The Void Cube: A Rubik's Cube With Nothing Inside

Quick answer: the Void Cube is a 3x3x3 with the six centre pieces and the entire core removed, leaving square tunnels you can see through. It turns exactly like a normal cube, but losing the centres lets it reach parity positions a standard cube cannot. Katsuhiko Okamoto designed it, and it won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2007 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.

Best for: anyone who solves a 3x3 comfortably and wants to meet a position their method has no answer for.

The hole looks like a gimmick. It is the entire puzzle, and it changes the mathematics rather than the appearance.

What Is a Void Cube?

A 3x3x3 missing its middle. Not just the six visible centre tiles: the core as well, so three square tunnels run straight through the solid and you can look clean out the other side.

That raises an obvious question, which is how it holds together at all. The mechanism moves to the edges: the pieces track one another around the rim rather than hanging off a central spindle. It is a genuinely clever piece of engineering, and the reason the design won its prize rather than simply being a novelty.

It turns in every way a standard cube does. Same moves, same notation, same algorithms.

Why Does Removing the Centres Matter?

Because on a normal cube the centres are the one thing that never moves, and everything you know is secretly built on that.

A standard 3x3 centre rotates in place but never travels. It is a fixed reference: white is always opposite yellow, and the centre tells you which face you are looking at before you have placed a single piece. Your method depends on that even if you have never thought about it.

Take the centres away and the reference goes with them. Nothing anchors a face to a colour, so the whole colour scheme can sit in an orientation you did not intend, and you will not notice until the end.

What Is Void Cube Parity?

The position a standard cube cannot reach, and the reason people think theirs is broken.

You solve it the ordinary way and arrive at a cube that is complete except that two edges are swapped, with everything else correct. On a normal 3x3 that arrangement is unreachable: the group simply does not contain it, so if you ever see it, a sticker has been moved or a piece forced.

On a Void Cube it is a legal position, and it arises because the colour scheme itself has effectively been rotated. With no centres to pin the faces, the cube has been solved into an orientation a quarter turn away from the one you assumed.

The fix matches the cause. Rather than hunting an algorithm to swap two edges, you perform a slice turn, which reorients the scheme, and then finish normally. You are not repairing the cube; you are correcting an assumption.

How Does It Hold Together Without a Core?

This is the engineering problem the design had to solve, and the reason it took a prize rather than being dismissed as a modification.

Every standard 3x3 is built around a central spider: six centre pieces fixed to arms radiating from a core, with the edges and corners hanging off them. Remove the core and an ordinary cube is a handful of loose plastic.

The Void Cube moves the job to the rim. Its pieces are cut so that they retain one another around the edges of each face, each piece held by its neighbours rather than by anything at the middle. The assembly is self-supporting, which is a much harder constraint than it sounds, because the retention has to survive every intermediate position during a turn and not only the aligned ones.

That is why a well-made Void Cube feels slightly different in the hand. There is no spring tension pulling pieces toward a centre, so the turning character comes entirely from how the edges track.

Is It Harder Than a Normal Cube?

Only at the very end, and only once.

Ninety-five per cent of the solve is identical and your existing method carries over untouched. The difficulty is concentrated in a single case that appears in roughly half of scrambles and has nothing to do with the rest of the puzzle.

So it is unusual among twisty puzzles in that it adds one idea rather than more work. Once you have met parity and understood why it happens, the Void Cube is about as hard as the cube you already own, and a good deal more interesting to look at.

How Do You Approach One?

Use your normal method unchanged. There is no special Void Cube technique for the first ninety per cent, and looking for one wastes time.

Pick a colour scheme and commit. Decide at the start which colour is the top and keep to it, since nothing on the puzzle will remind you later.

Recognise parity rather than fighting it. Two swapped edges with everything else done is not an error and not a damaged puzzle. It is the signature case.

Fix it with a slice turn, not a long algorithm. Reorient the scheme and re-solve the affected layer. Attempting to force a two-edge swap directly is the long way round.

What Do We Make That Is Like This?

No twisty puzzles, so nothing mechanically comparable. What the Void Cube shares with our range is the thing hidden inside it, or rather not inside it.

Several puzzles we make are about internal space you cannot see. A6L and 6N are both built on hiding holes so the finished object reads as solid, which is the same instinct run the other way, and Osanori Yamamoto has made a career of it.

For prize context, the Void Cube's award is the same competition covered in collectible puzzles and the IPP exchange. The shelf here is cube puzzles and the range is mechanical puzzles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Void Cube?

A 3x3x3 twisty puzzle with the six centre pieces and the entire core removed, leaving square tunnels through the middle. It turns exactly like a standard cube and uses the same algorithms.

What is void cube parity?

A finished cube with exactly two edges swapped and everything else correct. A standard 3x3 can never reach that position, but without centres the Void Cube can, because the colour scheme has effectively been solved a quarter turn out of the orientation you assumed.

How do you fix void cube parity?

With a slice turn that reorients the colour scheme, then finish the layer normally. You are correcting the orientation you solved into, not swapping two edges, so a long edge-swap algorithm is the wrong tool.

Who invented the Void Cube?

Katsuhiko Okamoto. It won the Jury Grand Prize at the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 2007 International Puzzle Party.

Is the Void Cube harder than a Rubik's Cube?

Only in one case. The solve is otherwise identical and your existing method transfers unchanged; the difficulty is the parity position at the end, which appears in roughly half of scrambles and is a single idea rather than extra work.