Rubik's 360 Review

[Sid]

This is a Review of sorts for the Rubik's 360 puzzle game.

Well all games rooms have those little knick knacks that clutter the shelves, little things that make a game room a little more fun.

we all remember the classic Rubik's cube with the 6 faces of coloured death!
make one and you would screw up the other side and vice versa.

the sweet sense of victory when you overcame a challenge and were able to put things into place and maybe fix 2 sides instead of one... only to have one false twist ruin it all..

let me tell you of Rubik's latest addition to the game room, and to mine.

a few days ago i received via the post man and via Malta of all places my brand new Rubik's 360.

well the best way to describe the game play...

"for every action there is opposite and equal reaction. "

the goal of the puzzle is to take the 6 coloured balls and place them into the 6 coloured pockets on the outside sphere of the puzzle, each pocket has a colour so each coloured ball goes into its own pocket.

sounds easy... NO its not.. for you see the 6 coloured balls sit in an inside sphere with one hole. this hole is exactly opposite to a weight in the middle sphere that makes putting a ball into the hole. frustrating... Gravity is not your friend on this one.

so you end up trying to get one ball into the hole to get it into the next sphere but once you have achieved it the weight on the other side of the sphere does it jobs or more correctly gravity. and flips the sphere so the ball falls back into the center sphere..

FRUSTRATION ensues!!!

you try again. who am i kidding you will try several times...and you will be shaking your head each time. UNTIL that magical moment when it clicks.. and you get one coloured ball out of the center sphere and into the secondary sphere.. which has 2 holes to take it to the outer sphere and into the coloured pockets...

when you get a ball into the secondary sphere, its a good time to stop. relax. and think of what your going to do next.. yes.. the secondary sphere is weighted again! but its a little easier to control then the center sphere.

the 2 holes of the secondary sphere each have a different job, one services one side of the outer pockets and the other hole services the other three outer pockets.

so you can get a coloured ball out of the second sphere only to realize it went out the wrong hole and there is no way of getting it into the hole that its suppose to go into.. MORE FRUSTRATION!! but in the event that you get the coloured ball out of the center, out of the secondary sphere and in the right hole, you can then try to make the ball go into its proper outer pocket.
you rotate the ball backwards the sphere will go forwards. you think your smart and you rotate it forwards so the sphere will go backwards you get frustrated as it wont do what you want it too

to put a ball into one of the outer pockets you need to use one of the 2 knobs on the Rubik's 360, these knobs control the 2 mechanisms that allow the balls into the outer pockets, you twist the knob and it unlocks the pocket. allowing the ball to enter or exit the pocket.

once you have the correct coloured ball in its correct outer pocket you lock it into place and its safe. take a breather.. there are 5 more balls to get into the outer pockets.

you will find that there is no algorithm that you can follow like the rubik's cube, its got a mind of its own, and there are no stickers to peel off or squares you can take apart.. its hard its frustrating its very rewarding once you get it done.

if you like puzzles and a little frustration i highly recommend you pick one up!

Rubiks 360, rubiks on eBay!

as for me and my Rubik's 360... it took me about 3 hours of playing to finally get all 6 balls into the outer pockets.. your mileage may vary..

but i guarantee you its both FUN and FRUSTRATING

[luckydog]

I'll leave this for the youngsters to buy, too much thinking, my old brain would explode

[MrGneiss]

Sounds like fun..maybe I'll get one!!

[hanabi]

Nice Review!!

Strangely, one of the things my 12 year old daughter wanted for Xmas last year was one of the original Rubiks Cubes

She had heard me talk about them and seen them mentioned on nostalgic TV programmes

So I had to buy her one from Toys R Us, cost about £12 and she and her brother have had a little fun with it, although they haven't solved it yet

I remember when I was younger my dad kept buying all different shaped ones, and our original one was played with that much that it got all loose

They are great little toys for keeping the mind busy, I will certainly be looking for one of these new 360 models

[MrGneiss]

Permutations

The original (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube has eight corners and twelve edges. There are 8 (40,320) ways to arrange the corner cubes. Seven can be oriented independently, and the orientation of the eighth depends on the preceding seven, giving 37 (2,187) possibilities. There are 12!/2 (239,500,800) ways to arrange the edges, since an odd permutation of the corners implies an odd permutation of the edges as well. Eleven edges can be flipped independently, with the flip of the twelfth depending on the preceding ones, giving 211 (2,048) possibilities.



There are exactly 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 permutations, which is approximately forty-three quintillion. The puzzle is often advertised as having only "billions" of positions, as the larger numbers could be regarded as incomprehensible to many. To put this into perspective, if every permutation of a 57-millimeter Rubik's Cube were lined up end to end, it would stretch out approximately 261 light years. Alternatively, if laid out on the ground, this is enough to cover the earth with 273 layers of cubes, recognizing the fact that the radius of the earth sphere increases by 57 mm with each layer of cubes.

[Sid]

I'll leave this for the youngsters to buy, too much thinking, my old brain would explode

its more skill and dexterity then having to think about finding the solution

Sounds like fun..maybe I'll get one!!

you should! it will be fun

Nice Review!!

Strangely, one of the things my 12 year old daughter wanted for Xmas last year was one of the original Rubiks Cubes

She had heard me talk about them and seen them mentioned on nostalgic TV programmes

So I had to buy her one from Toys R Us, cost about £12 and she and her brother have had a little fun with it, although they haven't solved it yet

I remember when I was younger my dad kept buying all different shaped ones, and our original one was played with that much that it got all loose

They are great little toys for keeping the mind busy, I will certainly be looking for one of these new 360 models

I loved the original Cube, never was able to ever fix the cube... i bought one in 2007 just to relive the experience but nothing.. fortunately it had a handy how to pamphlet inside that showed all the moves.. and how to complete the cube.. one day i will try again once i have memorized some of the moves..