Matt, our coach, designed the new 3d pices and when they were ready to be used, the group ran into some problems. There was a lot of sanding that needed to take place, we used both the dremel and sandpaper to shave down some of the plastic so when put together the two piece would slide. 

The group has done a lot of experiments that mostly revolve around the mechanism. But now it was time to rethink of a way to use three axis; one idea was to make a magnet. But in the end, mostly because of the time limit on the project, the boys decided on having the cubes rotate on one axis with different types of puzzles. 

There are many parts to the Puzzle Cube, a lot of what the group was doing was experimenting with smaller dimentions so eventually the cube could be scaled to size.

Owen started off by designing 3d pieces that would be located in between two cubes that would be designed later. These pieces were designed on Sketch up and printed by the MakerBot. To make duplicates of these 3d pieces, Owen and I experimented and poured a cast into the mold that was made out of silicon. These pieces failed because they didn't fit together proberly and move how we wanted them to. 

 Another part to the puzzle was making 8 small cubes that were 1.25in; we cut these out of compressed wood. There were no problems with putting these together, everything was aligned correctly. The group was slowed down because the laser cutter did not cut through the wood the first time and it did take a long time to cut. These smaller cubes were used as an experiment to see if the mechinism would work, this part of the project failed. 

A bigger cube that was designed was 4in cubed. Inside the cube were 3 intersecting planes that run along each axis with holes placed in them to allow marbles to pass through them. The holes were placed such that there are paths which the marble can take. In the end there are going to be 8 big cubs that can rotate around a center point. 

The first proto type was made out of acrylic and it had many flaws. The second prototype was made out of wood and it had slits so the box would fit together nicely. The hole for the marble was slightly bigger and it was put together with a screw and nuts. Some improvments that could be made on this protype would be making the top and bottom surface not have hole so the screw would not go all the way through. 

Walker wanted to experiment with gears and how they worked. He wanted to include the marble in his experiment. Some problems with this experiement were that not all of the gears fit on to the square board like planned. Some of the holes on the board were not measured correctly and were put in the wrong place.

When the 3d pieces were fairly smooth and able to slide, we snapped the pieces in the board that Walker had made. This board was a representation of the four cubes that would be used in the final product. When the 3d pieces were sandwhiched with the two boards it was able to turn 360 degrees. The complicateions with this sandwhich type figure were when using three axis the 3d pieces would get jammed and wouln't be able to rotate properly.