Rubik's Triamid facts for kids
The Rubik's Triamid is a cool mechanical puzzle created by Ernő Rubik. He's the same person who invented the famous Rubik's Cube! This puzzle came out in 1991 from a company called Matchbox.
Just like the Rubik's Cube, your goal with the Triamid is to make all sides a single, solid color. The puzzle looks like a triangular pyramid, which means it has four sides and four different colors.
How to Play the Rubik's Triamid
The Triamid is a bit different from the Rubik's Cube because it's easier to take apart. It's made of ten separate pieces, and each piece has four colored sides. There are also four special parts that join everything together.
To solve the puzzle, you need to follow some simple steps. You can carefully remove a small pyramid shape from any of the four points (corners) of the main puzzle. This small pyramid is made of four pieces. Once you remove it, you can turn it around and then put it back in place. You keep doing this until all the sides of the big pyramid are one solid color!
The Rubik's Triamid might look a little like another puzzle called the Pyraminx. However, they are not exactly the same. With the Triamid, you can move pieces from the middle of a side to a corner spot, which is something you can't do on a Pyraminx.
Understanding the Pieces
Each of the ten pieces in the Rubik's Triamid has four faces, or sides. These pieces are not all the same:
- Six of the pieces have two different colors on them.
- Four of the pieces have three different colors. (This means one color is repeated on that piece.)
When you have solved the puzzle, the four pieces that have three colors will always be found at the very tips, or end points, of the pyramid.
