An origami gone wrong
No.1131, a blurb with a dramatic 36 imprint, and the url www.kaiyuetoy.cn is the only content in English on the 26-sided three dimensional puzzle. The instruction sheet, carefully squeezed into the tiniest little rectangle, was full of busy Chinese instruction. I carefully opened the many-sided block. A few minutes later, I discovered
what “36” in the blurb meant! It’s a 2 feet long, reticulated puzzle, made up of 36 interconnected triangles. Each segment can rotate 360 degrees against the plane of the adjacent triangle. I should have paid closer attention to the compact form as I pulled it open into a straight line. A good hour later, I’m nowhere remotely close to figuring how to get it back to the original shape!
My latest find, the very industrial sounding Part no.1131 puzzle, is a giddy mix of Transformer, Anaconda, and a Rubik’s Cube on steroids. I scaled down my ambitions, and got started with the most basic shapes. Twisting and turning the segments, happy with any shape that looked aesthetically presentable.
The possibilities are mind boggling. With each segment capable of moving four positions, as you traverse a circular path, you discover the base of each triangular segment, astonishingly moves into four distinct planes. For a moment I thought I understood the movement principles. Sections began folding into themselves effortlessly, and I was actually creating a compact form. Suddenly that moment was gone. All that remained was a garbled heap of origami gone terribly wrong!
The author may be contacted at arup_kavan@yahoo.com
Post new comment