Category: Passions

For our assignment, we had to design something on Tinkerrine/Tinkercad that would benefit the world. So what I chose is the haptic slider. My haptic slider design is made with two pieces of plastic, one of the pieces have grooves, while the other one has plastic sticking out, this way the two pieces click together like Lego. In more advanced/expensive designs, the slider would have flat smooth surfaces, with magnets inside both pieces. Hence, the name slider, the purpose of this fidget is to mimic the rubbing motion. As someone who is easily anxious, I find that this fidget would help me avoid peeling my nails, or rubbing my hands aggressively. This would prevent my skin from bleeding or peeling. Using online references, I realized that these haptic sliders are expensive, and use very expensive materials. I used 3DC Printings from Etsy as a reference picture. I learned how hard it would be to provide the magnets used by 3DC Printings, and so I opted for a simpler and cheaper design. The process went smoothly, and I learned how technology can make things simpler. If I didn’t use tinkerine or tinkercad, I’m sure this would’ve taken a much longer time.

Pictures of my project:

Did you know the 43 quintillion possible scrambles for a Rubik’s cube? (43 to the power of 1018) The number is so big most calculators can’t even calculate it. To put into perspective, 43 quintillion scrambled cubes would stretch to the sun and back eight million times. There are 18 different ways to can manipulate a single piece. Mathematicians have tried to find something called “God’s Number” God’s number is a term used to explain what is the least amount of moves you can make to solve a scrambled Rubik’s cube? Technically, if you scramble the cube by 25 moves, you can solve it in 25 moves if you turn it back the same way how you scrambled it. But what if you could solve it in even less moves? That is the question mathematicians have been trying to solve since the Rubik’s cube took the world by storm in the 1980s. Using computers, the lowest we have ever gone is 20 moves. There have been multiple cases where the number is 20, but none have ever gone as low as 20, hence why people think god’s number is 20. Kociemba made a program called Cube Explorer, who puts scrambled cubes into categories depending on certain characteristics. Today, about 100 000 people are speed cubers to be at a level where you can get a world record is not only dependent on skill, but also luck in your scramble. In the end, many people will never be able to get to the level of Max Park, one of the world’s best speed cuber. But maybe, if you picked up the cube, you might be the next Max Park.

Sources:

Palmer, J. (2008). Cracking the last mystery of the Rubik’s cube. New Scientist, 199(2668), 40–43. https://doi-org.bc.idm.oclc.org/10.1016/S0262-4079(08)62007-2 

Costello, E. (2018). PUZZLE SOLVER: Meet the reigning Rubik’s Cube champ. Science World, 75(6), 14–17