From cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu Thu Sep 17 20:27:13 1998 Return-Path: Received: from sun28.aic.nrl.navy.mil by mc.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.8/mc) with SMTP id UAA14346; Thu, 17 Sep 1998 20:27:13 -0400 (EDT) Precedence: bulk Errors-To: cube-lovers-errors@mc.lcs.mit.edu From: "Chris and Kori Pelley" To: "Cube Lovers" Subject: DOGIC solution Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 18:01:56 -0400 Message-Id: <000a01bde02b$49b5aae0$da460318@CC623255-A.srst1.fl.home.com> Using Noel Dillabough's PUZZLER program for MS Windows, I was able to verify the basic moves needed to solve the new DOGIC puzzle. SPOILER WARNING! If you wish to solve the puzzle yourself, read no further. What seems fairly obvious is that the DOGIC is essentially a superset of Impossi-Ball, which is basically the corners of MegaMinx. On DOGIC, however, these corners have been flattened and could more properly be called "centers." Using classic 3x3x3 techniques, you can position and orient these pieces using the following moves: Center 3-cycle: (R' U L U') (R U L' U') Center orientation (pair): (R' D R) (F D F') U' (F D' F') (R' D' R) U Note that these faces refer to the large pentagons and must be "translated" to fit the dodecahedral nature of DOGIC. R, U, and L form a horseshoe, and F intersects all three. The D face is not really D, in fact it touches the U face at one point. The remaining triangular pieces turn out to be fairly trivial, and any two can be swapped with the simple sequence: R u R' u' In this case, R is a large pentagon and u is any intersecting smaller pentagon. A general strategy would be to manually place the top "centers" followed by their adjacent centers (if you have solved ImpossiBall this should not be difficult). Then apply the first two moves above to complete the remaining centers. Finally, place all the smaller triangles with the third move. Despite having more permutations than most magic puzzles, DOGIC seems to be fairly easy to solve. Chris Pelley ck1@home.com http://www.chrisandkori.com