How to get your Tubie working

The basics

- Hold the Tubie so that the tube can move to the left and right. Don’t turn the end caps against one another, but hold one end and turn the tube.
- There are pins on the wheels and fins on the inside of the tube. If you move the tube to one side it will rotate freely around the axle. Move it to the other side, the fins will catch the pins, and the wheels can be turned.
- Your task is to line up the wheels to complete the patterns. They won't all line up at once, but one at a time.

Tips

You will notice several things:
- One of the wheels has no pins in it and cannot be turned. This wheel is your fixed reference, giving you something to aim for. It will be at one end, as in the picture.
- The other wheels all have different arrangements of pins. This means each can be moved relative to the others.
- Pins may be moved either up or down, and a useful single pin may be lurking around the back.
- Some moves are reversible, but many are not, as the pins move around and adopt new neighbours.
- You can push all five wheels around the axle, and will notice the resistance increase. This will help line up a complete row with the reference wheel.

Challenges

There is one red pin on each wheel. If your Tubie has a message, lining the red pins up makes it readable, and also gives you the Start position for the other challenges.
All Tubies contain multiple challenges. Details of how to reach any position in the fewest moves can be found on the Sudoku page or, more generally, on the Solutions page.
Or, you can just fiddle around with it (the usual method) and one of the lines may appear anyway!
It's easy to recover the start position if you want to start again. Just push the red pins around until they line up.

Further information and advice are available on this website or from the designer directly:
Tim Grollman at Rolloworks
email: info@rolloworks.co.uk