A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from December 11 to December 16.

Dane Christianson, a student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, used CAD and 3D printing to create X-Cube, a version of Rubik’s Cube for serious puzzle experts. Dane comments on his creation.

I created this using CAD and 3D printing. It’s a Rubik’s type puzzle with fully functional additional layers on four of the faces of a typical Rubik’s Cube.

This project was completed through the Idea Shop at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Watch the video below to see the mega-puzzle in motion.

With the announcement of Shapeways’ $6.2 million funding, we thought we would look back at some of the amazing designs their community has produced.

Community member Evgeniy Grigoriev (aka grigorusha) has designed a number of micro-sized twisty puzzles. These are popular puzzles shrunk down to millimeter size, only made possible by 3D printing.

Here is a video of a customer assembling the Evgeniy Grigoriev’s 12mm Rubik’s Cube. You can buy this and some of his other puzzles at his Shapeways shop.

And, for comparison, here is a video of the smallest Rubik’s Cube made without 3D printing, available at http://tonyfisherpuzzles.net.

Rubik’s Cube photo by  athos[hun] used under Creative Commons license.