Comments on: How to solve the 36 Cube puzzle – hints & solution

By: Spec

Spec — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 04:29:26 +0000

Hah. I encountered this puzzle recently and I, too, wrote a python script to try to solve this….but turns out the puzzle is just a silly trick .

Here’s what I came up with. The simple test works so I assume the code would solve it if it wasn’t impossible.

~~http://pastebin.com/NwF6nTN6~~

Edit:
The code had a bug, Spec asked me to update the link: http://pastebin.com/TM4efCJ6 Thanks, Spec!
- Daniel

By: Daniel Hepper

Daniel Hepper — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:15:19 +0000

Jeff, you are absolutely correct! The pictures and the program output were correct, but my hints were wrong for about two years now, although Chell pointed it out a year ago

I’ve updated the post, thanks for letting me know!

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:41:08 +0000

I think your hint number four is incorrect. “Hint #4 (show): The two special towers are the orange one of heigh 5 and the red one of height 6.” The Red-6 and Orange-5 towers are identical their standard counterparts. I found it to be the Orange-6 and Yellow-5 that deviate slightly from the norm.

Based upon my inspection there are 4 abnormalities in the board/towers:
Base-1.2 is fatter than other same-height bases (compare with 3.4 or 0.5)
Base-3.2 is thinner at its bottom than other same-height bases (compare with 1.4 or 2.1)
Yellow-5 has an extra thick vertical line along its inside
Orange-6 has no/minuscule vertical line along its inside.

This allows these two pieces to fit on either of those bases (in addition to the other “correct” height bases).

By: MBR

MBR — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:21:12 +0000

I enjoyed this puzzle a lot, but I could never get past the 4th row and still make the puzzle work (and I tried for 2 years!). I was amazed that ThinkFun would put in a trick like that with the yellow 5 block fitting on a 6 block spot and the orange 6 block fitting on a 5 space. I liked the trick though and now I see why I could never figure out the puzzle before. Thanks for this page!

By: Fay Palma

Fay Palma — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 15:03:07 +0000

I’m an avid puzzler but not one who would seek out a math or computer solution. I just solve by logic and patience. My grandkids gave me this Christmas 2009 and I’ve been working on it off and on ever since. Frustrating? Yep! But I only now resorted to Googling for a solution. I’ve had 34 right a jillion times. The mechanical “trick” pieces both annoy me as “unfair” and make me feel a bit better about my inability to solve it. Anyway, it make a great toy for a toddler to play with her Grammie. I’ve probably been helping my little genius create new neural pathways while I’ve been pushing myself closer to insanity.

By: Mohit Dave

Mohit Dave — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:23:13 +0000

Hey my bro, first of all i thank to u to tell the solution of colur puzzle but i don’t get the total solution plz…..tell me an easy solution for it. Plz plz plz plz plz……

By: Melanie

Melanie — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 01:55:46 +0000

Thankyou, Daniel!

I finally solved this monster! Thanks so much for your site and the hints. I confess I ended up viewing all of the hints to work it out, but the colours on mine were different, and I just played around with my 5 and 6 high pieces till I found the two irregularities. From there it was a lot easier (or perhaps I was lucky)!

For the life of me I couldn’t find the “coordinate system” you mentioned, so “3,2″ etc didn’t mean much to me. I later realised it is referred to in the solution picture, but of course I didn’t want to look at that! I’m sure it’s clear in the scripting, too, if you understand those things, but I couldn’t figure it out. Just FYI.

For others like me, the coordinate system seems to be as below. The corner that holds a 5-high tower is at (0,0).
(0,0) (0,1) (0,2) (0,3) (0,4) (0,5)
(1,0) (1,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5)
(2,0) (2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4) (2,5)
(3,0) (3,1) (3,2) (3,3) (3,4) (3,5)
(4,0) (4,1) (4,2) (4,3) (4,4) (4,5)
(5,0) (5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) (5,5)

Thanks again and feel free to remove parts of my comment if needed!

By: Chell

Chell — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:23:57 +0000

Daniel,

Hello. Thanks for the site. You write “orange tower of height 5 has to go to position (1,2) and the red tower of height 6 to (3,2) in my coordinate system.” But in your picture http://daniel.hepper.net/blog/wp-content/36cube_complete_solution-300×225.jpg, the position (1,2) is occupied by an yellow tower and position (3,2) is occupied by orange tower.

Did you mean to say, “yellow tower of height 5 at position (1,2) and orange tower of height 6 at (3,2)”.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for your help,

By: peitje bell

peitje bell — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:40:16 +0000

this game sucks it has a grade for that:… 10!!! it had cost me lots of manyand I can’t find out the solusoin! but thank you guys! you helped me al lot

By: peitje bell

peitje bell — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:36:39 +0000

this is sucks. it had co