MAKE | Make a rubik's cube out of dice

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By Bre Pettis
Posted 2007/08/31 @ 10:00 am
Category General

This weekend, Action Girl and I show you how to make a Rubik’s Cube out of dice, magnets and epoxy. Interestingly enough, the first Rubik’s cube ever was made with magnets! We found inspiration in gfixler’s and burzvingion’s instructables.

The hardest part that we had with this was getting all the magnets in the right polarity!

Subscribe in iTunes and get the podcast and pdf downloaded automatically. – Link

By popular request, here’s a little video of the cube actually moving! – Link

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13 Responses to Make a rubik's cube out of dice – Make: Video Podcast

billcammack on August 31st, 2007 at 11:32 am said:

Sah-WEET!!!

Fun episode!

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Backstab on August 31st, 2007 at 12:03 pm said:

i wish you showed a video of you actually turning the dice rubik’s cube to show that it actually works and isnt just a bunch of dice magneted together

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Bre_Pettis on August 31st, 2007 at 1:17 pm said:

Here you go Backstab! I made you a little movie of the cube moving!

http://cachefly.oreilly.com/make/cubemoving.mp4

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supasam on August 31st, 2007 at 2:36 pm said:

Thats awesome. Someone should get some really big magnets and make a rubik’s cube out of rubik’s cubes.

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d-sier on August 31st, 2007 at 2:39 pm said:

Thats realy nice!
And I’m not only talking about the cute and smart girl when i say that

I wonder if it would be posible to make a cube with 6 motors to make it solve itself?
That could be a fun project to make, and the math would be interesting.

Anyone know of any servos or step motors that would be small enough to fit into that type of space?

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Bre_Pettis on August 31st, 2007 at 2:43 pm said:

Supasam, that is a completely awesome idea!

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garethb2 on August 31st, 2007 at 2:47 pm said:

Who is “Action Girl?” She’s cool. I think I’m in love.

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monopole on August 31st, 2007 at 3:03 pm said:

Actually, Erno Rubik was a Professor of Architecture and originally devised the mechanical assembly of the cube as an exercise in three dimensional design and visualization for his students. Several previous methods of implementation were already patented, but Rubik’s was the least expensive and most practical.

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cheese1113 on August 31st, 2007 at 3:27 pm said:

It’s the Magical Disappearing Rubik’s Cube! That was hilarious… This is a very awesome idea, I have never even considered making one. Great video Bre, thanks!

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MtgSquirrel on September 1st, 2007 at 10:27 pm said:

Hey, that is a fun little project and I have tons of dice lying around.I like how both of you demonstrated the stop mechanism on the drill press which is often overlooked. It’s also nice to see the links to your original sources.

The assembling of the cube and the order of the dice/magnets is kinda ambiguous. Could you clarify it?

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garyfixler on September 2nd, 2007 at 4:48 pm said:

Nice podcast, guys, and thanks for the shout-outs!

To those looking for clarity on certain steps, follow the podcast’s advice, and look at the 2 Instructables linked both in the video itself, and in the text beneath the video. All that work’s been done for you already!

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strex on September 6th, 2007 at 3:04 pm said:

If I make one of these totally awesome Rubik’s Cube’s with action girl come and visit me to show off her skills?

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cube_boy on November 8th, 2007 at 4:41 pm said:

how much would youll charge or would youll even make me one ill pay

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