Cube Puzzle Made of Wood

Puzzles that are 3-dimensional can help teach and improve one’s understanding of spatial thinking. This instructable will teach you how to create your own 3-dimensional wooden cube puzzle. You will also learn how to create an assembly file in Solidworks to create a solution for your puzzle. Once you have gone through this instructable you will be able to try your hand at designing your own puzzle pieces and putting them together in Solidworks to see if your design will work.

This instructable project is ideal for students grades 6-8.

By the end of the lesson individuals will be able to (objectives):

• Create a wooden cube puzzle
• Design their own wooden cube puzzle
• Create a Solidworks assembly file
• Explain the concept of spatial thinking

Standards

7-Design in Technology and Engineering Education: Design is considered to be a fundamental human activity. Within technology and engineering design is purposeful, open-ended, iterative, creative, and can result in multiple solutions. This instructable will show individuals that there are many ways to solve the puzzle that is being created and that there are many designs that can be made to create other successful cube puzzles.

Practices

2-Creativity: Once this project has been completed individuals will be able to use their own imagination to create and innovate new designs for a cube puzzle.

3-Making and Doing: Making and doing is at the heart of what technology and engineering is and that is exactly what the individuals doing this project will be involved in. Individuals will get hands-on learning with this project as they will be learning how to use Solidworks assemblies through a demonstration and they will be creating their own wooden cube puzzle.

Contexts

TEC-2 Material Conversion and Processing: Material conversion and processing is the production of physical goods which is exactly what individuals will be doing in this instructable. They will be taking wood and creating it into a puzzle, they are giving a new purpose to the pieces of wood they have.

Materials

• Solidworks 2021
• Solidworks puzzle piece parts files (provided in instructable)
• Laptop/Computer
• Mouse (not required but helpful in Solidworks)
• 5 square pieces of wood (2.25inx2.25in and 0.75in thick)
• Combination square or Ruler
  • Combination square preferred as it will help to keep things square during measuring and marking
• Bandsaw
• Sandpaper of varying grades
  • Preferably medium (80-120) and fine (150-180) if available

Cost Estimation

Wood material will cost approximately $20-$25 depending on where material is bought. If you are to make the 2.25inx2.25in wood blanks shown within the instructable yourself you will need to purchase any wood that is 0.75in thick and cut it down to size.

1. Gather your wood that you will be using to make your square blanks
2. For this instructable, I used 0.75in thick wood thus when I went to make my square blanks I multiplied the thickness by 3 times to get the dimensions for the square blanks. The square blanks for my 0.75in thick wood should be 2.25in by 2.25in. For any wood of any other thickness, you should follow the procedure of multiplying the thickness dimension by 3 times to get the dimensions for your square blanks.
3. These blanks can be cut in many ways. I chose to cut them using a table saw, however a band saw, miter saw, or even hand tools/saws can be used depending on what you have access to. I recommend trying to use either a table saw or miter saw if possible as these will help give you the straightest cuts possible.

If you do not feel like you need the practice of making Solidworks parts, you can download the puzzle piece part files from the following link to use for the assembly: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1D9q2ppdBSplW4AhD5znpgL_2AjQQnH3D?usp=sharing

1. Open Solidworks 2021
2. Choose to make a part file
3. Start a new sketch on the frontal plane. Base this sketch on the image above featuring sketches of the puzzle pieces.
4. Use the Smart Dimension tool in Solidworks to dimension your sketch based on the dimensions given in the image above of the sketch of the puzzle pieces. Make sure your sketch is fully defined.
5. Once a puzzle piece sketch in Solidworks has been completed, extrude the part 0.75in
6. Save the part file a Puzzle Piece #(1-5)
7. Repeat this process until all five puzzle pieces have been made

For this step of the instructable, a video demonstration of how to create a Solidworks assembly file has been attached.

1. Once all puzzle pieces have been made/downloaded go into the Puzzle Piece 1 file. From here, go up to File and then down to Make Assembly From Part. Doing this will create a new Solidworks Assembly file.
2. On the left side of the screen a window titled Begin Assembly will show up. On this window you will need to click on the pushpin icon to keep that window from going away.
3. Next you will click on each open document listed in the Begin Assembly window on the left and you will drag them into the work area. You will do this with each puzzle piece file. I recommend starting with a puzzle piece that touches most or all of the other puzzle pieces as this will make creating the assembly easier. For this assembly I started with Puzzle Piece 5. Note, whichever puzzle piece you start with in your work area will act as your “anchor” meaning this puzzle piece will not move like the other pieces will. In order for the puzzle piece part files to be listed in the Begin Assembly window, you must have those parts open in Solidworks, meaning all 5 of the puzzle piece parts must be open in Solidworks in order to create this assembly.
4. Once all of the puzzle pieces are within the work area you will begin to mate them. To mate them you will go up to the Assembly tab in the Command Manager and you will select Mate.
5. Once you have selected Mate you will click on two sides of the puzzle pieces that should be touching and you will mate them by clicking on both of them and then clicking the green check in the little window that appears after you have selected the two sides. Note, you will have to do more than one mate usually to get the puzzle pieces exactly where they should be. You may also need to adjust your Mate Alignment to get your puzzle pieces to fit properly. There is no perfect way to do this, you have to try out numerous things to get it right.
6. After all of the puzzle pieces have been mated to create your cube, you will save this file as “Cube Puzzle Solution”

1. Gather your five wood blanks and combination square or ruler
2. Use the combination square or ruler to measure out and draw the puzzle piece designs on the wood blanks based on the puzzle piece designs seen in the sketch above.

1. Go to the bandsaw and start cutting out the puzzle piece designs. Make sure when you are cutting the blade is on the waste side of the blanks as this will help to keep your puzzle piece measurements accurate.
2. Once puzzle pieces are fully cut out sandpaper should be used to remove any rough edges so that the puzzle pieces are smooth.

1. Try solving your puzzle based on the Solidworks assembly solution file.
2. If your puzzle works, try to get someone else to solve the puzzle!

Now that you have learned how to design puzzle pieces, create a Solidworks assembly solution file, and how to cut the puzzle pieces, try to create your own puzzle pieces! For extra challenge, you can try to make your puzzle pieces interlock by creating pieces that have more than 2 dimensions like the one pictured above.