Megaminx (3x3x3)

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The Megaminx, is a dodecahedron-shaped twisty puzzle, it has 12 center pieces (around which the faces can turn), 20 corner pieces and 30 edge pieces. It was invented in 1982 by a few people independently but was first created by Dr. Cristoph Bandelow and soon after by the famous Uwe Mèffert who gave it it's current name. Other names for this puzzle are The Magic Dodecahedron and The Hungarian Supernova.

There are many similarities between the Megaminx (3x3x3) and the original Rubik's Cube. Both are face-turning puzzles that have fixed centers and a single edge piece between any two adjacent corners. It is quite surprizing at first glace, but the similarity between the puzzles also comes in to play when solving the Megaminx - the solution is almost identical to the Rubik's Cube's solution and many of the Rubik's Cube solving algorithms can be used on the Megaminx.

The difference between the two however is very obvious, while the Rubik's Cube is a cube (with 6 sqare faces) the Megaminx is a dodecahedron (with 12 pentagon faces). This creates a lot more moving parts - 50 in the Megaminx compared to 20 in the Rubik's Cube, therefore the number of possible combinations is also much greater - 1.01x10⁶⁸ (around 101 unvigintillion) which is a number most of us had never heard of before.

The Megaminx series is one of the most famous series in the cubing world. The puzzle has many variations and modifications, along with higher-order versions such as the Gigaminx (5x5x5) and the Teraminx (7x7x7).

The Megaminx is an official WCA puzzle and the official record for fastest solve is 24.44 seconds set by Leandro Martín López (Argentina) at Di Tella Open v2 2023.