Evil Cuboid 2x3x4

Made by Fabio Causarano, 2007.
(plastic, 2 by 3 by 4 inches)

Constructed by combining Rubik's cube mechanisms. In only a few twists the puzzle can become quite jumbled; here is an example of a sequence of four moves:




Referring to the diagram on the right above (which uses the colors gray, orange, and blue to denote the three portions of the puzzle), the center four gray cubes form a solid block to which two essentially separate puzzles are attached; each of the two 2x3 orange sections can be rotated (by temporarily rotating blue out of the way to solve the orange portion independent of the blue, and similarly the blue portion works independent of the orange. The colors are useful to help think about what is going on (although it is not necessarily the case that the colors will be correct whenever the puzzle has the correct shape).