This seems like a deceptively simple problem. Quite tempted to purchase a set to try my hand at it and fail miserably. I am finding kits available for $40-50.

This seems like a deceptively simple problem. Quite tempted to purchase a set to try my hand at it and fail miserably. I am finding kits available for $40-50. I am also wondering if there was a clue the author did not mention or ignored. Will a final solution have a checkerboard on all sides? If so, that seems a potentially significant simplification to the problem.