All six pieces of this puzzle have the same shape, and so assembly is not especially difficult, however it does require a little bit of dexterity to get the six tips to align correctly. The assembled puzzle has the shape of the second stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron. Disassembly can be done on any of the four-fold axes, individually, in groups, or all at the same time (kind of coordinate motion, but not necessarily). The real trick to this puzzle is getting the colors aligned correctly so that a symmetrical pattern emerges. There are three ways that this can be done.

The six pieces of this puzzle represent a complete set of non-symmetrical permutations. they will assemble in two ways -- both of which will disassemble on all of the four-fold axes simultaneously. this is essentially a Permuted Second Stellation puzzle with the arms lengthened so that it's a third stellation. The awkwardness of the pieces makes it especially difficult to assemble. just as the Permuted Second Stellation puzzle has a symmetrical four color counterpart this puzzle too has one called the Four-Color Third Stellation

Here's a fun set of all three stellations of the rhombic dodecahedron, inspired by previous wooden editions I've made such as the IPP29 stellation sets but instead of using Stewart Coffin's original designs for Permuted Second Stellation and Permuted Third Stellation puzzles, I've slightly modified the piece geometry in order to allow them all to 3D print easily. My version of the third stellation is very similar to Coffin's however my second stellation is medium difficulty compared to Coffin's version. A benefit to making the middle puzzle is that it provides a nice ramp-up of difficulty going from smallest to largest puzzle.

I like to deliver these puzzles to customers in the "scrambled" state where one puzzle is solid black, one is solid white, and one is solid accent color. As such, the first three puzzles to solve are those of figuring out how to get these funky looking structures disassembled (not easy). The fourth puzzle (easy) is to sort all 18 pieces to figure out which ones are supposed to go together. From that point, the next three puzzles to solve are getting each stellation assembled correctly.

7 puzzle challenges!

I made these puzzles as a special batch for display and silent auction at IPP29 in San Francisco. Each stellation sets came with a Permuted Third Stellation, a Permuted Second Stellation, a Diagonal Star, and a Pennyhedron