page_title: Helicopter Cube
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Helicopter Cube / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Helicopter Cube, with a ~71° turn in preparation for a jumbling twist.
context_page_description: The Helicopter Cube is a Rubik's Cube-like puzzle invented by Adam G. Cowan in 2005 and built in 2006. It is also in the shape of a cube. At first glance, the Helicopter Cube may seem like a combination of the 2x2x2 and the Skewb, but it actually cuts differently, and twists around cube edges rather than cube faces. The purpose of the puzzle is to scramble the colors, and then restore them back to their original state of a single color per face.
context_section_description: The Helicopter Cube is made in the shape of a cube, cut into 8 corner pieces and 24 face center pieces. Each corner piece has 3 colors, and each face center piece has only a single color. Unlike the Rubik's Cube, its faces do not rotate; rather, the pieces are scrambled by rotating around a cube edge.
  When twisting the puzzle, a 180° turn exchanges two corner pieces and swaps two pairs of face center pieces, but preserves the cube shape. The entire puzzle can be scrambled in this way.
  However, it is also possible to twist an edge by ~71°, such that the base of two groups of a corner piece and a face center piece each is aligned with the rotational plane of a different edge. The second edge can then be rotated, thus intermixing the corner pieces and the face center pieces and leaving the puzzle in a non-cubical shape. This kind of intermixing is known as a jumbling move. Due to the differing shapes of the intermixed pieces, some rotations possible in the cubical shape may no longer be possible in the jumbled shape. By using a combination of such "jumbling" moves, it is possible to return to cubical shape but with some face center pieces in the wrong orientation, thus jutting outwards like spikes rather than lie flat on the face of the cube. More subtle changes may also be introduced, which are described later.
  There are four variants of the Helicopter Cube:
  the original Helicopter Cube, manufactured by The Twisty Store (sold also by Uwe Mèffert), consisting only of 8 corner pieces and 24 face center pieces;
  the "Curvy Copter" by Tom van der Zanden, which has an additional 12 edge pieces with 2 colors each. This require the person to build around the edge pieces, whereas on the helicopter cube, these are hidden underneath, and it doesn't matter where you build around
  the "Curvy Copter Plus", also created by Tom van der Zanden, with additional cuts in the middle of the face center pieces, allowing the puzzle to jumble even more;
  the "Helicopter Skewb", also by Tom Van Der Zanden, which looks exactly the same as the original Helicopter Cube but it can also twist like the Skewb.
  the "Curvy copter 3",produced in 2014 by mf8
caption: The ~71° turn in preparation for a jumbling move
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