Quark Ball

Challenging Spherical Sliding Shell Puzzle

A brain teaser based on the basic building blocks of our universe, the Quarks Ball is a spherical 3-D puzzle with a sliding shell mechanism.

Inspired by the subatomic particles that make up the nucleus of atoms, this puzzle features six types of quarks in three families: Up/Down, Strange/Charm, and Top/Bottom. On the spherical puzzle, each of the six quarks is shown as a colored spiral at one pole of a hemisphere with its family partner on the opposite hemisphere pole.

The objective of the game is to randomly disrupt the color pattern by twisting the hemispheres in three directions and then bring it back to its original configuration. To do this you will have to find strategies to match the colors much the same as done in the Rubik’s cube. Eight finger holes aid in spiraling motion of the hemispheres around their axes.

This challenging puzzle can be solved through orderly mathematical algorithms, but if you get stuck, it can also be disassembled by pulling the hemispheres apart using these finger holes to open the ball and put back to it’s original pattern similar to a jigsaw puzzle.