Die Puzzle

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The author of Thing 31685 mentioned it was inspired by a circa 1893 puzzle book, which led me to read that book online. There, I stumbled on the "Spots" puzzle, http://archive.org/stream/puzzlesoldnew00hoff#page/98/mode/1up , in which an oversized die is cut into nine simple blocks. The surprisingly difficult problem is to reassemble the die.My version takes advantage of the fact that 3D printing can easily build more complex shapes. First, the dots are not merely painted, but are conical hollows. Second, rather than having the internal edges be simple cuts, I have introduced an interlocking pattern of conical hollows and bumps. This makes the assembled die hold together somewhat, but the puzzle is at least as difficult to solve because the internal and external hollows look identical -- I even painted them identically.I also made the die face pattern match the modern dice I had at home. All dice have opposing faces sum to 7, but the book's face pattern is slightly different from my design.In the 20131213 version, I've added a little 3D-printed box to hold the assembled die and rotated a few of the pieces to make print quality less slicer-dependent (no holes on top, because cura doesn't place fill wisely). The box serves to hold the assembled die together and as a reference for the dot placement while assembling the puzzle, but the box itself is also a little puzzle -- how does it open?

About the author:
ProfHankD
I'm a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Kentucky, best known for things like having built the world's first Linux PC cluster supercomputer in 1994... although around the 3D-printing world I'm probably best known for my HingeBox (which Tested popularized). My research group (Aggregate.Org) really is about improving computing systems by making the various SW+HW components work better together, which we do for many different types of computer systems: supercomputers, digital cameras, ... and now 3D printers. I had some experience with tool and die making using Bridgeport Series I CNCs as far back as the late 1970s, but my 3D printing adventure started in late 2012 with purchase of a MakerGear M2 for my lab to make custom camera parts in support of computational photography research. I now use multiple MakerGear M2 and Wanhao I3 3D printers, several semiconductor laser cutters, a 3040T CNC mill, a programmable paper cutter, and a small vacuum forming machine.

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