Welcome To The Home Of Despair – DODECASOMA

What happens when you take a 3x3x3 matrix of cubes, attach identical pentahedrons to each side of the matrix so that each pentahedron completely covers one of the matrix sides, define a new cubic boundary to encompass the new shape, slice the space up into into 27 identical bits, and randomly glue up some of neighboring bits back together?  Well, you get a DODECASOMA obviously.  To save you the effort of doing that yourself, Rod Bogart has done it for you so that you can enjoy the formidable fiddly fun of constructing a dodecahedron from 7 dodecahedronized Soma pieces.

DODECASOMA was designed and made by Rod Bogart and used as his exchange puzzle for the 41st International Puzzle Party.  It consists of 7 green 3D printed Soma pieces that assemble into a dodecahedron instead of the normal cube.  The pieces are nicely scored with the outline of the 3x3x3 grid to provide some guidance on how the pieces are aligned.  The puzzle also comes with a stand for displaying the assembled puzzle.  The stand is also useful to hold partially assembled constructions.  And although it is providing a helping hand, don’t expect any useful advice from it.

It all appears innocuous enough but when someone hands you a puzzle that is an anagram for CASA DOOMED, you have to stop and consider the ramifications.  Are there 240 (or 480 – you’re welcome Nick) solutions?  No!  Which is good since you probably don’t need another regular Soma cube although you should have a least one.  Is the solution unique.  Don’t know!  But trying to solve it, it seemed like it could be.

Unlike a plain old boring Soma made from plain old cubes, the DODECASOMA ends up being made from 4 types of shapes which I’ve come to think of as corners, edges, middles, and the core.  They’re really misnomers, but I’m sure you’ll come up with better names when you start handling them.

I don’t know why I was surprised the first time I had 1 last piece to add and it didn’t fit.  Why would I think it would be any different from any other puzzle that I’ve solved?  A couple rounds of that wiped the smirk off my expectations.

It’s also a bit fiddly and you have to juggle the pieces in your hand as you try different piece combinations.  Unlike the typical Soma puzzle with cubic dissection pieces, not every piece will fit nicely anywhere.  However, there are enough places where they can go together making it non-trivial to solve.

Eventually I had it all together and with a bit more effort, I had it displayed on the stand.  At least I didn’t have to try all 10 sides to find one where it would stand without falling apart.