In 1981, Ernő Rubik, hot on the heels of his 1977 smash-hit the Rubik's Cube, invented and released the Rubik's Snake, a very different kind of puzzle. The Snake consists of 24 isosceles triangular prisms, connected by spring bolts. The prisms can't be separated, but they can be twisted, allowing one to form the snake into many different shapes.
Unlike the Rubik's Cube, Rubik says, "The snake is not a problem to be solved; it offers infinite possibilities of combination. It is a tool to test out ideas of shape in space. Speaking theoretically, the number of the snake's combinations is limited. But speaking practically, that number is limitless, and a lifetime is not sufficient to realize all of its possibilities."
Puzzlers across the globe have come up with a wide array of designs for the Snake, ranging from something as simple as a triangle to complex shapes like tetrahedrons. Below are some of the many ideas for the Rubik's snake.
