Since its introduction in the late 1970s, the Rubik’s Cube has progressed in status from popular household toy, to cultish pursuit for those wanting to push the boundaries of puzzle solving. Speedcubers have continuously decreased solve times—resulting in ridiculous records like this 5.25 second feat—and builders have, of course, continuously enlarged the cube. Now, thanks to YouTuber Coren Puzzle, the latter effort has culminated in a 3D-printed world-record-sized 22×22 Rubik’s Cube, which has a brain-bending 4.3×10^1795 possible combinations.
Looks like we’re gonna need a bigger brain…
Completed construction of the 2,691 piece mega-puzzle must have come as a relief to its builder, who encountered trouble during assembly when the whole thing “exploded.” Twice. Check out the video below of the cube-tastrophes as they are both heartbreaking and hilarious (especially that “whoa!” right around 0:53).
According to its builder, 3-D printing all of the parts means this puzzle is three times cheaper to produce than smaller puzzles printed professionally, although he does admit that “turning quality does suffer significantly.” This means that solve time on this massive one-off is hard to say, although it does take three hours just to get it into a basic checkerboard pattern, so “patience you must have… young padawan.” For reference, the current Guinness Book of World Records holder for largest cube solved is Kenneth Brandon, who nailed a 17×17 in about 7.5 hours.
If you wish to attempt to build your own 22×22, Coren Puzzle has made the printing instructions available for free on Thingiverse. Although when it comes to actually solving this beast, that may have to wait for a time when it can rotate faster than Venus on its axis, and doesn’t explode when handled too roughly. Cube solvers are a driven bunch however, so maybe this will just be a new level of challenge.
What do you think about this 22×22 Rubik’s Cube? Is it “whoa!” in a good way, or “whoa!” in a “this 22×22 cube that has 2,691 pieces just exploded in my face” way? Let us know in the comments section below!
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HT: GizmodoÂ
Image: Coren Puzzle
