Dino Cube facts for kids

The six-colour Dino Cube in its solved state

The Dino Cube is a fun cube-shaped twisty puzzle. It's a bit like the Rubik's Cube, but it's usually much easier to solve! Robert Webb invented it in 1985, but it wasn't sold widely until about ten years later. This puzzle has 12 pieces you can move around, while a standard Rubik's Cube has 20.

What is the Dino Cube?

The six-colour Dino Cube in the middle of a move, showing how the puzzle can be scrambled. You can see the "hidden" black pieces inside.

The Dino Cube is a puzzle shaped like a cube. All of its 12 movable pieces are found along the edges of the cube.

When you twist the puzzle, it feels like you're turning it around its corners. Each turn moves three edge pieces that are next to the same corner. There are also eight "hidden" pieces inside the puzzle. These are at the corners and are attached to the center. You can only see them when you are in the middle of a twist.

Most Dino Cubes you'll find have six different colors, one on each side when the puzzle is solved. This is common for many cube puzzles, like the Rubik's Cube. But some special versions exist too! For example, there's one with four colors, and another with just two colors.

The main goal of the puzzle is to mix up the colors and then put them back in their correct spots. Usually, this means getting one solid color on each side.

How to Solve the Dino Cube

A Dino Cube that has been fully scrambled.

The Dino Cube in its second solved state, which is a mirror image of the first one.

Many people think the Dino Cube is one of the easiest twisty puzzles to solve. One reason it's so easy is that each move only changes three edge pieces at a time. This makes it simple to fix one part of the puzzle without messing up what you've already solved. Also, each edge piece can only fit in one way. So, if a piece is in the right spot, it's always facing the correct direction. You never have to worry about twisting pieces around!

It might not be obvious at first, but a six-color Dino Cube actually has two different ways it can be solved. These two solutions are like mirror images of each other. The only difference is how the colors are arranged. For example, in one solution, the colors Blue, Yellow, and Red might go clockwise around a corner. In the other solution, they would go counter-clockwise.

This puzzle is very similar to another puzzle called the BrainTwist. The BrainTwist is shaped like a tetrahedron (a pyramid with four triangle sides). It can even "flip" inside out! Like the Dino Cube, the BrainTwist has 12 movable pieces. Each move also rotates three pieces around a corner. It also has two different ways to be solved.

How Many Ways Can a Dino Cube Be Mixed Up?

The Dino Cube has 12 edge pieces. Because of how the puzzle works, the very first piece doesn't really count for unique combinations. This is because all starting positions look the same due to the cube's rotational symmetry.

The remaining eleven pieces can be arranged in many different ways. However, only certain arrangements are possible. This means the total number of unique ways to scramble a six-color Dino Cube is: 19,958,400

This number might seem huge, but it's actually quite small compared to the Rubik's Cube. A Rubik's Cube has over 43 quintillion (that's 43 with 18 zeros!) different combinations! Still, the Dino Cube has more combinations than some other puzzles. For example, the Pocket Cube has over 3.6 million combinations, and the Pyraminx has just over 930 thousand.

Solving in the Fewest Moves

Because the number of combinations is not too big, computers can figure out the shortest way to solve any scrambled Dino Cube. This shortest number of moves is often called "God's Number." For the six-color Dino Cube, you can always solve it in 10 moves or less if you're trying to reach either of the two solved states. If you're trying to reach one specific solved state, it might take up to 11 moves.

Different Kinds of Dino Cubes

There are several puzzles that are based on the Dino Cube's design, but they look different. These include:

• The BrainTwist: This puzzle is shaped like a tetrahedron and can flip inside out.
• The Platypus: This puzzle is also based on a tetrahedron shape.
• The Redi Cube: This is a cube-shaped puzzle, but its cuts are not as deep as the Dino Cube's.
• The Rainbow Cube: This puzzle is shaped like a cuboctahedron, which is a shape with 14 faces (8 triangles and 6 squares).

Unlike the original Dino Cube, the "core" pieces of the Platypus, Redi Cube, and Rainbow Cube are visible even when the puzzle is solved.