The products we’ve seen inspired by the Rubik’s Cube add up to quite a considerable collection. After all, the distinct 6-color randomized pattern of squares is immediately recognizable, despite the cube’s 43 quintillion possible combinations.
Most items inspired by the Rubik’s cube only need to be twisted once to work; until now, I’d never seen a Rubik’s Cube gadget that actually had to be solved to function!
The Rubik’s Cube Bank works in a very curious way; to deposit money, you need to solve the yellow side. To take out money, you’ll need to figure out the green side. Brilliant idea, though its target audience is fairly limited; while solving one face isn’t as hard as solving the entire cube, it can still be a challenge if you’ve never done it before.
I get the feeling that that part of the appeal of the Rubik’s Cube is the fact that the cubes are darned near impossible to solve without some sort of cheatsheet – and even then it’s not a cakewalk. With a bit of difficulty, I can solve a cube in about 10 minutes, which is pretty pitiful, given that the current in-competition world record is 7 seconds.
An interesting note about this bank is that (as you’ve probably gathered) it’s fully functional as a regular Rubik’s Cube. If you happen to have larger hands, it might even be nicer to solve this instead, as the Rubik’s Cube Bank is a bit larger than the standard size.
Of course, you may not want to fully solve it unless you really want your pennies to come spilling out. On that note, if you’re a hardcore speedcuber, greasing the bank to make it twist smoothly may not be the best idea, unless you don’t mind getting vaseline all over your money.
This would actually be a pretty great gift for young children who have trouble saving their money, since they’d probably find the Rubik’s Cube Bank very hard to solve, especially if you tell them that the whole thing needs to be solved for money to come out. Of course, this may also have the unintended consequence of helping develop their lateral thinking. After all, the cube can be opened fairly easily by prying apart a corner piece. Now that’s thinking outside the box – er, cube.
As mentioned before, there are a few other Rubik’s Cube devices that operate with the twisting of a side. The Rubik’s Cube MP3 player turns on and off when its middle section is turned, and the salt & pepper Rubik’s Cube Mills function in much the same way.
Via: CrunchGear
