Uwe Mèffert (28 November 1939 [1] –30 April 2022) was a German puzzle designer and inventor. He manufactured and sold mechanical puzzles in the style of Rubik's Cube since the Cube craze of the 1980s. His first design was the Pyraminx – which he had developed before the original Rubik's Cube was invented. He created his own puzzle company and helped bring to market the Megaminx, Skewb, Skewb Diamond and many other puzzles.
In the early 1970s, Mèffert was interested in whether pyramids, cubes and other shapes might influence one's health and bio-energy flows. [2] Mèffert constructed balsa wood polyhedra and found the gentle stroking of the apexes of the various shapes had a gentle massaging and stimulating influence and instilled a sense of peace, relaxation, and calm. [1] After playing around with this idea for a while, he cut the solids into symmetric slices and attached them with rubber bands to a center ball. [1] With the aid of his brother (an engineer), he was able to develop a simple mechanism that allowed the parts to move relative to each other. [2] He made a few such devices and found them soothing to play with and helpful for meditation: [3]
"I made five basic polygon objects, a tetrahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron, etc, out of balsa wood, by cutting pieces and connecting them with some rubber bands and hooks. They didn’t have any colours because they were not toys. They were just things that I could use for several days and see if the different shapes had an effect on the human body." [4]
He did not think anyone else would be interested in the idea, and put the shapes away and forgot about them until Ernő Rubik's Cube became a worldwide sensation in the early 1980s. Mèffert's friends persuaded him to travel to Hong Kong in early 1981, where he met Dennis Ting Hok-shou of the Hong Kong Toys Association. [4] Ting selected the pyramid puzzle and helped Mèffert produce an acrylic prototype. After meeting with Japanese toy companies, Tomy Toys agreed to market the brainteaser. [4] The resulting puzzle, the Pyraminx, sold more than 10 million units that year, and 90 million within three years. [1]
Uwe Mèffert became deeply involved in the production and marketing end of his Pyraminx, and came into contact with other inventors, and decided it would be a good idea to help manufacture and market their puzzle ideas. [3] Mèffert established his own company in Hong Kong: Meffert’s Puzzles & Games. [4] Mèffert bought the patent rights for the dodecahedron puzzle, and released it under the name of the Megaminx. [5] Similarly he produced the first Skewb (invented by Tony Durham). [6] Since that time, Mèffert and his associates have created more than 350 rotating mechanical puzzles and modifications. [4]
Mèffert has produced puzzle designs by Tony Fisher, including the Golden Cube, [7] and Oskar van Deventer, including the Gear Cube. More recently he licensed and re-released designs from other manufacturers, such as Dogic.[ citation needed ]
Mèffert also created his own version of sudoku. In addition to the standard sudoku rules, the two major diagonals must also contain the numerals from 1 to 9. Additionally, a Chinese magic square is hidden somewhere in the solution. He named this puzzle Kokonotsu, Japanese for nine. [8]
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Mèffert was born in Wernigerode in the Harz Mountains of Germany on 28 November 1939. Mèffert was the son of Otto Oscar Wilhelm Rudolph Mèffert and Emmy Johanna Frieda Von-Vorkauf. [1] He was educated in Heidelberg, Germany, Geelong, Australia, and Bern, Switzerland. He resided in Hong Kong since the early 1980s, [3] as well as spending much time in Australasia researching human and animal nutrition. [1] He was married to Jing Mèffert; they have three children: Michelle, Andrew and Ulrich, and at least two grandchildren. [1]
Mèffert died 30 April 2022 due to complications while recovering from COVID-19. [9]
The Pyraminx is a regular tetrahedron puzzle in the style of Rubik's Cube. It was made and patented by Uwe Mèffert after the original 3 layered Rubik's Cube by Ernő Rubik, and introduced by Tomy Toys of Japan in 1981.
Jerry Slocum is an American historian, collector and author specializing on the field of mechanical puzzles. He worked as an engineer at Hughes Aircraft prior to retiring and dedicating his life to puzzles.
The Megaminx or Mégaminx is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 50 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube.
The Dogic is an icosahedron-shaped puzzle like the Rubik's Cube. The 5 triangles meeting at its tips may be rotated, or 5 entire faces around the tip may be rotated. It has a total of 80 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 pieces in the Rubik's Cube.
The Skewb Diamond is an octahedron-shaped combination puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has 14 movable pieces which can be rearranged in a total of 138,240 possible combinations. This puzzle is the dual polyhedron of the Skewb. It was invented by Uwe Mèffert, a German puzzle inventor and designer.
The Skewb is a combination puzzle and a mechanical puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It was invented by Tony Durham and marketed by Uwe Mèffert. Although it is cubical, it differs from the typical cubes' construction; its axes of rotation pass through the corners of the cube, rather than the centers of the faces. There are four axes, one for each space diagonal of the cube. As a result, it is a deep-cut puzzle in which each twist affects all six faces.
The Skewb Ultimate, originally marketed as the Pyraminx Ball, is a twelve-sided puzzle derivation of the Skewb, produced by German toy-maker Uwe Mèffert. Most versions of this puzzle are sold with six different colors of stickers attached, with opposite sides of the puzzle having the same color; however, some early versions of the puzzle have a full set of 12 colors.
The Pyramorphix, also called Pyramorphinx, is a tetrahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 8 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to the 20 of the Rubik's Cube. Although it looks like a trivially simple version of the Pyraminx, it is an edge-turning puzzle with the mechanism identical to that of the Pocket Cube.
A combination puzzle, also known as a sequential move puzzle, is a puzzle which consists of a set of pieces which can be manipulated into different combinations by a group of operations. Many such puzzles are mechanical puzzles of polyhedral shape, consisting of multiple layers of pieces along each axis which can rotate independently of each other. Collectively known as twisty puzzles, the archetype of this kind of puzzle is the Rubik's Cube. Each rotating side is usually marked with different colours, intended to be scrambled, then solved by a sequence of moves that sort the facets by colour. Generally, combination puzzles also include mathematically defined examples that have not been, or are impossible to, physically construct.
The Impossiball is a rounded icosahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube. It has a total of 20 movable pieces to rearrange, which is the same as the Rubik's Cube, but all of the Impossiball's pieces are corners, like the Pocket Cube.
The Pyraminx Crystal is a dodecahedral puzzle similar to the Rubik's Cube and the Megaminx. It is manufactured by Uwe Mèffert and has been sold in his puzzle shop since 2008.
Katsuhiko Okamoto is a Japanese inventor who specializes in modifications of the Rubik's Cube. Since 2001 he has created 31 such puzzles.
Panagiotis Verdes is a Greek inventor and is known for being the first person to mass produce 6x6x6 puzzles and 7x7x7 twisty puzzles. He is also known for founding the company V-Cube. He has also worked on new designs of every Twisty Puzzle from 2x2x2 to 11x11x11.
Tony Fisher is a British puzzle designer who specialises in creating custom rotational puzzles. He is acknowledged by cubing enthusiasts as a pioneer in the creation of new puzzle designs and new manufacturing techniques. In 2017 the Guinness Book of World Records acknowledged Fisher as the creator of the world's largest Rubik's cube.
A Tuttminx is a Rubik's Cube-like twisty puzzle, in the shape of a truncated icosahedron. It was invented by Lee Tutt in 2005. It has a total of 150 movable pieces to rearrange, compared to 20 movable pieces of the Rubik's Cube.
Oskar van Deventer is a Dutch puzzle maker. He prototypes puzzles using 3D printing. His work combines mathematics, physics, and design, and he collaborates at academic institutions. Many of his combination puzzles are in mass production by Uwe Mèffert and WitEden. Oskar van Deventer has also designed puzzles for Hanayama.
The Pyraminx Duo is a tetrahedral twisty puzzle in the style of the Rubik's Cube. It was suggested by Rob Stegmann, invented by Oskar van Deventer, and has now been mass-produced by Meffert's.
The Nine-Colour Cube is a cubic twisty puzzle. It was invented in 2005 by Milan Vodicka and mass-produced by Meffert's seven years later. Mechanically, the puzzle is identical to the Rubik's Cube; however, unlike the 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube, which only has 6 different colours, the Nine-Colour Cube has 9 colours, with the individual pieces having one colour each.
The Dino Cube is a cubic twisty puzzle in the style of the Rubik's Cube. It was invented in 1985 by Robert Webb, though it was not mass-produced until ten years later. It has a total of 12 external movable pieces to rearrange, compared to 20 movable pieces on the Rubik's Cube.