How to make an Origami SOMA Cube Puzzle
Designed by Jo Nakashima (07/2019)
Difficulty level: simple
The SOMA Cube is a puzzle invented by Piet Hein in 1933. It has seven different pieces made from cube units that must be assembled into a 3x3x3 cube (and a variety of other shapes).
My origami version of this puzzle is a modular model and each cube is made from a square sheet of paper and connected without glue nor tape.
Paper
To fold this origami you’ll need 27 square sheets of paper with the same size. I’m using 12cm x 12cm in the video tutorial.
Diagrams
Diagrams are not available yet. Watch the video to learn how to make it!
More shapes
There are hundreds of different shapes that you can assemble with the SOMA cube. You can see below 40 sample shapes that you can try. I recommend you visit Thorleif’s SOMA page for more info and different figures.
Random SOMA Puzzle selector
You can also use the video below to select a random puzzle to solve. Play the video and hit pause to select one of the 40 figures:
Helpful videos
To make the origami SOMA Cube Puzzle you’ll need to fold a 5×5 grid on every sheet of paper that you’ll use. In the tutorial I show the “origami way” to do that, without a ruler or any kind of tool. However, there are easier methods and the videos below can help you in this task:
More origami models with cubes
On my YouTube Channel you can find a playlist with all my models based on the origami cube. Check it out for action models like the Moving Cubes and also puzzles like the Rubik’s Cube.