Pyraminx Duo


An idea of Rob Stegmann, designed by Oskar van Deventer, purchased from Mefferts 2014.
(plastic, 3.25 inches high, each edge is 3.75" long,
left black body, right white body)

In the theme of a simplified Pyraminx, rotating a corner also rotates the centers.

In addition to the Rubik 1x2x2 cube, this is perhaps the most simple to solve Rubik's type cube that has been mass produced. What makes it a great puzzle is that at first glance it looks like it might be complicated to solve. The puzzle has a fun click stop action where two clicks are used to rotate a corner, giving the illusion that more is going on.

A simple 5 move solution is to pick a color, determine the face that that color must go on, turn two of the corners to that face, use a third turn to put the center color for that face with the third color, use a fourth turn to turn that corner to complete the face, and then finally a fifth turn may be needed to rotate the remaining corner correctly.

This five step solution can be reduced to 4 steps by choosing a color initially that already has one corner turned to its face. Or, if none of the colors is on its face, then one of the colors can be turned into its face with three moves where the third move also turns in the correct center color, and then, like the 5 move solution, a final fourth move can be used to rotate the remaining corner correctly.