Something Fun From My 3D Printer

Now that the Christmas rush is over and the dust has settled a bit I thought it would be a good time to make something fun on my 3D printer.  With that thought in mind I starting thinking about a game I played with when I was in grade school a long time ago.  It was a simple game called "Instant Insanity".  It consisted of just four cubes with different colors on each side of each cube.  The goal of the puzzle was to align the four cubes and have four different colors on each side of the row of faces when you were done.  Not an easy task as I could recall so the puzzle gave me many hours of fun and frustration all at the same time. 

  I did a little research on this game and found out that it had been called by several other names over the years and had been produced much earlier than when I had first seen it.  So this was the project that I chose to make. 

Here is the layout for each of the four cubes to be used in the puzzle.  This layout I found online is a bit different than the original game that I first played with as the combinations of cubes also could be set up to have one color on each side of the cube when they are aligned as well as different colors on each cube as they are aligned.  So the puzzle could be played in two ways.

Each cube is made up of two halves.  The contacting faces on the inside of the cube have a 45 degree chamfer on their edges so the cubes will mate up nicely and be uniform on all side when glued together.  The circular indents on all six sides of each completed cube allowed for the placement of a colored disk for the game. In my version I also added four shapes to these disks as well.

Here is an image of the cubes with three already assembled in the background. Each cube is 1 3/4" square in size. They could be printed smaller but I thought this was a good size to work with as the inserts would have a bit more detail to them once they were installed into each cube.

Here are all of the inserts that I printed for the puzzle.  As you can see there are triangles, stars, hexagons, and squares all in different colors.  Twenty four pieces in all. Laying all of the parts out in the computer made the task of making this puzzle an easy problem to work on.  I used Fusion 360 software to get the job done.

To assemble the game I first glued all of the pieces for the black cubes together using plastic modeling glue.  After a few minutes the glue had did it's job and I could start gluing all of the colored disks into each cube per the diagram from the first photo in this post.  I did not have any green 3D printing filament so I substituted it for orange instead. 

The image above shows what the puzzle looks like as it is being played.  None of the sides that you see and even those that you don't see are correct...... and so the game begins.  The faces of the cubes that mate against on another do not matter when you play the game. So each cube needs to be twisted, turned, rotated, or position in a different location to complete the puzzle.  Hours of fun and an easy project to complete using my 3D printer. 

Now I just have to give it a new name as my puzzle is just a bit different than other ones that I have found online and played with in my younger days.  Maybe "Crazy Blocks" simply because it will drive you crazy once you start trying to complete the puzzle.  It's a thought.  Anyway enjoy the images and build one for yourself and see if you can complete this simple yet difficult puzzle.