Snake Cube

Contents of this Page

What is the Snake Cube? Twelve Cubes
Ways to the Solution Snake Cube on the Internet
The Solution in 17 Steps .
To the Main Page "Mathematische Basteleien"

What is the Snake Cube?

The snake cube is a chain of 27 cubelets. The cubelets are connected by an elastic
band running through the middle. There are 17 groups with two or three cubelets
shown in the drawing.
The aim of the puzzle is to arrange the chain in such a way that there will be a 3x3x3
cube.

Ways to the Solution top

You can only solve the snake cube systematically.
First you number the pairs or triplets of cubelets from 1 to 17.
You see triplet number 1 on the left. While ordering you should always
keep the same orientation in the room.
You fix this orientation by a coordinate system with x-, y- and z-axis.
You learn from a diagram how to arrange the 16 following groups. There are also
dead ends with STOP to show the structure of this puzzle. I will explain the names of
the moves by an example. "10-x" means: Arrange the 10th group in direction of
the -x-axis.

If you see the simple diagram you may wonder why this puzzle is so difficult. The
reason is that you often have to go back to the last branch. It is difficult to find this
place.

There is another solution. You start at the end, but then you will have technical
problems. The middle vertical triplet is late and can be laid properly only with
difficulties.
There are two more solutions because of symmetry. You can see one of these in a
sequence of drawings.

The Solution in 17 Steps top

........ ........

Twelve Cubes top

I 've got this nice cube chain. I don't know the name and the manufacturer. Obviously
it is similar to the "Kibble Cube".

The shape is simple:

There are two slits turned around 90 in opposite faces of one cube. The
12 cubes are connected by an elastic string along the centre axes. The
... ...
first and the last cube have a knot inside.
You can give the cube chain any direction in this arrangement. If you would have 27
cubes instead of 12, you also could lay the snake cube above.

Snake Cube on the Internet top

Jaap Scherphuis
Snake Cube , Kibble Cube
 Feedback: Email address on my main page

This page is also available in German.

URL of my Homepage:
http://www.mathematische-basteleien.de/

1999 Jrgen Kller

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