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The Rubik's Twist has been a fun time sink. From the wiki page,

[It] is a toy with twenty-four wedges that are right isosceles triangular prisms. The wedges are connected by spring bolts, so that they can be twisted, but not separated. By being twisted, the Rubik's Snake can be made to resemble a wide variety of objects, animals, or geometric shapes. Its "ball" shape in its packaging is a non-uniform concave rhombicuboctahedron.

This page has an applet to show configurations in 3D and play around with it, which will give you an idea of what the puzzle is like (requires Wolfram CDF player plugin.)

Edit: another page that has a simulator working as of July 2023.

A friend asked what shape would minimize surface area and we thought the standard 'ball' shape would be the solution:

We denoted the square side of the wedge as $1u^2$ and thus the long rectangular side of the wedge is $\sqrt{2}u^2$ and a triangle is $\frac{1}{2}u^2$.

In the ball configuration, we counted 12 rectangle panels showing (blue, orange, and red in the above image) 6 "squares" (12 triangles) and 8 niches each made of 3 triangles giving:

  • 12 + 24 = 36 triangles ($18u^2$)
  • 12 rectangle panels ($12\sqrt{2}u^2$)

$18u^2 + 12\sqrt{2}u^2$ surface area, which is just under $35u^2$.

However, we found that there are configurations with smaller surface areas like:

We calculated the surface area as just under $32u^2$ (12 rectangular panels, 2 squares and 26 triangles.)

The definition of surface we are using is any visible face - the area which would have to be painted if someone were to hold it and look all around it, no area would appear unpainted. (See the comments for extra clarification.)

In the ball shape (see first image) there is a 1x1x1 void in the center which is not counted as surface area as it is not visible. I'm not sure if that makes the problem much more difficult, however, I'd be interested to know of a solution in either case.

I calculate the surface area by counting up the number of visible rectangular panels, ($\sqrt{2}u^2$) triangles ($\frac{1}{2}u^2$) and the two square ends of the snake ($1u^2$ each.) By adding these units up I get the surface area.

So, for the ball we are excluding the $6u^2$ on the inside. Additionally, partial turns that expose the "inside" of the snake are not allowed (see below) as these are not valid configurations.

(Partial turn exposing inside grey face)

The ball shape had a lot of outcroppings which add up. We thought that another way of minimizing surface area is by maximizing touching faces. What configuration has the lowest visible surface area, and can it be derived or proved mathematically?

Or, can the configuration above be proven to exhibit the lowest surface area?

Or, can a computer program be written to iterate over (or in some way consider) all combinations (of which there can be no more than $4^{23}$ simply by observing each of the 23 twists can exist in 4 positions, although some positions are physically impossible as it overlaps itself) and find the solution?

Elle
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  • This likely depends on what you are considering "surface". For example, do you consider the outer envelope of the resulting figure, i.e. the empty faces in this octahedron, or only the "empty-facing" faces of the Twist? – A.P. Apr 27 '15 at 19:17
  • Any faces that are externally visible - rectangular faces, triangular faces and the two square faces. – Elle Apr 27 '15 at 20:50
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    This still isn't compltely clear: in the "ball" picture you posted how do you consider the grey space between, say, the blue, orange, and red faces? Do you count it as three triangles (thus considering the "hole") or do you count it as one triangle (thus considering the surface of a rhombicuboctahedron)? – A.P. Apr 27 '15 at 20:53
  • Ah I see. 3 triangles. Consider it as the amount of paint required to cover the surface. – Elle Apr 27 '15 at 20:54
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    I still don't know how to answer your question, but I can tell you that there are $6,770,518,220,623$ ($\approx 4^{21.81}$) different configurations. Further, there are programs that simulate the Rubik Twist, so with enough time it may be possible to run an exhaustive search. – A.P. May 09 '15 at 11:14
  • If it can be shown that the optimal solution to this problem exists as one of the $64,546,391$ configurations where the head and tail of the snake connect, that reduces the number of brute force combinations to within the realm of feasible computation. One big part of the question still remains, how to compute the surface area of a configuration? – Elle May 10 '15 at 06:26
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    For the 'extended' definition (where internal holes are taken into account), that computation relatively easy: the total surface area of all faces, minus twice the surface area of any faces 'shared' in the configuration. The goal should then be to maximize the number of shared faces. – Steven Stadnicki Mar 31 '16 at 18:54
  • @Cuc I think you meant $34.6u^2$. Thanks for sharing! The question still remains how to prove or disprove the solution... – Elle Jun 19 '17 at 21:23
  • @Jordan. Yes, I meant $(12 + 16\sqrt{2}) u^2 = 34.6 u^2$ and found three solutions. I was trying to make 3 layers (solution 2): Solution 1: 1(202200200)1.2.3(002002202)3 Solution 2: (00220)321(02200)321(00220)30 Solution 3: (00220)1(02200)1(02200)1(00220)[1], nice! In this notation, 0 is straight, 1 is twisting 90 deg, 2 is twisting 180 deg, and 3 is twisting -90 deg.

    Toying with it for some time, I am almost convinced that the OP shows the optimal solution. A proof will be difficult :-)

     – Cuc Jun 19 '17 at 21:36
  • I found another closed loop solution of $(10 + 16 \sqrt{2}) u^2 = 32.6 u^2$, just a bit larger. Solution: 1(00220)1232(121)2321(00200)3. – Cuc Jun 19 '17 at 22:03
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    I found another NOT closed loop solution of $(15+12\sqrt{2})u^2 = 31.97 u^2$. Solution: (003)2(10203)2(31)2(123)2(1003)2(3). It seems to be as close to a $(2 \times 2 \times 2) u^3$ cube as possible. – Cuc Jun 20 '17 at 01:09
  • @Elle. I'd like to see the proof that the optimal solution must be a loop. The current best candidate is the toaster (see OP) and some variants, which are not loops. They are better than most (all?) loops because it covers up 12 diagonal faces and 22 triangles. The best known loop candidate is the concave "pyramid" shape which covers 32 triangles and 8 diagonal faces. However, 4 diagonal faces have a larger area than 10 triangles . . . – Cuc Feb 15 '23 at 06:46
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    @Cuc It depends how you define a loop, I guess. In the "toaster" configuration, the two ends of the snake touch on a triangular face and those faces match. BTW, I am the OP. This question has been open so long my name has changed! – Elle Jun 29 '23 at 12:31
  • @Elle. So, the toaster is not considered a loop, but it may have the smallest surface area, nevertheless. Thanks for commenting. – Cuc Sep 15 '23 at 22:08
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    An exhaustive search in 31 or less days would require we check at least about $2.53*10^6$ configurations per second, neglecting other system-specific factors that would contribute to a higher total program runtime. – FabrizzioMuzz Jan 20 '24 at 23:39

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