Gear cube (puzzle type)

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Gear Cube
Alternative names: Caution Cube
Shape: Cube
Internal Mechanism: 3x3x3 with geared edges
Inventor: Oskar van Deventer
Year: 2009
Produced by: Shapeways and Meffert's (in 2010)
Twisty Puzzles museum link: PKEY1501
Jaap's puzzle page link: gearcube

This page is about the Gear Cube puzzle. For the Gear Cube Extreme or the Anisotropic Gear Cube, see Gear Cube Extreme. For a list of geared puzzles, see Category:Geared puzzles.

The Gear Cube (also known as the Caution Cube) is a twistable puzzle in the shape of a cube that is cut two times along each of three axes, as a 3x3x3. Moreover, there are geared edges. That means the edges can turn around themselves. It was invented by Oskar van Deventer (idea of Bram Cohen). It was first produced by Shapeways since 2009, and then by Meffert's since 2010 (for 36€) and it finally got copied by LanLan.

This puzzle has 6 fixed centers (they can't move related to each others), 12 edges, and 8 corners, and a total of 41,472 positions. It has been proven that every position can be solved in 8 or fewer moves in ATM and 12 or fewer in HTM. It's important to note that quarter moves block the cube (only half turns are unprohibited) so QTM has no meaning for this puzzle.

It's not an official event in WCA competition.

The current unofficial world record single speed solve is 2.16 seconds held by Kentaro Nishi. It looks harder but it is actually way easier to solve as compared as with a normal 3x3x3 cube.

Fun facts

  • The gear cube was originally called the "Caution Cube" because the solver's fingers could get caught in the gears

See also

External Links



Cubic twisty puzzles

2x2x2 | 3x3x3 | 4x4x4 | 5x5x5 | 6x6x6 | 7x7x7 | more...

Skewb | Master Skewb | Rex cube | Dino cube | Helicopter cube | Curvy Copter

Crazy 4×4×4 cube (version 1) | Crazy 4×4×4 cube (version 2) | Crazy 4×4×4 cube (version 3)

Gear cube | Gear cube extreme

Constrained cube (90°) (mechanism variation of 3x3x3) | Void cube (mechanism variation of 3x3x3) | Latch Cube (mechanism variation of 3x3x3)

Void cube | Shepherd's cube (sticker variation of 3x3x3) | Labyrinth cube (sticker variation of 3x3x3) | Supercube (sticker variation of NxNxN cubes)

Square 1 | Square 2

Bandaged cube