Pentominyes By Oskar

Hi Non-Twisty Puzzles fans,

Pentomiyes is a pattern puzzle with magnetic marbles and a magnetic board. The object of the puzzle is to place the pentomino pieces such that they spell NO. The second challenge is to make them spell YES. That is, from "pentomino" to "pentomiyes".

A whopping 55 magnets were embedded in the board during 3D-printing, with specific up-down (north-south) orientations. Another 55 magnets were glued into the black-white marbles. These 55 magnetic marbles were glued into 11 white domino pieces. The puzzle was designed by asking Burrtools for two random 5x11 pentomino designs. Next I used Excel to keep administrative track of which square moves where, when going from NO to YES. By rotating and flipping some of the symmetric pieces, I found a consistent magnet placement. Note that the puzzle has a parity challenge. Whenever two balls are swapped, then either both change color, or neither. Therefore, NO is spelled at the front side of the board, and YES at the back side.

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle at my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Non-Twisty Puzzles Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar