheit (low of -14), and despite the fact that it made it all the way up to +3 degrees today it’s currently -15. Tomorrow it’s supposed to get up to a nice warm 35 degrees! At least my car has started despite the cold. It sounds like it doesn’t want to, so I’ve been giving it a few minutes to warm up before I drive anywhere, but the steering is still stiff till about the time I get out of the apartment complex.

I stickered my 3 cube last Saturday while taking a break from stickering the 7 cube. The entire 3 cube only has seven more stickers than a single side of the 7, so I ended up doing it all at once including trimming sticker corners where the shape of the face made that a good idea (I don’t want the tiles sticking out over the edge of the piece, makes it too easy to peel them up).

I’m a little over half way through with the 7 cube, having not worked on it the last few days, but here’s a picture of the state it was in on Friday:

No picture of the new 3 cube, but it looks almost exactly like the standard Rubik’s cube on the outside so there’s not much to see anyways.

I got my 7-cube and 3-cube tiles today. I already had the stickers peeled off the black (but soon to be white) side of the 7-cube, so I’m doing that part first and it’s taking forever. Even the grid of tiles around the center one don’t seem to be quite square so I’m taking care to match the sticker and cube piece orientation.

That’s how much I have done so far. Piecing the inner cubies back together without the core to hold them in place was tricky. They’re so light the slightest touch starts to twist them and they’re interlocking so the bottom ones have to be held in place as the outside ones go down. That’s especially hard on the diagonal ones, which have to fit over two different cubies, both of which are trying to twist out of place.

I’ll finish the white side before supper, then I might work on another part or my 3-cube, or maybe I’ll just read my book.

I’ve been meaning to post updates for over a week now and just never got around to it.

First off, a picture of my complete twisty puzzle collection:

The 7 cube is rounded to keep it at a reasonable size but still have enough overlap while turning to keep edge pieces from falling out. I’m getting a new 3-cube soon (one designed for speed as opposed to just being a classic style rubik’s cube), and it will come unstickered so it may be a few days later when the cubsmith tiles come in. I’ll probably post more details when I get it.

I’m also getting cubesmith tiles (basically clear, textured pieces of lexan with color backing) for the 7 cube to fix the fact that the side that should be white is black. I’ll take it apart and clean/lubricate it when I put the tiles on, but that will take a while so I might not get to it soon.

I also got a usb missile launcher for Christmas. It’s a fancy one with a built-in webcam and motorized base. Talore loves chasing the missiles (nerf style foam darts with foam tips instead of plastic), but she chews on them a bit when she finds where they landed so they might not last too long. I also caught Talore trying to steal the darts directly off the launcher (it’s sitting behind my desk high enough to shoot over my monitors), so if she tries that while I’m not watching her I might find a pile of perforated foam. Luckily, they sell spare darts. I’d like to record a video of it firing from the camera on the launcher (skype picks it up so presumably recording software would too), but I need to find somewhere to put it where it can see where the dart lands and have good lighting.

I’d really like to be able to set it up so I can fire it remotely from my phone. It supports remote control using msn messenger (in theory, I haven’t tried it), but the website also mentions a skype plugin is in the works. If the plugin works for skype on linux then in theory with that I’ll be able to connect it to my server (which is low power, as opposed to leaving one of my higher powered computers running) and bother Talore over the internet. I’d only get 4 shots, but I’d also have a webcame to watch the results of those shots so I could probably make them last.

Talore really seemed to appreciate me getting back for good. For the first few days at least any time I was sitting she was either sitting in my lap (not curled up asleep like she sometimes does, but just sitting there) or lying down with her head on my arm if I was at my computer. She also insisted on following me from room to room keeping me in her sight at first (like she did when I first got her), but that didn’t last very long. Now she still spends a good bit of time within an arms reach of me, but she also sleeps across the room where she can see out the balcony windows.