Applications - Amusing
[87] Magnetic Version of the Rubik's Cube
Author: Joe, Dublin, Ireland, jj05y@lavabit.com
The magic cube made with real cubes for a change
Hello SuperMagnete! I used your magnets to build a functioning imitation of the Rubik's Cube.
You can find the idea in many places on the internet - I didn't invent it myself, I simply tried it out.
The whole thing requires a bit of patience but it's a fun project and the result is very satisfying. At the very least because even if you can't solve the puzzle, you can just take the cube apart and put it back together again in the right order. ;-)
I used:
- 30 standard synthetic playing dice
- 96 S-05-02-N-disc magnets
- 12 S-10-03-N-disc magnets
- Table drill
- Superglue, e.g. UHU plus endfest 300
As shown in the photos, I used the standard 19mm synthetic playing dice. Rather than the traditional six colors of the Rubik's Cube, the six numbers of the dice will be sorted onto the six sides of the cube.
I bought a total of 30 dice, of which 27 eventually were used to build the cube. The others were damaged during construction. Little accidents can easily happen, as I will explain...
A hole was bored into the contact surface of each dice, into which a magnet was countersunk. In this way the dice hold together well but the friction is minimized so that it's still relatively easy to turn the dice during the game.
In order to fix the dice on the outside of the Rubik's Cube, I used 96 5 mm x 2 mm disc magnets. However, to build the central cube and the kernel, 12 larger and stronger 10 mm x 3 mm disc magnets were used.
Since construction was fairly tricky, it was worth having purchased a few magnets too many (100 resp. 20 magnets of each sort).
The magnets were glued using normal superglue. The only real difficulty is determining the correct alignment of the magnets so that the dice sit properly in cube form. But with a little patience and time, it's possible. (Really! It's possible!! I did it!)
It can also happen that when you place a magnet in the dice to glue it, the other magnets in the dice push the new magnet out due to their own polarity. You have to hold the new magnet fast on the dice to avoid it spontaneously turning in the wrong direction and then holding there, with the wrong polarity.
That can really happen and I warn you, if you have to drill out a magnet which is glued wrongly, don't take lightly the warning from SuperMagnete regarding "combustible dust"...!
Expect a flame now and again and oops: "Another magnet please!!"
The probably original instructions for a comparable magnetic Rubik's Cube can be found with the following link: Magnetic Rubik's Cube on the Website Instructables
All information to the original Rubik's Cube can be found in Wikipedia.
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