The Cube

This 3D packing puzzle is designed by Andreas Rover and made/sold by Mr Puzzle Australia. I bought it while on holiday visiting the Yallingup Maze in Western Australia. The Cube was also an IPP27 Gold Coast, Australia exchange puzzle.

The Cube is made of cedar stained radiata wood and has an orange brown colour. It measures 90mm x 90mm x 45mm (with 6 different shaped blocks inside the box frame). Construction, quality of fit and finish of the box and individual blocks are very good. The object of the puzzle (apart from merely taking out the blocks and fitting them all back nicely) is to make use of the loose blocks to form a cube.

The blocks are all of varying shapes and while I expected the task of solving to be not that easy, I did not expect that I would struggle for so long and still not be able to form the cube as required. After nearly several hours of trying, I gave up and decided that there must be something I was not doing right and went for the solution. What I saw stumped me! I totally did not expect the solution as that which came with the puzzle. I looked back at the description of the packaging which reads: "The object of the puzzle is to make a cube with the given pieces. Not your usual 3x3 cube; a very entertaining puzzle"; I then realised that I had overlooked a simple but vital clue in the said description.

The Cube is rated at level 5/10 difficulty level but I would say it is closer to perhaps 6. While not overly difficult (on hindsight), it is certainly had me fooled!