Smaz Dino Cylinder

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Smaz is a very well respected name in the puzzle community for his incredible Twisty puzzle designs. His real name is Li Chung Man and the amazing puzzle you see here is one of my favorites among his creations, the Dino Cylinder, first produced by MF8 in 2010.

As the name suggests, this puzzle is based on the Dino Cube mechanism, while the solving process is closely related to the Rainbow Cube. Even though the Smaz Dino Cylinder has basically the same mechanism as the Dino Cube, it's actually much more challenging to solve. Why? Simply because the Cylinder is a shape-sifting puzzle, therefore you not only have to solve by color, but also by shape.

The design of the puzzle is stunning, with a set of unusual stickers that only cover the edges of the pieces. This actually has a purpose, which is to make the shiny black body stand out in contrast with the bright colors. There's also a white version available, but in my opinion not as striking as the black one. Surprisingly the Dino Cylinder is about the same size of the original Rubik's Cube, with a height and diameter of 5.7cm (2.2").

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Solving the Dino Cylinder was a bit more challenging than I was expecting. To be honest, I'm not that good at solving Twisty puzzles, but I had previously solved Smaz's Dino Cube and thought it was easy, so the cylinder while being obviously harder, I didn't think it could be that much harder.

The Dino Cube can easily be solved by anyone without the need to learn algorithms, and even though this is also true for the Cylinder, not everyone can solve it without the help of a couple algorithms, especially if you end up with a parity problem. That's actually what happened to me and it took me several tries to get it back to its original form since I didn't had any algorithms memorized. Like any other difficult puzzle, it's quite rewarding and gives you a great sense of accomplishment when you finally see it solved.

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Closing Comments:

The Smaz Dino Cylinder is among my favorite Twisty puzzles, for its outstanding design and apparent simplicity on the surface, but deceptively hard once you get your hands on it. If you know how to solve the Rubik's Cube it can greatly help you by applying some of the same techniques and principles. I definitely recommend it to any Twisty aficionado.

Availability: You can find the Smaz Dino Cylinder at PuzzlesdeIngenio.com.