More 3D - Puzzles : Cube / Sphere

(design Cube: April 2004)
(design Sphere: May 2004)

(Pictures of my creations can also be found in my BrickShelf folder)

1. Another 3D-puzzle

Another 3D-puzzle, this time one of my own collection.

2. The virtual Cube

It looks best in tan and brown. I only built this one in SNOT-version (with the broken parts of the Japanese Crystal still in mind). With a trip to Legoland scheduled later this year, I may decide to buy lots of 2x2 tiles (approx. 600 required!) to build the cube for real (although it'll probably be in black and white).

3. Spherical version (May 2004)

When I announced the Cube on LUGNET, Ross Crawford suggested to make a spherical version of it. Well, here it is. Although this is my very first attempt to create something spherical, I am very pleased with the result. With the brown pieces going in three different directions, the curve had to be the same along the X-, Y- and Z-axis.

I didn't bother to build this one in SNOT-version. The bottom side of the pieces is no longer visible once the puzzle is solved.

4. The real Cube (September 2004)

In LegoLand Billund, my (now ex-)wife filled a green bucket for the children for only 299 DKK (approx. 40,00 euro). She tried to sort out only standard bricks and plates, but didn't get a full bucket. When I helped her to fill the bucket, I found - to my surprise - lots of tan and brown tiles. Exactly the colours I needed (I wouldn't have to buy black and white tiles after all, as mentioned earlier). I didn't count them, but I definitely had lots of them. Maybe I would be able to build the Cube according to my original design.
Unfortunately, when we got back home and pieces were sorted and counted, I realized I still didn't have enough tan tiles to complete the model. I redesigned the largest pieces: building sideways reduced the total amount of required tan tiles with more than 100! But I was still 50 tan tiles short (1x4 or 2x2 tiles), I used brown tiles instead and hid them on the inside of the finished puzzle.

	Left: the box where I found many tan and brown tiles. Look at the sign: "only valid today"... but the sign was there all week (and maybe even longer). Right: close-up. You can see how hard it was to fill a bucket with standard pieces...
	Left: the finished puzzle. Right: the pieces. 3 tan pieces had a few brown tiles on them. You couldn't see those once the puzzle was solved. But finally it has all the pieces in the right colours. Due to the redesign the largest pieces are rather fragile. Total weight: more than 4 pounds (approx. 1500 pieces). SNOT: smooth surfaces on ALL sides.

5. The real Sphere (December 2004)

By some lucky chance I found several hundreds 1x2 plates with door rail in blue (the ones I needed to visualize half-stud without using 1x2 jumper plates), so I decided to redesign my sphere. I don't have that many blue bricks and plates so I also changed the colours. To obtain enough sturdity - in combination with roundness of the sphere - some pieces aren't 10 plates high, but 11 plates - while others are only 14 instead of 15 plates high.

	Left: the redesigned sphere - the blue strokes are now 4 studs wide, all around the sphere. Right: do you notice some irregularity compared to the pieces of the Cube?
	It looks pretty round to me.