Floppy Cube facts for kids
The Floppy Cube is a fun twisty puzzle that looks a bit like a Rubik's Cube. It's shaped like a flat rectangle, also known as a cuboid. This clever puzzle was first created by Katsuhiko Okamoto. Many companies have made and sold it since then.
The Floppy Cube is like a super simple version of a Rubik's Cube, specifically a 1x3x3 cube. It has 9 square pieces in total.
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How the Floppy Cube Works
The puzzle has 4 corner pieces, 4 edge pieces, and 1 center piece. Each corner piece has four colors. Each edge piece has three colors. The center piece has two colors on opposite sides.
When you twist the Floppy Cube, it turns around its edge pieces. Each twist makes an edge piece spin 180 degrees in its spot. The two corner pieces next to it also switch places and turn.
The goal of the puzzle is to mix up all the colors. Then, you try to twist it back so each side has only one color.
How Many Ways Can You Scramble It?
Even though it looks simple, the Floppy Cube can be scrambled in many ways! There are 192 different possible ways the pieces can be arranged. This might sound like a lot, but it's actually a very small number compared to other puzzles. For example, a regular Rubik's Cube has over 43 quintillion (that's 43 followed by 18 zeros!) combinations.
Solving the Floppy Cube
Because the Floppy Cube has only 192 possible scrambles, computers can figure out the fastest way to solve it from any position. This fastest way is called its "God's Number."
Here's how many twists it takes to solve the puzzle from different scrambled positions:
| Number of Twists | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Positions | 1 | 4 | 10 | 24 | 53 | 64 | 31 | 4 | 1 | 192 |
This table shows that you can always solve a Floppy Cube in 8 twists or less! The hardest scramble, which needs all 8 twists, is when all the corner pieces are in the right spot, but all the edge pieces are flipped upside down.
The Super Floppy Cube
The Super Floppy Cube is a popular version of the Floppy Cube. It was also invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto. Many companies make different versions of it.
The main difference is that the original Floppy Cube only allows 180-degree turns. The Super Floppy Cube lets you turn the edges 90 degrees too! This means the corner pieces can move to new spots, changing the shape of the puzzle.
There are also two types of Super Floppy Cubes:
- The original version has a special part inside. This part stops an edge piece from turning by itself. It can only turn if there's a corner piece next to it.
- Other companies make versions without this special part. This makes the puzzle much easier to solve because edge pieces can turn freely.
How Many Ways Can You Scramble the Super Floppy Cube?
The Super Floppy Cube has many more combinations than the regular Floppy Cube. It can be scrambled in over 3 million different ways! This is because the edge pieces have more ways to turn, and the corner pieces can move to many more spots.
Because it has so many more combinations, the Super Floppy Cube also takes more twists to solve. If the edge pieces can turn freely, its "God's Number" is 13. If they can't turn freely, it takes up to 15 twists to solve!
