Soma cube cube problem. There are 240 distinct solutions of the Soma cube puzzle, excluding rotations and reflections: these are easily generated by a simple recursive backtracking search computer program similar to that used for the eight queens puzzle. Current world record for the fastest time to solve a soma cube is 2.93 seconds and was set by Krishnam Raju Gadiraju, India. The seven Soma pieces are six polycubes of order four, and one of order three: Piet Hein authorized a finely crafted rosewood version of the Soma cube manufactured by Theodor Skjøde Knudsen's company Skjøde Skjern (of Denmark). Beginning in about
Helicopter Cube thus jutting outwards like spikes rather than lie flat on the face of the cube. More subtle changes may also be introduced, which are described later. There are four variants of the Helicopter Cube: If the puzzle is only scrambled using 180° twists, then it is obviously solvable using only 180° twists. However, if some jumbling moves were made, even if the puzzle was subsequently returned to cube shape, it may not be possible to solve it using only 180° twists. The reason for this is that using only 180° twists, each face center piece can only be permuted within