Puzzle Cube Data

My completed puzzle.

I'm really happy with it, except for one crooked piece that doesn't quite fit in. 

I timed nine people solving my puzzle; five completed it and four gave up after 15 minutes. I calculated the statistics for all attempts as well as just the successful attempts. Of the successful tries, the average time to solve my cube was 5 minutes and 19 seconds, with a standard deviation of about 3 and a half minutes. 

Puzzle Cube Process

Brainstorming: There were SO many more possible combinations than I had expected, and it took me a long time to draw as many as I could. I started out drawing the isometric view incorrectly for the 3- and 4-block combinations but I learned the right way for the later pieces. Also, it became easier when I realized only some of the possibilities could fit in a 3x3 cube.

3- and 4-block combinations, with some mistakes

5- and 6-block combinations

6-block combinations

'Cake Layers': After the brainstorming, I came up with two possible designs for the cube.

Design 1

Design 2

Choice of Design: Overall, I liked my first design better because more parts interlocked and I thought it was a little more challenging. I thought the pieces for the second design were a bit simple.

Multiview Sketches: Here are the sketches of each piece of my final cube design.

The multiview sketches for cube 1 parts

Assembly of Partner's Piece: I constructed one of Austin's parts according to his multiview sketches and isometric drawing.

Austin's puzzle piece

CAD - Inventor: I built each of my parts on Inventor with the proper dimensions and assembled them into a cube. 

Puzzle parts on Inventor

Assembled cube on Inventor

Cube Lengths

Here is a graph of the lengths (in inches) of each of the cubes for the puzzle. The mean length is 0.754 in and the median length is 0.753 in. The mode is 0.745 in. The range is 0.056 in and the standard deviation is 0.011 in.