Innovation or stay station?

[Dyste]

I was just pondering on the prospect of innovating the mechanism of a cube. Do people believe that the current state/original style structure suffices, or do people believe that some new architecture would exhibit greater potential?

I was thinking about the idea of adding ball bearings into the design of the center, but then if there isn't enough friction, there would be chaos while trying to cube.

 

[rawr]

I was thinking about ball bearings too...

I wonder what the design is for the 3x3 olympicubes... Maybe they're better?

There are records of 10 seconds and lower... So, I think the new design is alright. But I'm open for a re-design.

 

[TimMc]

I'd like to see a 3x3x3 with a sphere-like mechanism so that there's very little gap between cubies and the chance of it popping would be decreased.

 

[AvGalen]

Rubiks 4x4x4 has that and they pop quite a lot.

 

[Jason]

Fellow PhD students and I were thinking of machining a Rubik's cube made out of teflon seeing it has an uber low friction coefficient

 

[TimMc]

Rubiks 4x4x4 has that and they pop quite a lot.

My 4x4x4 hasn't popped yet o.O

The tension doesn't allow you to pull a face that much (it barely moves a millimeter). A part from that it turns really smoothly with very little friction.

It takes me about 4min to solve it so I don't think I'm pushing it's physical limits just yet (I just don't practice solving it much). It'd be interesting to know what a 4x4x4 speedsolver thinks of it ^_^

Tim.

 

[AvGalen]

Just thinking? Do it Jason (just on the inside though)

 

[Jason]

I might have to do it. The thing is it's probably easier to make the whole cube out of teflon rather than just the inside faces, simply because it's really hard to deposit teflon on surfaces. You would need to create a complex textured suface for the Teflon to stay on. That's what they have to do when putting Teflon on frying pans, hehe

 

[abbracadiabra]

Jason, you probably know a lot more about this than I do, but my understanding was that Teflon (or an ingredient in Teflon????) was considered by the EPA to be a carcinogen.

Given that a Rubik's cube is something that gets handled frequently, and for long periods of time, I'm not sure it's a good idea to make it out of a carcinogenic substance.

 

[badmephisto]

also keep in mind that friction is not always a bad thing... you need at least a little bit. But making it from a material which has just exactly as much friction as a well-lubed cube would be really nice. Plus it has to be light, and preferably cheap...

 

[Jason]

Well, Teflon is carcinogenic, but above 280 degrees celsius. It's on almost all frying pans. And if you're afraid of using your frying pan now, just note that butter in a frying pan at that temperature has LD 100 (100% mortality rate on sujects when exposed to fumes during 4 hours, although the subjects were birds, hehe). So, teflon is carcinogenic, but so is MacDonalds. But you're totally right, the cube might be a bit slippery, it's worth a try tho.

 

[Dyste]

I think that's where perhaps a cube that is tightened fairly well and has some sort of ball bearing integrated with the centers would work wonderfully. This would be the simplist modification, anyway. I wonder if someone will ever test such a structure.

 

[Jason]

The thing is that it's not the core that slows the cube down, but the friction between the surfaces of the pieces, in which case I don't understand the case for a ball bearing system, unless you design some kind of system whereby the cubies don't hold each other in (like a normal cube) but where they would be held in by the core from the inside. Even tho, I still don't quite know where ball bearing would fit into there, but who knows : )

 

[Dyste]

Well, the cubies are kept in there by the centers, thus, if the centers rotated with less friction themselves, and whereby the cubies have friction between them, then this could create a good effect of keep the cube somewhat stable, while still managing to produce better movement.

 

[Jason]

The cubies are held in by the center faces, but it's not the friction of the rotation of those center faces with respect to the core that create the bulk of the friction. In fact seeing the angular moment at the edge of a cube when turning a layer, the friction due to the rotation between the center cubie and the core is completely negligeable with respect to the friction between the other cubies.

 

[Jason]

Apparently, the 3x3x3 cube from Olympicubes has a different mechanism to the Rubik's cubik's cube. I wonder what it's like

 

[Dyste]

Perhaps, but there's really no sure-fire way of making the cubies near frictionless. But, in the case of using ball bearings, it is simply the movement of the actual center piece. This isn't to say that you wouldn't lube the cube first. It would just create a better effect, since then the loss of friction between the cubies would allow the ball bearings to come into play more noticeably.

 

[Jason]

Well, using Teflon would dramatically decrease friction, making the ball bearing obsolete. Anyway, how do you propose to use this ball bearing? Is it simply to reduce rotational friction between the center piece cubie and the core?

 

[abbracadiabra]

Mefferts uses a different mechanism in their 3x3x3, although I haven't taken one apart to see how different it is. You can't just pop and edge cubie out like you can in a Rubik's cube. The Mefferts cube has very little friction, and it spins really well. But it doesn't cut corners at all.

 

[Jason]

Interesting. Maybe one day someone could sacrify a Meffert's cube to see what's inside