Lucas's (Rubik's) Magic Page
Stringing
Note (September 2, 2008): I've updated the stringing on this page with a better, even, longer-lasting one. (Thanks to Dan Cohen for helping me finally find a 2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2 stringing.) You can find the old stringing here.
Lay out the tiles in order, rotating the bottom half of the magic around to the right of the top so that you have 8 tiles in a row, the right four upside-down. Depending on the magic type and orientation, you might have to swap an end tile to the other end. You should begin with any odd tile of this cyclic ordering (1st, 3rd, 5th... but not 2nd); if you don't, the Magic may not fold into the correct pattern. The regular Magic should begin in the upper left-hand tile, the Master Magic requires shifting for the common orientation.
Note that to string between tiles already in place, you can simply pull the string through the small gap to the string crossing junction; all added strings go onto the outside of anything in place.
- Take the first three tiles, and perform stringing C, You can twist the last tile to put the string into place without strectching.
- Flip the Magic vertically, and do stringing C again, on the back. With a small lever (a thin, long bar slightly bent in the center would work best, but a paperclip or thin screwdriver works if you're careful), this should require little force
- Now, flip back to the original orientation, and add one tile to the right. Starting with tile 2, perform stringing D on the front, flip the magic, perform stringing D on the back, flip again.
- Repeat steps 1-3: add a tile to the right, perform stringing C on the front and back (Starting with tile 3), add a tile to the right, perform stringing D on the front and back (starting with tile 4), etc.
- Once all the tiles are together, fold the magic into a ring, and carefully join the ends. You might have to do something creative to provide a workable area for the last few leverings.
- Fold the ring back into a rectangle, and begin having fun :-)
- Simply: You perform the same stringing on the front and back of a tile. 1-C, 2-D, 3-C, 4-D, 5-C, 6-D, 7-C, 8-D. If you don't have 16 strings, I suggest leaving out at most one per tile.
Extended Metafile
Assemble a Magic with a custom pattern as follows (the numbering follows the chain of tiles); I showed how the configuration of the regular ring pattern changes.
Here's an image for the Master Magic. Here, you will have shift the cycle by one tile. That is, begin with tiles 2-4 using stringing C, then 3-5 using D, 4-6 using C, and so on.
Magic Renders
I used POV-Ray to render rings of Rubik's cubes (512 pixels across each 5.3 cm tile); I'll post the source code once I clean it up:
Rubik's Magic (rectangle)
Rubik's Magic (linked)
I will eventually add diagrams for putting custom Master Magic and Super Magic patterns in correctly, but for now here are my renders (for cubers: I'll have I had examples at the Nationals):
Master Magic Renders
Rubik's Master Magic (rectangle)
Rubik's Master Magic (linked)
Super Magic
Super Magic Ring Renders
In response to this post:
Super Magic Rings (Front)
Super Magic Rings (Back)
Super Magic Rings, Lined (front left)
Super Magic Rings, Lined (front right)
Super Magic Rings, Lined (back left)
Super Magic Rings, Lined (back right)
I created a Magic Balls Super Magic pattern; except I replaced the balls with worlds. There is one ball for each continent, plus the north and south (Antarctica) poles when solved; unfortunately, I had to leave out Australia...
The row view is composed of night images, and "solved"shows the daytime.
I used GIMP to put the pictures together, but I might post the sources I used to render the views; using POV-Ray, with the correct images, they're easy (but annoying) to create.
Oh, I should mention: I split up the images, so they should be easy to print onto standard sized paper if you give each tile a width of 5.3 cm. So, the images:
Front (left) - 4x2 tiles
Front (right) - 4x2 tiles
Back (upper left) - 2x3 tiles
Back (right) - 3x4 tiles
P.S.: Just to go neutral, I arranged the continents alphabetically from left to right.
