Next Floor

Next Floor is a marble maze. Whereas regular mazes have explicit walls, the walls of Next Floor are implicit. The marble follows trenches in both the floor and the ceiling of a level. The marble stops only if there is a trench end at both floor and ceiling. The marble changes levels through big holes in the floors and ceilings. The marble starts from the center position at the bottom (blue) floor. The goal is to get it out from the red top floor. This 7x7x4 maze is quite complicated, as there are quite a few T junctions in all orientations, where the central leg of the T goes towards the exit. It takes dexterity to manoeuvrer the marble to that central leg.

The puzzle was built by using a special embedding technique. First the five floors were 3D-printed in five colors. Then a 3D-print in anthracite was started for the four columns at the corners. The printing of the colums was halted for each floor, the prefab floor was inserted, and the printing was continued. The result is a very solid puzzle.

The puzzle has been mass-produced as laser-cut wooden puzzle by LaserExact and Bits&Pieces. However, those productions have halted already many years ago.

The puzzle uses an accurate 12.6-mm diameter steel ball.

Watch the YouTube video.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Read more at the Non-Twisty Puzzles Forum.

Please order a 3D-printed do-it-yourself puzzle kit from Shapeways at this page (check with Oskar about screws and stickers), or contact Oskar directly if you are interested in obtaining a fully colored, stickered and assembled sample of this puzzle.