As an undergraduate neuroscience student, one of my research projects covers puzzles. I am interested in a wide variety of puzzles, and how people approach them in attempt to solve them. I am particularly interested in puzzle cubes and combination puzzles.
One of the puzzle cubes I do research on are Megaminx cubes, which is the topic for this paper. A Megaminx is a dodecahedron puzzle. This means that it has twelve surfaces. Most people are familiar with a Rubik’s cube. A Megaminx is essentially like a Rubik’s cube. The objective is the same for both: match the colors on each of the surfaces. However, a Megaminx is a lot more complex to solve given the additional number of surfaces and pieces it has over a Rubik’s cube. A Megaminx has fifty movable pieces, whereas a Rubik’s cube only has twenty. This is why there are many more permutations possible for a Megaminx.
The Megaminx is a creation of multiple people who invented it independently of each other. A man by the name of Uwe Mèffert then acquired some patent rights, and proceeded to sell them. Mèffert named it Megaminx. However, Dr. Cristoph Bandelow created a version of the Megaminx before Mèffert did. Bandelow’s version was called Hungarian Supernova. Mèffert and Bandelow’s cubes differed by their proportions, but not too much in that regard.
As mentioned before, a Megaminx is a dodecahedron puzzle. It has 12 face center pieces, 30 edge pieces, and 20 corner pieces. A surface of a Megaminx has one center piece (which has a single color), five corner pieces (each with three colors), and five edge pieces (each with two colors). The face center pieces are the only ones that are only able to rotate in place. The other ones have a lot more mobility.
A Megaminx comes in one of two color schemes. You could either get the six color type. For this one, pairs of surfaces match in color. Whereas with the twelve color type, each surface has a unique color.
(To be continued in the next part)