3x3 Path and Wall

This is an ordinary 3x3 snake-type pattern adapted to the Rubik's Mirror Blocks puzzle (widely known as the Bump Cube). I arranged the heights so it looks like a continuous path from one side, and a wall from the other.

6x6 Cube in Cube in Cube in Cube in Cube in Cube

This is a straightforward expansion on the common Cube-in-Cube pattern. I tried to arrange the colors carefully so the same colors wouldn't touch each other at the edges, since this tended to make the pattern look like a broken spiral. Every side has all six colors.

5x5x5 Dado Rail

The varying-width stripes remind me of the way a chair rail divides a wall between the dado below and the...uh... non-dado part.

But when viewed from a different angle it's easy to see this is just a simple 3-cycle pattern. (More precisely, it's two slightly different 3-cycle patterns.)

5x5 M.C. Escher's Pretzel

M.C. Escher used to draw all sorts of pictures of impossible objects like stairways that ascended in loops and waterfalls that drained into their own tributaries.

If M.C. Escher tried to draw a pretzel, it just might have looked something like this cube pattern.

Octahedron Christmas Trees

Okay, there's nothing particularly Christmas-like about this pattern. It's just a vague depiction of a tree, but I chose to call it a Christmas Tree because of the season.

Woolworths used to sell decorations like this back in the 70's when abstract geometric shapes were the "in" thing.

5x5 Curvy Snake

This is a 5x5 variant of the standard "snake" pattern from the 3x3 cube, but with curves added.

I made this pattern during a holiday in Hawaii and accidentally stumbled on the Tropical Petals pattern afterward. So the simplest way to create either of these patterns is to first arrange the edges as shown here for the Curvy Snake, then adjust the center pieces to match either the Curvy Snake or Tropical Petals pattern.

5x5 Tropical Petals

This pattern occurred just by chance during my holiday in Hawaii. An Eastsheen cube naturally forms two groups of colors that look tropical: a red-yellow-blue scheme reminiscent of a tropical Macaw, and a white-purple-green scheme like an orchid.

The pattern itself is a variant of a standard snake, albeit with several modifications. The pictures were takent near Kona, Hawaii.

5x5 Interlaced Spirals

My goal was to create a spiral path from the center to the outer edges. There's not more much to say about this one!

5x5 Twisted DNA

A pair of threads twist over and under each other, wrapping around all six sides. Shown at right, the color scheme is based on two ordinary 3-cycle twists. It's essentially two snake type patterns woven together to depict a DNA-like double-helix.

Because the color scheme is based on a 3-cycle rotation, the cube shows three colors on three sides when viewed diagonally as shown in the picture at left.

5x5 Dots Cube in Checkerboard Cube

This is a variant of the common Cube In Cube pattern in which the inner cube and outer cube are also depicting common patterns Dots and Checkerboard.

I tried to invert it into a Checkerboard Cube in Dots Cube,
as shown in the smaller picture at right. I don't think it worked as well, but it's still visually interesting . . . and an entertaining challenge to construct.

Triskelion

Geometrically speaking, a triskelion is a three-armed spiral form. In heraldry (flags that is) it instead refers to a three-legged spiral such as the flag of the Isle of Man.

The pattern extends neatly to any higher-order puzzle cube in case you just happen to have a 9x9x9 cube lying around. Here's the opposite-side view:

Octahedron Tri-color Triquetra

All eight faces of this Magic Octahedron depict a three-color triquetra pattern. It took me three tries to get this pattern right because there are so many sides and colors that I kept making mistakes. This color scheme integrates the trivial tips, rotating quadrants, and mobile edges on each face, but is edge-agnostic on adjacent faces.

The Magic Octahedron puzzle is more complex than the eight-sided Skewb Diamond puzzle, but much more versatile. According to TwistyPuzzles.com the Taiwanese version of this puzzle was called "Star Puzzler." Such puzzles are relatively scarce, but occasionally obtainable on eBay. (Or at a flea market in Berlin.)

5x5 Dino Delta

This pattern is created by choosing four corners and rotating the colors around them Dino-cube-style.

The result is similar to what you'd get by turning the same four corners on a six-color Dino cube, except for the diagonal lines.

5x5 Twisty Snake

This is just one of the countless ways to extend the basic 3x3 Snake onto the 5x5 cube. As the two views at right show, the snake worms its way around each face, making three turns on each face.

On the 5x5 cube the snake can be arranged to enter and exit each face in any combination of edge cubies. The simplest variant has a single turn on each face while the most elaborate has five turns per face. Another challenge is to extend it to three, four, or even five colors per face.

Cube-in-Cube

The Cube-in-Cube is one of the few patterns that can be adapted to all orders of puzzle cubes: Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Revenge, Meffert's Master Cube, Rubik's Wahn, et cetera.

In fact, there are a variety of options for the higher order cubes. Should the smaller cube be 2x2 or 3x3? Or even 4x4 (on the 5x5)? Take your pick.

I used Eastsheen cubes for the 2x2x2, 4x4x4, and 5x5x5 in the illustration and a Famwealth 3x3x3 that had a similar color scheme on the red-yellow-blue faces. The colors on the 3x3 don't quite match on the reverse side, as shown below.

3x3 Snake

Sometimes called the Worm, the 3x3 Snake is a fairly common pattern for longtime Rubik's Cube enthusiasts. The colored stripe winds around each side of the cube, making a right-angle turn on each.

Many patterns on the higher-order cubes are derived from this basic 3x3 pattern.

4x4 Crooked Snake

I'm partial to "snake" patterns that run from one side of the cube to another. The Crooked Snake is a variant of the common 3x3 Snake pattern, which runs through all six sides in a regular pattern as shown here.

Unlike the standard 3x3 Snake, this version has extra crooked turns on some sides but not others.

4x4 Psychedelic Herringbone

The diagonal stripes crowd five different colors onto each face of a 4x4 cube. The pattern is created by rotating face and edge cubies around four of the cube's eight corners.

It's a worthwhile exercise for the experienced cuber, even if you don't really like how it looks.

5x5 Isle of Man

This abstract pattern represents the Armored Triskelion from the coat of arms and flag of the Isle of Man. Due to mechanical constraints, the two figures in my representation are running in opposite directions.

Despite its apparent simplicity, I was forced to adopt the thick thigh for practical reasons rather than aesthetic ones.

This cube is about twenty years old, probably a Rubik's Wahn, but it has held up magnificently except for a chipped sticker on one of its corners.

2x2 Twist

Very few patterns are possible on the 2x2 puzzle cubes because there are only 8 parts, each of which can be deflected into 3 orientations. 8 doesn't divide evenly into 3.

This "pattern" demonstrates the problem rather clearly. I had to arrange it with two slightly different patterns, depending on which side you view it from. One side includes an extra twist of one of the corners.