Social Distance Soma Cube

Designer: Lucie Pauwels

This puzzle measures: 78 mm x 78 mm x 78 mm

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:
“I couldn’t resist this one – it is simply gorgeous! My version is made from Purpleheart and Maple and I am told that there will also be versions with Bubinga and Maple as well as Wenge and Maple. A very nice playable size at 78mm in each dimension. It arrives assembled in the cube shape but don’t fret about the solution being given away. Tip it out of the packaging and it will quickly fall apart into the constituent pieces . Lucie has taken the Soma cube and separated the 27 individual voxels by a bridging piece. Taking it apart reveals that the constituent parts are still the standard Soma shapes but you can see that the bridges appear to be in specific places on each piece. As usual, the challenge is to assemble the puzzle into the standard cube again (I do wonder whether any of the other Soma challenges are possible as well and I may well attempt to put these into Burrtools to see if that is the case. The cube shape of the Soma cube has 240 solutions but the version designed by Lucie has just one.

I am terrible at assembly puzzles and do not expect to solve this any time soon without help from Burrtools. It is still a very compulsive puzzle and I couldn’t stop trying as many assemblies as I could find. My problem is keeping track of what I have tried. Given more time I think that the placement of the bridging pieces will allow a more logical approach but I haven’t found it yet.

This is well worth buying – it is beautiful, very difficult and compulsively addictive.”