Revomaze

[Quan-Time]

Id like to start by saying im in no way affiliated by these guys, or am I trying to sell their products or premote them.
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www.revomaze.co.uk


Im a HUGE fan of puzzles. Im always buying little metal die cast ones, and many people get them for me as presents. Ive yet to have a puzzle take longer than 2hrs, and Ive NEVER had one that makes me want to punch little kittens. Saying that, Ive never finished a rubiks cube for some reason.

Enter the "REVOMAZE". The Revomaze is a rotary "lock" of sorts which contains 2 main parts. The outer housing, and the maze shaft. The outer housing which is coloured, designates the difficulty of the puzzle. Blue being the easiest, then Green, Bronze, Silver and finally Gold being almost impossible.


Click to view full size!

The maze shaft has a series of cuts in it which creates a maze or "labyrinth" for you to navigate. The outer housing has a small pin (dowel) which is spring loaded pressing it into the maze. As you twist and pull the maze shaft, you sometimes hear it "click" and you CANT get back to where you were. Much like a trap or a dead end. The only thing you can do is try to follow where the path takes you.
You can be quite deep into the maze, hit a trap, and the ONLY thing you can do is push the shaft back in to "reset" it. You must start all over again. Its a very ingenious way of doing it.

You know you have completed the maze when you see the 2 dimples line up with each other. There is one on the outer housing, and one on the maze shaft. Soon as you see it, you have successfully completed it.
You are then able to "tap" out the dowel pin to reveal the maze.


Click to view full size!

Once the maze shaft is out, there is another smaller shaft inside. This has a certificate of opening rolled up in it. Each puzzle has a unique serial number. By emailing this serial to the creator, you can request the next puzzle.

Along with each cert is a special transparent "clue" to a 6th and (i think) final puzzle. By solving all 5 puzzles, you receive enough information to solve the 6th puzzle, which will be opened, by invitation to a special "competition".
Im not sure if the 6th (Purple) puzzle will go on sale after this, or if its mearly "offered" to people who have opened all the previous 5. time will tell.

The puzzle is machined via CNC, which you can see below.


To watch the creator solving the BLUE puzzle,


The Blue took me around 6hrs to complete, the Green im saying ~15hrs. Once you know the way to go, you still have to struggle to some extent to repeat it.
Im still having trouble repeating the Green, even though i know where im going. Thats how tricky it is.

Anyway, thats about it. Its a great time waster, and the sense of achievement on actually opening it is HUGE.
Being the geek that i am, ive already thought about making an Arduino "auto opener". Stepper motor and a servo or something. Spin the shaft around, pull it in / out at the correct spot, bingo.. Auto-opener.
Saying that, you must first SOLVE the puzzle so you know where the hell your going. Im going to have it a guess and claim it cant be done via a "learn" method.
Someone prepared to prove me wrong ?

Im happy to try and answer any questions i can about it, but obviously WONT provide pictures of the actual maze, so dont bother asking.

[Quan-Time]

I dont think anyone else really has one, but ive Also just passed the "Bronze" series.

Was HUGELY freakin hard.. A whole new level. Very entertaining and well worth just getting the Blue to mess with. It will stump friends for HOURS, but once you know the secret, you can do it surprisingly fast, repeatedly.

Anyway.. thats all.

Click to view full size!

[matthudson]

Two servo motors, and a sound sensor. Should be easy to build a robot to solve them with that

[Zzapped]

How much do they cost ?

[rainwulf]

On a side note, this would make a fantastic lock.

[rubix]

Looks like it would be good for long plane trips.

edit: wow £85 delivered to Aus, o_O

[Quan-Time]

@matthudson
You can easily hear the "click".. and one of the puzzles has a "false" reset.. bit sneeky.. but you think you need to reset, but its actually another trap, you are MENT to hear it..

@zzapped
$120 each inc delivery is what they ended up costing.. Yes, HUGELY expensive, but the quality of the product is excellent, as is customer support. They (Chris Pitt, the creator) is willing to provide "clues" to help you to some extent. And on the bronze, you SERIOUSLY need it.

@rainwulf
yer, thats true.. Id like to see how a locksmith went at solving one of these. Would be interesting.. Bet theres prolly a way to make a lock pick or somethin ?

@rubix
Long trip yes.. BUT because the shaft is brass, and the outter aluminum, it it still surprisingly heavy. I can only do it for about 1 - 1.5hrs before i NEED to have a break. Else you cant "feel" whats going on. I tend to do it in 1hr shots now.. Else i get frustrated and want to break something.


As for the "servo" trick. You really have to solve it first and then give it a "map".
I can honestly say it would be IMPOSSIBLE for a computer to "learn" it.. Maybe the blue and possibly the green, but the bronze, no way in hell. How did i solve it ? well.. complete determination, and a fair bit of luck.

I currently have silver in transit.. should be here end of the week or beginning of next.. I cant wait !

[cvidler]

Originally Posted by rubix

Looks like it would be good for long plane trips.

Except it'd probably be classed as a weapon.

[BEAVISNEO]

Ah, I knew these looked familiar, Thinkgeek.com are selling them.

[Ultra PeePi]

I don't see what would make it impossible for a computer to solve. From the way you've described it it's just a regular maze crafted onto the shaft, the spring loaded pin just stops you from easily back tracking and using regular maze solving techniques. That said a computer could quite easily map the surface based on rotation and shaft depth. Given the knowledge that the pin in the casing is spring loaded audible clicks would indicate differences in maze depth which would allow a computer to map out one way traversable areas as well.

[TERRA Operative]

Hmm. I might get me one of these. I always seem to solve those bent nail ones too fast.

[Maelstrom]

A computer would just need to store a list of previously attempted moves, and each time it is forced to reset it would flag the last move on that series as incorrect and then retry the list with the last move being changed to an alternative one. You might need to store the last couple of incorrect lists to ensure it doesn't cycle between two incorrect options, depending on how the puzzle is designed. It would take a while to brute force it, but it could be done.

[SaMbO]

amazing (pun intended). the revomaze extreme's coming soon look like a cheaper option, hmmm... xmas is approaching fast...

[Arch-Angel]

Looks awesome, but I just couldn't justify the price

[Quan-Time]

the Revomaze Extreme series are plastic. MUCH cheaper, but still high quality, and fully CNC machined.
I believe you still get the audible "click", its just,, more muffled. But you would know instantly as you cant back track.

As for solving the revo with brute force computer and servos.. I believe blue and green MAY be possible. But bronze, id be skeptical. Once you see the actual maze, you will understand why.

After the FULL list of blue is complete (for entry into the competition) i suspect the actual solution may start being posted around.

Im very confident an arduino + 2x stepper motors could do it. You would just need to "teach" it what to do. As for learning, im not a real programmer. So my logic skills dont really exist.

@maelstrom
Your technique of "try all positions" would fail on bronze. Thats what i was manually doing.. for 4 damn hours until a switch in my head turned on.. BINGO i thought.. and that was the beginning of the end of the puzzle.

Ive showed a few ppl @ work the bronze, and they are amazed i was even able to solve it. They were blown away by the machine technique. And this is fellow machinists. (my day job).