All Five Puzzle
I got this puzzle just before Christmas. One of my favorite sites, Cubic Dissection, was having a sale on this. It’s one of the few puzzles they sell but do not manufacture. The puzzle is named because it contains all 5 regular polyhedra: an icosahedron (20 sides), dodecahedon (12 sides), octahedron (8 sides), cube, and tetahedron (4 sides). I have a special attachment to these polyhedra since dice of all these shapes came with my first “Dungeons and Dragons” set I got in elementary school. Yes, I am a nerd – you probably realized that just by the URL of this site.
The octahedron is inside of the tetahedron, which is inside of the cube, which is inside of the dodecahedron, which is inside of the icosahedron. It’s an interlocking puzzle: the point is to disassemble and reassemble it. It came shipped with all regular polyhedra assembled separately, with the extra parts separate. The extra parts are between the octahedron and tetahedron; and the tetahedron and cube. The extra parts are each either a tetahedron or one half of an octohedron.
I was able to reassemble it relatively easily. That’s one reason why this is an interlocking puzzle I like: I can actually solve it. When it’s solved, only the icosahedron is visible:
Afterward, I fully disassembled everything:
This was tougher. The only real problem, though, was assembling the 6 faces that make up the cube. Figuring out how to add the extra parts between octahedron and tetahedron is trivial. It’s a little harder between the tetahedron and cube, but while there are 16 pieces that fill in the gaps, they come in only 2 varieties, so it’s not too bad. The dodecahedron and icosahedron are tricky, but there are only 3 parts to the dodecahedron and 5 to the icosahedron, so it wasn’t too bad either.
The puzzle was invented and originally produced by Wayne Daniel. It sold for a few hundred dollars and sold out very quickly. Now it’s mass produced and can be bought for about $40.
