Gear cube (puzzle type)
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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
- Gear Cube Extreme
- Gear Cube stickered on edges (Sticker variation of gear cube)
- Gear MasterMorphix (Supercube variation of Gear Cube stickered on edges)
External Links
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