GEB Rubik's Cube 3x3x3 by qijie

GEB Rubik's Cube 3x3x3

qijie

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Published on March 28, 2011

Description

This is a fully functioning Rubik's cube that's printed in one piece (no assembly required). I extruded the letters G, E and B through its faces so that when the cube is solved, you can see through the cube on its corner pieces. It's a riff of the cover to Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.

I designed this project in OpenSCAD and made the letter extrusions independent of the cube itself. I've also uploaded the .scad code so you can design your own extrusions, or just print the cube. Enjoy :)

Instructions

3D-print and play!

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knappe on April 30, 2013 said:

I printed one of these on an Objet 30 in VeroWhite. It's an awesome design, but I have one complaint. There are sharp edges on the cubies, and therefore they get caught against each other. If all the corners were rounded, it would turn much better. Regardless, great job!

laird on December 10, 2012 said:

This is beautiful. But do you think it can be printed with a low-end printer? It looks like it'd require dissolvable support material to print, but I don't know the printers you named. What do you think?

pigpenguin on April 30, 2011 said:

Im curious, the only cubes i have ever used are those made with molds. How well does a printed cube turn?

qijie on April 30, 2011 said:

It definitely turns enough to play with, but yea you do need to fiddle with it sometimes! I think the quality is partially a result of the gap size in the model as well as the resolution of the printer. The acrylic printer had higher resolution, so the gaps in the printed cube ended up being bigger than in the ABS cube. As a result, it felt almost slightly squishy while the ABS material turned a bit better. Acrylic is a much smoother material, though, and for some reason felt better to play with.

Anyhow, I imagine with some tweaking of the gap sizes, you could probably optimize for turning. Also it's fun to realize that you can't just snap out the pieces to solve :).

syvwlch on April 19, 2011 said:

I remember that cover! Great idea, and great execution :-)

ScribbleJ on March 29, 2011 said:

Hahaha, good book, but great design. I'll have to print this eventually to use as a bookstop.

MakerBlock on March 29, 2011 said:

That's amazing - what was this printed on?

qijie on March 29, 2011 said:

Thanks! I printed the acrylic one (clear-ish) on the InVision SR 3D printer and the ABS cube (yello-ish) in a Dimension 3D printer. The model was made with a ~ 0.01" tolerance.