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[/align][align=justify]The festivities of Christmas were still buzzing, but inventor Chris Pitt had an idea that would set in motion everything that RevoMaze is today. On December 25th, 2008, Christmas Day, Chris Pitt wanted to create a maze like puzzle that was physically navigable but intangible. The idea is to conceal the actual maze from the solver and incorporate traps that will send the user back to the beginning with a single wrong turn.
Gathering what was available, he used a 1” brass rod and a 2” aluminum rod to create the puzzle. For precision, 1.5mm x 1.5mm graph paper was used for measurements. Fifty squares were wrapped around the rod giving a 75mm circumference. (23.87mm diameter or 1 inch.) The vertical length of the maze was 26 squares long, 39mm.
The idea was to have a maze engraved on a internal shaft that would fit inside a metal sleeve. This metal sleeve would conceal the maze and contain a spring loaded pin that will navigate the maze. The idea of the design was to have a maze that can be quickly assembled and quickly reset. A central main reset line was inserted down the center of the shaft to the start of the maze. The ‘start’ is located at the exact center of the rod, because as the maze comes out of the sleeve, the pin, located in the center of the sleeve, remains stationary. The pin starts at the center of the shaft and moves outward towards the end of the shaft. To differentiate traps and paths, different path heights were used. Because the pin is spring loaded, you can not undo falling in a trap, nor can you go from a trap into the maze path. The deeper trap and the beginning was milled 3mm deep, compared to the maze path itself which was 1.5mm deep. To prevent the pin from going from the beginning into the trap, a ramp was created upward from the trap into the beginning. This instant return from a trap to the beginning is a key feature of this puzzle, and the rest of the maze was designed around this concept.
Now it was time to create the maze on the metal shaft. Using a 3mm flat mill cutter on a X-Y-Z CNC milling machine, Chris carefully carved out the maze, knowing that any mistake is irreversible. The original sketch had a few discontinuities, and as a result, an error was made in the main reset line. The main reset line is intended to be straight but has had a slight bend added. This can be seen below. Other than this one slight error, the puzzle was made with out any further flaws.[/align]
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[/align][align=justify]Already thinking of rewarding those who can solve the puzzle, Chris Pitt wanted to include a separate drawbar in the center of the internal shaft. This would contain a certificate that can only be accessed upon solving the puzzle. The biggest drill bit at the moment was 11mm wide. So a 11mm diameter hole was made down the center of the maze shaft. A drawbar was made with a diameter of 10.9mm. A pin would hold this bar in place and prevent it from coming out before solving the puzzle. In order to make sure the drawbar was inserted correctly, the two slots for the pin which were on opposite sides of each other were offset by 7.2 degrees.
A sleeve was needed to conceal the maze and protect the maze pin. A hole was cut out to fit the shaft through. A hole would be drilled perpendicularly to the sleeve and cut through one side and partially into the other side. A spring was put into the partial hole with a 2.9mm pin with a smooth dome tip. It was later discovered that a 8.4mm pin worked best. This pin with the spring protruded 1 mm at full compression and 3.5mm at full extension. This way the pin will never come lose and never get stuck. A few touch ups were added to the sleeve for appeal including two steps at the end and grooves at equal intervals throughout the sleeve.
Temptation to assemble the maze finally got to Chris. There was no way he would spend hours of work to not test his creation. The drawbar was put in place, and the pins were ready. The pin found the hole in the sleeve and with a few taps the pin entered the maze. The pin moved slowly up the ramp as the maze was turned. Then, at that moment, the first infamous RevoMaze ‘click’ was heard. The pin smoothly slid up the reset ramp and clicked into the beginning of the maze.
Fear set in as he was unsure if the puzzle was fully functional or if he would have to redo all of his work. Realising that he had no pictures of the maze, Chris had to solve the puzzle he had made. After all he had designed the maze, so it would not be that hard to reopen it. Oh how much more wrong could he have been. Over 2 hours of perseverance later, he finally opened the puzzle. The pin worked as planned and the puzzle slid open. SUCCESS! He exclaimed in a sigh of relief.
Remembering not to make the same mistake again, he took a picture of the current state of the maze. This picture can be seen below.[/align]
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[/align][align=justify]At this point, the maze shaft had round ends and the sleeve was bare. A seven side nut design was put on the ends of the shaft to fit perfectly between the thumb and index finger. The exposed hole in the sleeve was filled and the entire sleeve was polished. The text “REVOMAZE 1” was added on the sleeve, a simplified name of ‘Revolving Mind Maze’.
He reassembled the maze and was able to re-open the maze in just three minutes.
Chris took his creation to an engineering company in January of 2009. He emailed a sketch up of the puzzle design and concept. However, the company did not understand how the puzzle worked. The puzzle was lent over for them to fiddle with over a weekend. Unbeknown to Chris, the company owner took the puzzle to his local pub and challenged his friends to open the puzzle. Not surprisingly, no one was able to open it. The company owner said it was impossible to which Chris responded by opening it under the table in 20 seconds. This amazed the company so much that they instantly started programming their machines to create these puzzles. This took a whole week, but one week later, two mazes were produced. The machine was able to make a maze in just under six minutes compared to the hours it took Chris to manually make one. This prototype was tested in the original sleeve and confirmed that it worked.
From this design, Blue, Green, Bronze, Silver, and Gold designs were made. Revomaze quickly caught the attention of puzzle collectors. Special Black, Red, Hand Made, Orange, Lime, Titanium, and Purple mazes also followed. A simple concept evolved into the challenging and wonderful puzzles we all know today as RevoMaze![/align]
[align=center]RevoMaze Stand
RevoMaze 1
RevoMaze 1 Side
RevoMaze 1 and Blue V1
Shaft Comparison
Drawbar
Pins
RevoMaze 1 Logo
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