The following article is taken from the original announcement of this puzzle in 10/2012.

I’m very proud to present the sixth in my series of “Radiolarians”, or face turning icosahedra.

This is an even deeper face turning icosahedron than the Cat’s Cradle (Radiolarian 5), and 5 new tiny pieces are added around each corner by the deeper cuts.

This is the third time I have attempted this puzzle. There are many many tiny pieces as you can see! Each corner is surrounded by 10 small parts.

Like the Cat’s Cradle, this puzzle can jumble in two ways. Pictures of each jumble are included below, in the second and third to last images.

Thank you!

Video

The following article is the original announcement of this puzzle on TwistyPuzzles.com in 10/2012.

I’m very proud to present the fifth Radiolarian, the “Cat’s Cradle”.

This puzzle is the deepest face turning icosahedron built with icosahedral shape. The cut depth creates small groups of tiny fractured acute parts near the edges that remind me of the “Cat’s Cradle”, a game played with a loop of string criscrossing between fingers.

This is the second design and print of this puzzle, this one being a major redesign of the mechanism. With this version I am very happy with the movement, which feels excellent.

The radiolarians can all jumble, but this one adds a new jumbling move where three of the cat’s cradle pieces can rotate away independantly. The jumbling results are shown in the 4th (standard jumble) and 5th (deep jumble) images. (Can you find them?…)

Also, I made a very short video:

Video Here

Thank you!

The following article is taken from my announcement on the TwistyPuzzles forums on 10/2012.
The fourth puzzle in my Radiolarian series of face turning icosahedra (leaving out a minor one).

This is another puzzle I sketched up in 2010, but I never finished the parts or printed it, and I was beat to the punch by Eitan Cher (pirsquared). His version has been called DeFTI and Eitan’s Star. I’m showing this version with his permission.

My version has an identical mechanism to my Radiolarian 3, and only the outer cuts are modified to change the relative sizes of the parts. Turning is very nice.

I show the jumbling in the video.

Thanks!

Video

After announcing this puzzle it became clear that Tom van der Zanden made it first, in 2010.  Here is the original announcement of mine from 10/2012.

Video

This is a shape modification of my Pentultimate (mechanism v2.5), using caps to create a rhombic triacontahedron.

This modification was first suggested to my knowledge by Robert Webb in 2003 here.

One interesting thing about this modification is that it doesn’t change shape as many other pentultimate shape modifications do. It’s always a rhombic triacontahedron after every turn.

Every piece orientation matters, as opposed to the Pentultimate where only the triangles matter, or the Icosamate, where only the pentagons matter.

At the end of the video I’m attempting to show how well the puzzle can turn by using only one finger with fast turns. It gets a little loud…

Thanks for looking!

EDIT: I have learned that TomZ made this puzzle first, in 2010.