Twisting Puzzles
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Twisting Puzzles
Face-Turning Octahedron
Identical in shape and size to its easier cousin, the Face-Turning Octahedron is an altogether more challenging puzzle. As the name suggests, you turn the entire face to scramble and solve the puzzle. This requires a different mechanism from the Corner-Turning Octahedron and makes for a completely different puzzle. You can see how the faces turn in the following image.
There are several stages in solving this puzzle. I start by solving all of the corners, then do the centre-triangles (the 3 triangles adjacent to the corner tips) and finally position the edges. This requires minor variations on one algorithm and a fair bit of patience with the last stage. My final algorithm cycles the 3 edges triangles on a face and, with repeated use, can get you to the solved state of the puzzle - but not without a bit of staring along the way.
The version of the puzzle that you see in the picture is a mass-produced puzzle by the company Dayan. This one came assembled and, with the difference in mechanism from the Corner-Turning puzzle, is a little more fragile - pieces do pop if you confuse the two puzzles and try to turn the corners on this bad boy. Like the CTO, it's a wonderfully well-made puzzle and a great addition to the collection - something a little bit different.