The First of April - Fool’s Cube

It’s the first of April, and we all know what that means.  It’s a time for tricks, pranks, and of course, PUZZLES!  Since this post falls exactly on that magnificent day, I decided to celebrate by creating a little puzzle.  The design criterion was simple.  No, coming up with the design criterion wasn’t simple, the criterion itself was to be simple.  I don’t know why it’s so complicated to describe a simple criterion.

Simple in this context was a 3x3x3 cubic dissection that would be within the capabilities of most wood tinkerers to make.  That provided 27 cubes to work with.  To make it even easier, I decided that it had to be interlocking.  Anyone familiar with 3x3x3 puzzles knows that you really can’t make a difficult interlocking puzzle in that format, even if you wanted to.  Although, I was tempted to add half-cubes and add rotations, I stuck with the design criterion and kept it simple.  However, it still has a nice Aha moment to be enjoyed.

In honor of this fabulous holiday, the puzzle was named Fool’s Cube.  Since I haven’t started working in the garage shop yet, I made the prototype from some Cherry and White Oak pieces left over from past projects.  I was 3 cubes short of being able to make it all in Cherry.  Since there are only 4 wooden pieces, I decided to drill a hole in each and put them on a keychain.  This way, I can easily carry the pieces together and hand them to someone to solve.  I didn’t have an appropriate keychain and the one that I made is too large.  I’ll need to shop around for a more suitable one and plan on getting one of those nylon coated stainless steel wire keychains.

Fools’ Cube has a difficulty of 1.2.1 and there are no rotations.  You could put it in BurrTools and it will not only provide the assembly but show you step-by-step how to put it together, but don’t waste your time doing that.  Just build one and solve it on your own.  It will take you a lot less time solving it than building it.  If you do make one to try, you should time yourself to determine how long it takes you to put it together.  Most of you will do it in a couple of minutes.  Let me know how you do.  It took my wife a minute and a half.