I've had a share of what I consider to be great product ideas, but this one almost leaves me shaking my own head. I half think this is brilliant and half think it's psychotic, so I'm curious to know what others' opinions on this are -- especially if you're a big Rubik's Cube nut. So here we go.
I don't have any first-hand experience but I imagine that as those Cubes get bigger and bigger they just pack on more layers of the same puzzle. Granted, this makes things more challenging, but I'm looking at a different approach. Rather than solving some 30x30x30 monstrosity, I want to make a toy that both challenges one's knowledge of what has to be done as well as their ability to look ahead and formulate a procedure ahead of time.
This Cube would be computerized, with colored lights instead of stickers, so it could jumble the whole thing up automatically and determine the number of moves required to solve it. This number would be set as a limit, and it would keep track of the turns made, counting down until the allotted number was reached. If you didn't solve it at that point, game over!
Here's the best part: the name, which I initially came up with as a joke and which gave root to the whole idea in the first place. I'd call it the "Rubikon Cube" -- once you've started turning it, there's no turning back!
I don't know about you, but I'm glad I won't be getting one of those in my basket this year. Happy Easter!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.bmp)
3 comments:
Actually that sort of exists. There are programs that allow you to practice solving cube's on the internet and for download. These can count the number of moves it took you to solve the cube (which of course, can be randomly jumbled). The problem with your idea is that even some of the most advanced computers have trouble determining the smallest number of moves necessary, and even then are prone to make big mistakes.
Yeah, it would actually probably have to have a large number of jumbled patterns built in, so it wouldn't have to figure out the number of moves after randomly mixing itself up.
I'd probably end up throwing the thing through the wall, as opposed to at the wall like my normal rubik's cube...<.<
Post a Comment