Helicopter Cube a 6-member cycle, often referred to as its "orbit". Face center pieces in different orbits cannot be interchanged using only 180° twists. However, jumbling moves are able to permute face center pieces between different orbits, thus leaving the puzzle in a state that cannot be solved by 180° twists alone. Assume that Helicopter Cube is scrambled without jumbling moves (i.e. mixed with only 180 degree twists). Any permutation of the corners is possible, including odd permutations. Seven of the corners can be independently rotated, and the orientation of the eighth depends on the other seven, giving 8!×3 combinations. There are
Soma cube performance and effort in a series of psychology experiments. In these experiments, test subjects are asked to solve a soma cube as many times as possible within a set period of time. For example, In 1969, Edward Deci, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate assistant at the time, asked his research subjects to solve a soma cube under conditions with varying incentives in his dissertation work on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation establishing the social psychological theory of crowding out. In each of the 240 solutions to the cube puzzle, there is only one place that the "T" piece can be placed.