GB2127305A - Block puzzle - Google Patents

Abstract

The puzzle is formed of thirty cuboid bricks each face being marked with one of six colours or indicia so that each brick is unique. Each block has 3 orthogonal through holes. A number of bricks selected from the thirty may be assembled into parallelepipeds on a support 31 comprising a plurality of upstanding posts 32. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Logical toy The present invention provides a building toy that is also a logical toy and is based on stackable cubes coloured or otherwise marked on their faces.

Broadly stated the invention provides a logical puzzle comprising thirty cubical bricks each marked on each of its six faces with six distinguishable colours or marks ("marks") and intended to be built into a cube or a rectangular parallelepiped with a multiciplity of the cubical bricks selected from the thirty cubical bricks so that each face of the built cube has a single colour or mark.

There are thirty different possible configurations for a cubical brick coloured or marked on each face with a selected one of a set of six avaialble colours or marks. This fact may be demonstrated by the theory of permutations, the number of configurations being given by the number of cyclo-permutations divided by the number of possible orientations of the four side faces (i.e. 5P5 + 4 = 30). The configurations of six different colours on the six faces of the cube may also be explained by reference to Figures 1 to 30 of the accompanying drawings which are pairs of views from opposed oblique directions representing the six faces of a cube. The set of six available colours or marks is represented by the letters A,B,C,D,E and F, but is not restricted other than by the need for the marks to be distinguishable one from another.Thus the marks could be colours, letters, numerals, geometrical shapes or pictures. For convenience of description each brick is shown and described with the face marked A uppermost and the marks B to F are distributed about the four side faces and the lower face. There are five possibilities for the markings on the upper and lower faces, namely A-B, A-C, A-D, A-E A and A-F and the colours may be permuted or exchanged about the four lateral faces so that the total number of possible colour configurations is 5 x 3P3 which is again 30, confirming the earlier result. In these Figures, three through-holes in each cubical brick are omitted. Figures "a" are perspective views showing the upper the front and the right side faces of the cubical bricks and Figures "b" are perspective views showing the rear, the left side and the lower faces of them.Figures 1 to 6 show the configurations that these upper faces are marked with "A" and these lower faces are marked with "B", and the four side faces of the front, the right side, the rear and the left side are respectively marked with "C", "D', "E" and the "F" by cyclo-permutation. Figures 7 to 12 show the configurations that the upper faces are marked with "A" and the lower faces are marked with "C" and the four side faces are respectively marked with "B", "D", "E" and "F" by cyclo-permutation. Figures 13 to 18 show the configurations that the upper faces are marked with "A" and the lower faces are marked with "D", and the four side faces are respectively marked with "B", "C", "E" and "F" by cyclo-permutation.Figures 18 to 24 show the configurations that the upper faces are marked with "A" and the lower faces are marked with "E", and the four side faces are respectively marked with "B", "C", "D" and "F", by cyclo-permutation. Figures 25 to 30 show the configurations that the upper faces are marked with "A" and the lower faces are marked with "F", and the four side faces are respectively marked with "B", "C", "D" and "E" by cyclo-permutation.

The above described configurations are arranged into a following table.

Six Colour Configuration Table on six faces of the cubical brick U-Lo Pr-R-Re-L Pr-R-Re-L Pr-R-Re-L Pr-R-Re-L Pr-R-Re-L Pr-R-Re-L (1) (2) (3) (4) ' (5) (6) A-B C-D-E-F C-D-F-E C-D-D-F C-E-F-D C-F-D-E C-F-E-D (7) (8) (9) (10) (11) (12) A-C B-D-E-F B-D-F-E B-B-D-F B-E-F-D B-F-D-E B-F-B-D (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) A-D B-C-E-F B-C-F-E B-E-C-F B-E-F-C B-F-C-E B-F-E-C (19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24) A-E B-C-D-F B-C-F-D B-D-C-F B-D-F-C B-F-C-D B-F-D-C (25) (26) (27) (28) (29) (30) A-F B-C-D-E B-C-E-D B-D-C-E B-D-E-C B-E-C-D B-D-E-C Abbreviation: U . . . upper face, Lo . . . lower face, Fr . . . front face, R . . . right side face, Re . . . rear face, L . . .

left side face, A, B, C, D, E and F... letters respectively representing six colours or six symbols, and numerals 1 to 30... numbers of cubical bricks having distinguishable colour configurations.

Numerals 1 to 30 in the table which represent respectively the cubical bricks having different colour-configurations coincide with numerals of the Figures.

When a plurality of the cubical bricks is selected among the thirty cubical bricks and stacked cubes or rectangular parallelepipeds are built with them, the six faces of the resulting stacked bodies may be respectively matched with different single colours or marks selected from the set of six available colours or marks and the resulting matched stacked bodies are shown in Figures 32 to 40. The stacked bodies may be defined in terms of how many bricks in each latus. Thus a single brick may be expressed as a 1-1-1 cube and a rectangular parallelepiped shown in Figure 32 may be expressed as a 1-2-2 rectangular parallelepiped. The 1-2-2 rectangular parallelepiped is built with four cubical bricks 19,20,21 and 22so as to stack them in construction shown in Figure 32 and to orient their faces with six letters shown in Figure 32.This pattern of rectangular parallelepiped has thirty different possible face configurations corresponding to the face configuration of an individual brick. To build a colour-matching 2-2-2 cube in which eight bricks have been selected from the thirty bricks, there are four puzzle patterns. Afirst pattern is shown in Figure 33 with the six colours or marks appearing on the six faces of the built cube. A second pattern is shown in Figure 35 and has the same colour on one pair of opposite faces and four of the remaining five colours or marks on the remaining four faces, the last remaining colour being hidden inside the built cube so as to make it invisible from the exterior.A third pattern shown in Figure 37 has two pairs of opposed faces marked with the same colour or mark two out of the remaining form colours or marks being visible on the remaining two faces and the last two colours or marks being concealed within the built cube. A fourth pattern shown in Figure 39 has three different colours or marks on three opposed pairs of faces the remaining colours being hidden inside the built cube so as to make them invisible on the exterior.

The colour or mark-matching puzzle in Figure 33 has thirty configurations, the same as that of the six colours or marks on six faces of the cubical brick. The pattern in Figure 35 has ninety configurations, when one colour or mark has been selected for one pair of opposed faces, four colours or marks have to be be selected from the five available colours or marks and then exchanged about the four available side faces. The number of colour configurations is given by 6C1 X 5C4 X 3P3 + 2 = 90. The pattern of Figure 37 also has ninety configurations, two colours or marks are selected from the six available colours or marks, for two pairs of opposite faces, and then two colours or marks are adopted from the remaining four colours or marks for the remaining two faces. The number of colour configurations is equal to 6C2 X 4C2 = 90.The pattern in Figure 39 has twenty configurations which may be derived from the number of different combinations of three colours that may be selected from six available colours, namely 6C3 = 20. Therefore, the number of the colour-matching puzzles in the 2-2-2 cube amounts to the total sum of two hundred and thirty.

If eight cubical bricks are picked up at random from thirty cubical bricks and built into a 2-2-2 cube without considering colour-matching, the number of the dispositions of the eight bricks is expressed by the number of different combinations of eight bricks from thirty bricks, and the cyclo-permutation of the eight bricks one with another divided by the number of orientations of three faces of the built cube. Thus, the number of the dispositions amounts to soCs X 7P7 + 3 = 9,832,914x103. Thus the 2-2-2 cube may be built in two hundred and thirty colour configurations which when contrasted with the enormous number of configurations of the random stacked cube suggests that it makes an interesting and attractive puzzle for children and also adults.

The key solving the puzzle is to arrange all the cubical bricks by turning their faces upwardly having one particular colour intended to be the top face of the stacked cube, and to search for cubical bricks having three face colours corresponding with the intended face colours of three of the faces of the intended 2-2-2 cube.

Colour-matching the bricks to make a 2-2-3 rectangular parallelepiped, a 2-3-3 rectangular parallelepiped, a 3-3-3 cube and a 2-3-5 rectangular parallelepiped may be carried out in accordance with the solution described in relation to the 2-2-2 cube. Therefore in order to build an intended cube or a rectangular parallelepiped larger than a 2-2-2 cube of the same pattern, it is first required to build a 2-2-2 cube of the intended pattern with eight cubical bricks selected from among the set of thirty bricks and next to built colour-matching cubical bricks selected amongst the remaining bricks into the 2-2-2 cube. Said colour-matching bricks can be easily selected by detecting two colours on two adjoining faces of the bricks and also one colour on a face of the bricks.

The 3-3-3 cube in Figure 34 may be easily built from the 2-2-2 cube in Figure 33 wherein said cube is built with cubical bricks 1,2,7, 19,20,21,22 and 25 and the orientations of these bricks are shown byA,B,C,D,E and F in Figure 33. Supplementary bricks for said 3-3-3 cube are bricks, 3,4,6,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,18,19,23,26,28,29 and 30 and said bricks except brick 19 are inserted into the 2-2-2 cube at the exterior as shown in Figure 34 and the brick 19 is located and hidden in the center of the built cube. 3-3-3 cubes in Figures 36,38 and 40 may be simiiarly built from 2-2-2 cubes in Figures 35,37 and 39, respectively. As described above, the brick toy of the present invention is amusing and interesting for children and adults and also playing with it is mentally stimulating.

Claims (11)

1. A logical puzzle comprising thirty cubical bricks intended to be stacked one on top of another to build a cube or parallelepiped, the six faces of each cubical brick being respectively marked with different distinguishable marks selected from a set of marks designated A,B,C,D,E and F, and the individual cubes being marked as follows: (1) A-C-D-E-F-B, (2) A-C-D-F-E-B, (3) A-C-E-D-F-B, (4) A-C-E-F-D-B, (5) A-C-F-D-E-B, (6) A-C-F-E-D-B, (7) A-B-D-E-F-C, (8) A-B-D-F-E-C, (9) A-B-E-D-F-C, (10) A-B-E-F-D-C, (11)A-B-F-D-E-C, (12) A-B-F-E-D-C, (13) A-B-C-E-F-D, (14) A-B-C-F-E-D, (15) A-B-E-C-F-D, (16) A-B-E-F-C-D, (17) A-B-F-C-E-D, (18) A-B-F-E-C-D, (19) A-B-C-D-F-E, (20) A-B-C-F-D-E, (21) A-B-D-C-F-E, (22) A-B-D-F-C-E, (23) A-B-F-C-D-E, (24) A-B-F-D-C-E, (25) A-B-C-D-E-F, (26) A-B-C-E-D-F, (27) A-B-D-C-E-F, (28) A-B-D-E-C-F, (29) A-B-E-C-D-F and (30) A-B-E-D-C-F.

2. A logical puzzle according to claim 1 wherein each brick has three orthogonal through holes, and further comprising a square pedestal having nine stacking fingers in a 3X3 array spaced at intervals equal in length to a latus of the cubical brick.

3. A logical puzzle according to claim 1 or 2 wherein the marks are in the form of colours applied to the six faces of the bricks.

4. A logical puzzle according to claim 3, wherein the colours are red, brown, yellow, green, blue and violet.

5. A set of thirty cubical bricks to form a logical puzzle substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in Figures 1 to 30 of the accompanying drawings.

6. A pack comprising the set of thirty bricks as claimed in any of claims 1 to 5 assembled in the form of a 2-3-5 rectangular parallelepiped in which the bricks forming each visible face presents a colour or mark of the same kind in association with directions to disassemble and rebuild the 2-3-5 rectangular parallelepiped.

7. A pack comprising the set of thirty bricks as claimed in any of claims 1 to 5 wherein some of the bricks are assembled into a cube or rectangular parallelepiped as illustrated in any one of Figures 32 to 40 of the accompanying drawings.

8. A logical puzzle comprising thirty cubical bricks each marked on one of its faces with a different colour selected from a set of six available colours, subject to the proviso that: (a) there are six cubes in which the upper and lower faces are respectively dyed with the first and second colour and the four side faces of each brick are respectively coloured in order with the third fourth fifth sixth, third fourth sixth fifth, third fifth four sixth, third fifth six fourth, third sixth four fifth and third sixth fifth fourth colours; (b) there are six cubes in which the upper and lower faces are dyed with the first and third colour and the four side faces of each brick are respectively coloured to order with the second fourth fifth sixth, second fourth sixth fifth, second fifth fourth sixth, second fifth sixth fourth, second sixth fourth fifth, and second sixth fifth fourth colours;; (c) there are six cubes in which the upper and lower faces are dyed with the first and fourth colours and the remaining faces of each brick are respectively dyed with the second third fifth sixth, second third sixth fifth, second fifth third sixth, second fifth sixth third, second sixth third fifth and second sixth fifth third colours; (d) there are six cubes in which the upper and lower faces are dyed with the first and fifth colours and the four side faces of each brick are respectively coloured with the second third fourth sixth, second third sixth fourth, second fourth third sixth, second fourth sixth third, second sixth third fourth and second sixth fourth third colours respectively; and (e) there are six cubes in which the upper and lower faces are dyed with the first and sixth colours and the four side faces of each brick are respectively coloured with the second third fourth fifth, second third fifth fourth, second fourth third fifth, second fourth fifth third, second fifth third fourth and second fifth fourth third colours.

9. A puzzle according to claim 8, wherein the colours are red, brown, yellow, green, blue and violet.

10. A combined stacking toy and logical puzzle comprising a base having a two dimensional array of upstanding stacking fingers to form a cube base and a multiplicity of building bricks having three orthogonal through-holes so that they may be stacked in different attitudes onto the fingers to form a cube, the several bricks each having differently coloured faces but being stackable on the fingers to define a cube each of whose faces has a single colour or mark differing from the colours or marks of each other face.

11. A combined stacking toy and logical puzzle wherein twenty seven bricks may be selected from thirty bricks and be set on a base having fingers in a 3x3 array.