page_title: Pyraminx
section_title: Variations
hierarchical_section_title: Pyraminx / Variations
caption_attribution_description: English: A Tetraminx puzzle. It's just a slightly simpler version of the Pyraminx, which isn't all that difficult itself.
context_page_description: The Pyraminx is a regular tetrahedron puzzle in the style of Rubik's Cube. It was made and patented by Uwe Mèffert after the original 3 layered Rubik's Cube by Erno Rubik, and introduced by Tomy Toys of Japan in 1981.
context_section_description: There are several variations of the puzzle. The simplest, Tetraminx, is equivalent to the (3x) Pyraminx but without the tips (see photo).  There also exist "higher-order" versions, such as the 4x Master Pyraminx (see photos) and the 5x Professor's Pyraminx.
  The Master Pyraminx has 4 layers and 16 triangles-per-face (compared to 3 layers and 9 triangles-per-face of the original), and is based on the Skewb Diamond mechanism.  This version has about 2.6817 × 10¹⁵ combinations.  The Master Pyraminx has
  4 "tips" (same as the original Pyraminx)
  4 "middle axials"  (same as the original Pyraminx)
  4 "centers" (similar to Rubik's Cube, none in the original Pyraminx)
  6 "inner edges" (similar to Rubik's Cube, none in the original Pyraminx)
  12 "outer edges" (2-times more than the 6 of the original Pyraminx)
  In summary, the Master Pyraminx has 30 "manipulable" pieces.  However, like the original, 8 of the pieces (the tips and middle axials) are fixed in position (relative to each other) and can only be rotated in place.  Also, the 4 centers are fixed in position and can only rotate (like the Rubik's Cube).  So there are only 18 (30-8-4) "truly movable" pieces; since this is 10% fewer than the 20 "truly movable" pieces of the Rubik's Cube, it should be no surprise that the Master Pyraminx has about 10,000-times fewer combinations than a Rubik's Cube (about 4.3252 × 10¹⁹).
caption: A solved Tetraminx.
exif: {}