Gear Shift Puzzle
What do you think will happen if gears are combined within a normal puzzle cube? Yes, you get an awesome, challenging Gear Shift Puzzle! For individuals who love the standard Rubik’s Cube or just simply love solving magic puzzles, then Geared Cubes are the absolute new puzzle game that will tease your brain. If you accept the challenge, then there are numerous Geared Cubes that can definitely grind your gears. Coming in differing levels of severity you can gradually test and challenge yourself with these amazing but mind-bending puzzles.
The Gear Shift puzzle resembles the 2x2 Rubik’s Cube but comes with an added twist (and pardon the pun). Not only can you twist and turn each individual layer of this beautiful puzzle but you also gain the added advantage of twisting each layer separately. Most ‘Geared’ puzzles interlock with its adjacent layer resulting in both layers twisting and turning. The gear shift however, as mentioned above, has a way to overcome this.
Designed To Grind Your Gears
Solving ordinary puzzle cubes are always an intriguing, challenging task which never seems to get boring. I often find myself sat at home twisting and playing with my latest purchase and wondering where the hours have gone. This particular cube is not only a way to pass time or keep yourself busy but also a great game to help players enhance their mental abilities and ‘Train your Brain’ if you will.
For those whom dare to brave the challenge which is the ‘Gear Shift’ puzzle be aware – this unique, multi-coloured, twisty turny puzzle is set to not only test your patience but your logical thinking and of course, skill. Made from the highest quality materials the ‘Gear Shift’ is definitely for those ready to take the next leap in their cubing adventure.
The Gear Shift puzzle is not designed to be an easy or immediate cube to solve. The scramble itself can take a while if you are unsure as to how this puzzle works. The Gear Shift comes in a choice of Black or White cubies with strong vibrant colors. There is something addictive about wanting to touch and feel these cubes as the gears teeth interlock together in a smooth rotational movement as your fingers gently squeeze the corners together (you will understand what we mean as soon as you hold one!) There is so much to discover about the movements of this flexible little puzzle, try holding it in both hands with your thumbs and middle fingers in the center of the front and rear face of the cube, using your index fingers, place them on the top layer and gently pull apart, the puzzle now opens up allowing you to rotate each half separately.
How to Solve a Gear Shift Puzzle
Step 1
Hold the cube in any orientation and figure out what colour that side will be - To do this we find out what colour all 4 corners share (all corners on that face will have 3 colours, one colour will appear on all 4 corners, this is the colour of the face). Pull apart to the right and spin until both right corners have that colour on top. Do the same on the Left hand side so that you have one complete side. Push it together.
Step 2
Lets repeat the process, hold the solved face on the left hand side (facing left) and pull apart from the right, spin this half of your cube until the whole top face is complete (you may have solved your cube by now) and carry on.
Step 3
Right, we have nearly solved our 2x2 Gear Shift puzzle, easy so far, isn't it? First of all, pop that first face we solved on the bottom layer (pointing down) and put that 2nd face we solved at the back. You should now have 1 or 2 unsolved cogs facing you, if not something has gone wrong and you will have to repeat step 2. Okay lets move on, you will have 1 of 3 cases - these are: 1 Big cog out of rotation, 1 small cog out of rotation or 1 big and 1 small cog out of rotation.
Please follow the appropriate steps below (Either 4, 5 or 6), which step you follow will be based upon which cog/cogs you need to solve.
Step 4 - Small Cog
If you only have to solve 1 small cog then this is the correct step to follow.
First of all we must figure out which direction the cog must travel in to be in the correct place, Clockwise or Anti-Clockwise. Ill leave that up to you to decide. Once you've figured that out, for the purposes of this tutorial I am going to go with Anti-Clockwise. Now we must count the amount of teeth that the cog needs to be rotated by. An easy way to do this is to find a tooth on that cog, count how many teeth (in an anti-clockwise motion (or clockwise if yours is going that way)) stand before it and where it must go. Lets so it must be rotated 1 tooth anti-clockwise to be in the correct place.
Now the fun begins, hold your cube so that the corner you are trying to solve is in the Bottom right hand corner of the Front face. Pull the cube apart from the Front and using the cube you are trying to solve as a rotator spin it in the direction we decided above (anti-clockwise for this tutorial) until the cog above it (the big one) has made 1 full 360 degree rotation (so if the colour red was facing you, you would need to spin the small cog with your hand until the red colour has come round again. That is a full 360 degree rotation of that big corner). Pop the Front face back in and without twisting the cube (still holding it with the small corner you are solving in the bottom right hand corner on the front face) pull the Right face outwards - just like what we ddid with the Front face just then, and perform the EXACT same move (Twisting the small cog in an anti-clockwise manner until the big cog above it has made 1 full rotation). Your once scrambled Gear Shift puzzle should now look abit more like a solved Gear Shift puzzle, hopefully. All that is left is to push the right hand face back in and pull the top face out - Twist the Front, Right hand cog anti-clockwise until it has made 1 full rotation and then push the top face back down.
Congratulations, if all went well you should have just solved your very first Gear Shift Puzzle.
Step 5 - Big Cog
If you only have to solve 1 big cog then this is the correct step to follow.
This is much the same as solving the small corner with one major difference! To solve a big cog which is in the wrong orientation you must first figure out how many teeth it has to be moved and also in what direction - you should note before you start that if you need to move 1 tooth or 3 teeth in either direction then this is what is known as 'Unsolvable' so just muddle it up and start again (there are solutions but they are for a more in depth tutorial which will follow at some point).
Right, when you have counted the number of teeth which your corner piece must be rotated you must divide that number by 2 to find how many rotations the smaller corner up top must be rotated. For example, if your big corner has to move 4 teeth in a clockwise rotation you would have to twist your big corner clockwise so that the smaller corner rotated 360 degrees twice. Does that make sense?
We then carry on in exactly the same manner as Step 4. Place the big corner which needs to be solved in the bottom right hand corner of the front face and pull the Front face of the cube forward separating the Front and Back halves. Now, Rotate the big corner in whichever direction it has to go (as decided above in this step) until the smaller corner above has rotated the amount of times that we figured out earlier on.
Step 6 - Both Cogs (Big & Small)
If you have to solve both big and small cogs which face you then simply perform Steps 4 and 5 (above). Solving each cog seperately, 1 by 1.
