Nerd Snipe - Rubik's Cube

Continuing the discussion from What's one positive/neutral thing that's happened today?:

It took me a moment to realize you were not just aiming for a simple tactile cube, but you meant these magic squares.

This idea sounds amazing!

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I have tactile Rubikā€™s cube; each side labeled with a different textured fabric or tape. I made it myself from a standard cube because I wanted one, and couldnā€™t find what I wanted on-line.

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There is an old 333 sticker mod commonly called a a Sudocube(from Sudoku + cube) where each face is numbered 1 through 9, but it really has nothing to do with the pencil-and-paper puzzle and just amounts to a normal cube with number-shaped stickers(every face as the same 123 456 789 arrangement, differing only in font color, though it is technically a super cube since the 5s on the centers show center orientation) Though, now I wonder if itā€™s possible to put a sudocube into a configuration where each face is a 33 magic square. 5 is in the center of a 33 magic square, so at least that doesnā€™t rule things out.

There is a 444 sticker mod that is truly a 3-d sudoku on a cube. It uses hexadecimal, combining the numerals-9 and letters A-F, and in itā€™s solved state, each face features each symbol once and only once, and every ring around the cube also contains each symbol once and only once, though if I recall, the person who came up with this sticker mod specifically put all the symbols at 45-degrees so the based of the symbol points towards the face center, so there is no visible center orientation.

Also, itā€™s not much of a puzzle, and Iā€™m not entirely sure where it is in my very cluttered room, but I have a 113 keychain that has jumbo braille and twisting it can form any character in 6-dot brailleā€¦ Donā€™t think I own any actual puzzles with actual braille though. I tend to go for shape shifting puzzles when I want something twisty and blind playable.

Also, I now find myself wondering how confusing a text adventure where you move around the surface of a Rubikā€™s cube, one room for each sticker, rooms on the same side of the cube being connected and twists of the cube changing up which rooms are accessible.

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I really wanna do this now.

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@inventor200

I recommend watching the excellent movie Cube for inspiration.

Itā€™s puzzle/survival horror done right. :slight_smile:

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The movie Cube is awesome. The two sequels much less so, but still might be worth a watch for completionists.

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Iā€™m the weirdo who doesnā€™t enjoy movies, so Iā€™ll take yā€™allā€™s words for it. :sparkles:

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Iā€™ve heard of Cube, but Iā€™ve never actually seen itā€¦ and funnily enough, the only result for cube on my usual source for descriptive audio is a documentary about speed cubing.

Also, took me a while to find a source that didnā€™t just put the 33 magic square in an image and be done with it, but I can now say turning the Sudocube into a magic square cube is impossible as while both have 5 on the centers, the Sudocube has evens on edges and odds on corners, while the magic square has evens on corners and odds on edges, and swapping edge and corner pieces is impossible on a 33*3.

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Just sit back and relax, Joey. You like new technology, right? Here. Put on this new kind of VR helmet while I start the procedure put in this DVD of the movie Cubeā€¦

Image Description: a close up photo of an uncomfortable Malcom McDowell, from the movie A Clockwork Orange, wearing head gear that features thin metal arms that pry open his eyelids and a pointy array of sensors over his scalp to monitor brainwaves as he is forced to watch intense, mind altering imagery.

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A Clockwork Orange, another movie Iā€™ve heard of, but never seenā€¦ The more I think about it, the more I realize just how little Iā€™ve seen of classic, live action cinema(Despite thinking the Delorean is the coolest production car for close to 20 years and being familiar with the Jiggawatt meme, itā€™s only been in the last year that Iā€™ve consumed the Back to the Future Trilogy)ā€¦ Granted, my family never really went to the movies as I was growing up, I was a hardcore Disney fan as a kid, and most of the movies I saw on TV were via Cartoon Theater on Cartoon Network and its predecessors/successors.

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Let me get this right. Are we talking about writing an integer on each of the 9 labels on each side of a Rubikā€™s cube to form six magic squares, then scrambling the cube and reconstructing the original? Sure, that has already been done.

The problem that immediately sprang to my mind is ā€œhow do we know there is a unique solution once scrambled?ā€, though intuitively there are too many constraints for there being more than one. This is a surmise, not a fact. In the example above all the squares are identical (the famous Lo Shu configuration well known to recreational maths buffs) but integers could be totally different on each label. They could also be negative for what is worth. And the 6 and 9 could be flipped and mistaken for each other, as group rotations change the orientation of labels. Hmm.

Itā€™s got a legit math puzzle as part of the plot. Itā€™s also an interesting low-budget film where they built one set and changed the lighting since every cube they traverse is the same size.

Another game throwback to Rubikā€™s cube and the Cube movie: Psychonauts had a six-sided cube environment with central gravity and platforming scenery that mechanically emerged from it. Itā€™s cartoon logic, but predates Mario Galaxy.


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