Pyramorphix

The Pyramorphix is a tetrahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 8 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 of the Rubik's cube. Though it looks like a simpler version of the Pyraminx, the mechanism is identical to that of the Pocket Cube.

Description

At first glance, the Pyramorphix appears to be a trivial puzzle. It resembles the Pyraminx, and its appearance would suggest that only the four corners could be rotated. In fact, the puzzle is a specially shaped 2×2×2 cube. Four of the cube's corners are reshaped into pyramids and the other four are reshaped into triangles. The result of this is a puzzle that changes shape as it is turned. The puzzle is available either with stickers or plastic tiles on the faces. Both have a ribbed appearance, giving a visible orientation to the flat pieces. This results in 3,674,160 combinations, the same as the 2×2×2 cube. However, if there were no means of identifying the orientation of those pieces, the combinations would be reduced. There would be 8! ways to arrange the pieces, divided by 24 to account for the lack of center pieces, and there would be 3⁴ ways to rotate the four pyramidal pieces.

:$frac\{8!\; imes\; 3^4\}\{24\}=136080$

The Pyramorphix can be rotated around three axes by multiples of 90°. The corners cannot rotate individually as on the Pyraminx. The Pyramorphix rotates in a way that changes the position of center pieces not only with other center pieces but also with corner pieces, leading to a variety of shapes.

The purpose of the puzzle is to scramble the colors and the shape, and then restore it to its original state of being a tetrahedron with one color per face.

See also

*Rubik's Cube
*Pyraminx
*Skewb Diamond
*Pocket Cube
*Combination puzzles
*Mechanical puzzles

External links

* [http://www.mud.ca/puzzler/JPuzzler/JPuzzler.html A Java applet which includes the Pyramorphix]