Block Puzzle
The shipping weight of this item is 500g
This is a puzzle that Juno designed when he was 17 years old. There are twelve ways to add one protrusion and one indentation to the ten square areas on the surface of a shape formed by joining two cubes together. The starting point of the design was wondering whether all of these could be used to form a 4 x 3 x 2 cuboid. After thinking about it for a while, he realized that no solution existed for that problem. Therefore, he replaced the protrusions and indentations with half cubes to make it work as a puzzle. At that time, the only copy ever made, aside from the prototype, was given as a gift to Juno's favorite physics teacher.
Back then, he did not know how many solutions there were to the problem of forming the 4 x 3 x 2 shape, but we now know there are as many as 53,626. When you actually try playing with it, even finding just one of those solutions will likely make you think quite hard. However, this puzzle also offers the following additional challenges.
- Using all the pieces, create a 6 x 4 x 1 cuboid.
- Using all the pieces, create a 6 x 2 x 2 cuboid.
- Using all the pieces, create an L tricube.
- Using three to eleven pieces, create a cuboid.
- Pick any one of the twelve pieces, then use eight of the remaining eleven pieces to create a shape similar to the piece you first chose.
Size: 72 mm x 54 mm x 36 mm (Puzzle)
Number of pieces:12 + Box
Material: Jarrah, American Rock Maple, Camphor Laurel, and Bamboo Plywood
Designer: Junichi Yananose (Juno)
Origin: Made in Australia
Ages: 6+
