Message #1891

From: Andrey <andreyastrelin@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: yet more new puzzles and a prize
Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:29:10 -0000

Hi,
I’ve tried these puzzles long time ago. As far as I remember, I’ve solved VT version, then tried ET, find some 3-cycle for some kind of pieces (don’t remember which) - it was 14 or 22 twists, then imagined what setup sequencies will look like (with very limited operational freedom) and desided to go away from this puzzle :( So now I have nothing to say about FT and ET…

Andrey

— In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, "schuma" <mananself@…> wrote:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> I finally got a computer that can run MagicTile v2 preview. Knowing that the challenge is still open, I looked into the three {3,7} puzzles. I wonder if anyone is attempting these puzzles. After spending several minutes playing, I have the following thoughts.
>
> VT is obviously the easiest. The main difficulty is that, there are too many colors. 56 colors, right? Sometimes I’m embarrassed because I can’t find the piece I need. Sometimes I thought I found a desired piece. But only when I moved it to the destination, I found the colors were actually different. Because of this difficulty, the puzzle is not as easy as it should be. But still, it’s not hard. It just takes a little bit more time. By the way, under the default color setting, there are two blue triangle (color 3 and color 33). They are identical colors and one should change one of them.
>
> ET is something serious. I quickly found all the 3-cycle algorithms. They are pretty short and easy to find. As far as I currently know, the difficulties may be:
> (1) Too many colors. Hard to find a piece.
> (2) Too many pieces, nearly 1000 pieces. Tedious.
> (3) Hidden global orientation. This is tricky. In the beginning one should not assume a triangle to be the white triangle and start solving. He/she needs to study the scrambled state, and deduce which triangle is the "white" triangle, which is the blue one etc. Then he/she can start solving based on the deduced "orientation". If you don’t do it in the beginning and make an arbitrary assumption, it’s probably wrong and you are going into a dead end. I met this issue on edge turning dodecahedra, e.g., Gelatinbrain 1.4.10. Brandon must know what I’m talking about.
>
> FT is even harder, because the 3-cycle algorithms seem to be longer than ET. So macros would be very helpful here. At this point I can’t tell if I’m patient enough to solve it or not. I guess one need approximately or more than 20 hours to solve it. I won’t attempt it before solving VT and ET.
>
> Nan
>
> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Roice Nelson <roice3@> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > MagicTile v2 has been coming along well lately, so I wanted to share a
> > preview (not that we need any more puzzles at the moment!). It is a big
> > user experience improvement over v1, mostly due to my favorite new
> > capability - *smooth hyperbolic panning*! Click and drag to your heart’s
> > content.
> >
> > Not a huge number of puzzles in the menus yet, only the ones I’ve been
> > distracted towards or used in development, but they are unique. Also, they
> > are configured in xml and easy to set up, so if anyone would like to see
> > something in particular, just let me know. I’m finding the most difficult
> > (but perhaps most interesting) task is working out the coloring patterns -
> > that is, how to identify cells with each other. So if you request a puzzle,
> > I may turn around and ask for help like I did for the {8,3} tiling.
> >
> > Here’s what is available so far:
> >
> > - {3,7} face/edge/vertex turning
> > - {8,3} 24 Color, 10 Color and alternate 12 Color (The last two surprised
> > me and the 10 Color is especially pretty.)
> > - {4,6} and {6,4} "Petals"
> > - {5,5} - These are seriously strange… non-orientable, 6-colors.
> > Should be awesome, so check them out!
> > - {4,4} Variants
> > - Klein Bottles - There’s a Nan/Brandon/Andrey difficulty-level
> > puzzle that is both face+edge turning :)
> > - {6,3} - A 7-color and a vertex turning 16-color.
> > - Also nice is that you can no longer pan to the edge of the euclidean
> > tilings - they will just go on forever.
> >
> >
> > I like that Melinda gave out a prize in the speed cubing competition, so I’d
> > like to offer to send a MC4D crystal
> > cube<https://picasaweb.google.com/112844794913554774416/MC4DCrystalCube#5348453195820638338>to
> > *the first person to solve all three of the {3,7} puzzles*. I know there
> > are 115 stickers that move through a twist in the face turning puzzle, some
> > of them tiny. I know there are a ton of colors. I know there are no macros
> > or piece finding yet. I only offered the prize, and didn’t say it would be
> > easy! I hope the challenge will hold the group at bay for a while, maybe
> > until new features are implemented, maybe forever. Yeah right! :D
> >
> > Here are the files (I haven’t made an installer). It requires the .NET
> > Framework 4<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992>,
> > but I’d only worry about that if it doesn’t work after simply unzipping and
> > attempting the run the exe.
> >
> > www.gravitation3d.com/magictile/downloads/MagicTile_v2_5-14-11.zip
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Roice
> >
>