The Inverse Cube or Sam's Cube, invented by Sam Mcflay, is a non-traditional six-piece burr with additional parts that make it into a cube.

As the name suggests, the pieces are grouped in three sets of pieces, each with an inverse image of the other or mirrored, if you will. The puzzle is built from Samanea (Rain Tree) wood and measures 6 x 6cm (2.4"). The goal in any type of burr is to discover how to take it apart and then, after careful study of the pieces, assemble it back to its original form.

Unlike the traditional burr, this puzzle needs a different approach to be solved. The pieces interlock in a way that when you try to pull them apart it doesn't seem to do much good. They do have to be pulled apart in order to disassemble the cube (no pushing necessary), but they have a very specific way to accomplish that. You just need to figure out for yourself where exactly do you need to pull.

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From my past experience with burr puzzles, taking them apart is most of the times easier than actually assemble them back together. The notches on the pieces connect with each other in right angles and not always in an intuitive way. Good visual perception and 3D spacial skills are two of the most important abilities for solving this kind of puzzles.

This is rated as a 3/5 difficulty puzzle in the Brilliant Puzzles' website, so if you're experienced with these puzzles, you won't find it that much tough. The first thing you need to be aware of when trying to assemble it back is that each of the cubes' faces has a large and a small square adjacent to each other, and two rectangles with perpendicular orientation in relation to each other. Also, the two stripes that criss-cross the cube are off-set from the center. This is important for visualizing how the pieces might connect together and helps the solving process. Re-assembling time took about 10 minutes.

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Closing Comments:

I liked the originality of Sam's Cube. It's not extremely challenging, but still quite fun to solve and very affordable. A higher contrast between the stripes and the outer parts would've made it look even better, though.

Availability: The Inverse Cube is available at Brilliant Puzzles for about $11 USD.