Rubik Top (Hybrid Toy Project)

[ortwin]

...That's the new Rubik top (replaced the orange with red)....

I also have news from my copy of the Rubik top, but I am afraid its not the best news possible...
Today I went outside to a piece of grass equipped with the Rubik top tripod and cellphone to film my first try doing a boomerang with it.
Well, it disintegrated in mid air on the first attempt! Sorry! Maybe I upload the video of that later on.
One internal part of an edge of a center piece broke of, but that is not critical I think. One corner broke but I am hopeful that crazy-gluing it together again will work (its already in the process of hardening right now). The seven pieces that flew off were spread over a radius of about 10 meters. I was lucky to find all of them, although the last one took me a while.
Did I learn a lesson?
Probably not! Last time a corner broke I said I would not throw it around, yet here I am ....

[ta0]

Well, it disintegrated in mid air on the first attempt!

I'm sorry about that.

I can mail you the replacement parts, but it would be more efficient if you knew somebody locally with a 3D printer.
By the way, I printed the pieces for the new Rubik top with the layers in the longitudinal direction instead of parallel to the base: I think this will make them stronger.
The pieces would be more efficient to make with a resin LCD printer instead of an extrusion filament printer, as you could make several in parallel at the same speed. One day . . .

[Jeremy McCreary]

I also have news from my copy of the Rubik top, but I am afraid its not the best news possible...
Today I went outside to a piece of grass equipped with the Rubik top tripod and cellphone to film my first try doing a boomerang with it.
Well, it disintegrated in mid air on the first attempt!
...
The seven pieces that flew off were spread over a radius of about 10 meters. I was lucky to find all of them, although the last one took me a while.

With great centrifugal force comes great responsibility.

That's especially true of modular tops. Our house in Denver had gouges in walls from top shrapnel. Some of the parts were never seen again, though I did find a few MIAs when we moved out.

When I started showing LEGO tops in public, I made a firm rule: To enter my collection, a top has to be rock-solid at well above finger speeds.

My top starters have also been quite popular. But have to be very careful with those in public. Guessing that 30-40% of my tops are NOT safe with my most powerful starters — especially the ribbon-pulls.

[ortwin]

The promised video:


https://youtu.be/z_FHMVy9iQU

why can I never keep different topics in different threads?

[ortwin]

Aaah, relief !!
I could repair it so that it works fine again as a Rubik puzzle!

[Jeremy McCreary]

Aaah, relief !!
I could repair it so that it works fine again as a Rubik puzzle!

Do you think it's possible to make one that does both functions well? Mechanically, survival at boomerang-level centrifugal and shearing forces forces seems like a tall order for a top with so many internal degrees of freedom.

[ta0]

Aaah, relief !!
I could repair it so that it works fine again as a Rubik puzzle!

Do you think it's possible to make one that does both functions well? Mechanically, survival at boomerang-level centrifugal and shearing forces forces seems like a tall order for a top with so many internal degrees of freedom.

The design considerations for easy sliding of the Rubik planes and for withstanding high centrifugal forces are somewhat opposite, so it's challenging. But I'm sure it can be done.

[ortwin]

Now I ordered that Rubik pear I linked to here.


Like with the lemon we saw before in this thread, I expect that I have to glue the outer layer to make sure it does not peel while boomeranging. I will report how it goes once it arrives ( in may or so).

[ortwin]

It is not May yet but that Rubik pear arrived already!
The picture from that site:




I pealed it in order to crazy glue the parts back on so they would withstand the centrifugal forces.




That brown little stem (is there no better word for this in English?) was fixed with a little screw to a green cap. I replaced it after windening the sc
rewholw a bit by a nice Strummol8 tip I had lying around that fits perfectly.



The string came from a Can-Cels top.

https://youtu.be/yy2XDBCYwrU

[ta0]

Looks fantastic!
That's a great idea on how to make yourself a top that works well as a Rubik's cube!

So, now it cannot be disassembled any more, I guess.

[ortwin]

Actually it can be disassembled again: The cap that holds the tip and the one opposite to that, I did not glue on since I expected the centrifugal forces acting on those parts not to be that big.

[ta0]

One difference with the 3D printed Rubik top is that on the pear top the tip and crown are centers, while on the 3D printed they are two corners. So the pear seems more logical and less confusing.
With all the pieces the same color and the easy sliding, the pear should be significantly faster to solve.

[ortwin]

Yes it should be faster to solve, but I did still not solve it after the scrable in the video!
You know what? I still value the 3D-printed version a lot higher!

[ta0]

I printed it for the third time, as my first two now belong to Ortwin and John Markus.
But this time I modified the tip to make it more playable:





The first time I threw it, it exploded as it was too lose, but luckily none of the pieces broke. Now I need to get the courage to scramble it

I'm not yet completely happy with it, but at least I once again have a working one.

[ortwin]

It looks good ta0!
So, you really can do more than a boomerang with it now? Any footage to show yet?