Puzzle Cube Project
Define a problem
Generate Concepts
For this project I had to compile data on the measurements of the wooden cubes. I took these measurements to analyze the consistency of the dimensions of the wooden cubes. To do this I used a dial caliber to get precise measurements down to ten thousandths of an inch. This gives me an accurate measurement that I can use to find Measures of Central Tendency that can be used to represent the data I gathered.
One of the Measures of Central Tendency I used to represent the data I gathered on the wooden cubes was standard deviation. Standard deviation measures how dispersed your data is from the mean. Standard deviation shows how reliable the mean is as a representation of the data set. I can use standard deviation to figure out how consistently the cubes are made. The lower the standard deviation, the closer together the data is, and the more accurate the mean is.
One of the Measures of Central Tendency I used to represent the data I gathered on the wooden cubes was standard deviation. Standard deviation measures how dispersed your data is from the mean. Standard deviation shows how reliable the mean is as a representation of the data set. I can use standard deviation to figure out how consistently the cubes are made. The lower the standard deviation, the closer together the data is, and the more accurate the mean is.
During the Generating Concepts step of this project I brainstormed 20 different puzzle pieces that I could use in my final design. These puzzle pieces had to use 4, 5, or 6 cubes and some of the pieces had to be able to interlock with one another. These 20 brainstorms gave me a basis for my cube and even though some of my puzzle pieces in my final design were not one of these 20, all of them are a variation of these sketches.
Develop a solution
Construct and test prototpe
A major component of creating the assembly of my cube was eliminating it's degrees of freedom. The number of degrees of freedom available to an object dictate how that object can move. In a 3D world there are six degrees of freedom, two for each axis. To restrict the degrees of freedom of my puzzle cube I had to constrain the puzzle pieces to one another. By eliminating the degrees of freedom in my puzzle cube assembly, I restricted the cube to one place and kept the puzzle pieces in their designated location in the cube.
Evaluate the solution
After testing and evaluating my puzzle cube, I saw some of the changes I should have made in my cube design. One of the first changes I would make is to create puzzle pieces that interlock better. The cube could be solved more quickly if you could see exactly how the pieces fit together, which is easier to do when pieces interlock and look like they only have one place to fit. I also observed that people who have good spatial reasoning solve the puzzle much more quickly than those who do not. In order to make this puzzle easier for people lacking good spatial reasoning, I should have created easier pieces and gotten rid of the two pieces that caused the most trouble for my testers, which was the red and green pieces.
Present the solution
This project was a long project, with many different components. The data I gathered on my wooden cubes showed that the wooden cubes were very close together in size, which made my standard deviation very low. That is a good thing, because it showed that there were no wooden cube "outliers", or cubes that were abnormally large or small, that may ruin my puzzle cube. The next step was sketching and creating my puzzle cube. This proved rather difficult, because I did not use a good method of choosing which puzzle pieces to use, and I did not do a great job of recording my pieces so I could create the actual cube. Then I had do create, assemble, and dimension my cube in Inventor. This was difficult at first, because I had forgotten how to use Inventor, but once I remembered the steps I had to follow to use Inventor, that step came together quickly. As I went through the design process, I saw many changes I should have made to my project, if I had enough time and if my puzzle cube hadn't been stuck together with wood glue. Overall, even with many problems, I believe I did well with this project, and I definitely learned a lot.