One evening a couple of weeks ago, I was glancing through the shelves at an A.C. Moore store when I came across some wooden cubes of various sizes in the craft department. They immediately reminded me of an article I read about 17-18 years ago in a science magazine, about a wooden puzzle. At the end of the article there were instructions to build one from scratch, but you needed a certain number of wood blocks, cut precisely into cubes. For years this little project had occupied a corner of my mind, without ever becoming a reality. But here I was, looking at these nicely cut pieces of wood, and I knew I was closer to building my own “Soma cube” than ever. Of course I didn’t even know that it’s called a Soma cube then. At least not until the next day.
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The following morning, I was reading this on the AIGA website, in which the author mentions Piet Hein, the great designer, poet, inventor, philosopher from Denmark. Hein is also known as the creator of gruks (or grooks), short, pithy poems about all things general. I had heard very little about Piet Hein before, but the gruk that was included in the AIGA article grabbed my attention and I started researching more information about his work. After a few clicks I was really surprised to find out that Hein is also the creator of the “Soma cube”, the very puzzle I have been hoping to one day build for almost two decades. The puzzle is made up of 27 smaller cubes glued together in seven different configurations. The main objective is to assemble these seven pieces into a 3×3x3 cube: the Soma cube. But what’s more interesting for me is that you can also make a variety of other shapes. So it’s simple, creative, tactile and fun. In a way, the Soma cube is to legos, as go is to chess. As for the rest of my story, the next day I went back to A.C. Moore, with the hope of finding enough cubes to start constructing my little project, and sure enough there were exactly 27 cubes left! Being a firm believer of “there is no such thing as coincidence” I felt like I really had to commit myself this time, so I got them all, along with some wood glue and built my first Soma cube the following weekend. |
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Here’s the actual finished puzzle, which took about a day to put together, but I only had two clamps and had to wait for 30 minutes/clamp waiting time for the glue to set. I guess if you have access to more clamps, the whole thing shouldn’t take more than half a day. Total cost is about $32, including glue, but not the clamps.
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I would like to finish the post with a wonderful gruk by Piet Hein. More here.
On Problems
Double doors are justified
because they’re comfortably wide.
Therefore you only half undo ‘em;
and therefore nothing can get through ‘em.
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