Giant Rubik's Cube

The Rubik’s Cube has been an instantly-recognizable and well-loved icon since its debut more than 30 years ago. But as much as we love them, most of us can’t claim to have ever solved the puzzle. This DIY chest of drawers not only lets you live out your goal of finally solving the Rubik’s Cube; it gives you a place to stash your sweaters, too.

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DIY Rubik's chest of drawers

Instructables user Makendo built this remarkable piece of storage furniture for his son, using lazy susans to make the individual sections swivel around.

Because there is only one rotation axis, the cube would not be “solvable” like a real Rubik’s Cube. So Makendo got creative and attached the colored tiles to the outside using rare earth magnets, making them removable and repositionable.

Getting all of the colors to correspond on each side isn’t the only challenge in this interesting bit of design, however. You also have to search for the drawer openings as there are no handles, and each one locks from a different hidden position.

Build Your Own Giant Rubik's Cube

From Makendo:

“30 years on from its invention, Rubik’s Cube is still instantly recognizable. People like picking it up, turning it a few times, maybe doing a side or two (or five, as a braggart in my class once memorably claimed). Solving the cube remains a reasonably rare feat – you’re either smart enough to have figured it out yourself, or geeky enough to have followed a how-to, and most people are neither.”

“Rubik’s cube is not just the quintessential hand-held puzzle, though: it’s also an iconic piece of design, so I co-opted it when making a new chest of drawers for my son’s room. This cubic piece of furniture has only one of the three required axes of rotation, so is unsolvable in the conventional sense, but can be arranged in any configuration you like by non-sporting means. The drawers do pose a brain-bending challenge: the first thing you have to solve is detecting that they’re there, and all three have hidden locks in different locations.”