This attractive puzzle (made up of 30 identical pieces) assembles two different ways into the shape of five interwoven tetrahedral frames -- a right and left handed pair of mirror image configurations. Each of the five tetrahedra are held together using 12 small neodymium magnetic pins, three per vertex. Each vertex is assembled by manipulating the three arms simultaneously together in what is known as coordinate motion.

Assembling even the first tetrahedron can be difficult because it requires dexterity and attention to the polarity of the magnet placement, but this pales in comparison to the difficulty of properly weaving the arms of the subsequent four tetrahedrons into position. If this is done correctly, then the assembled structure becomes surprisingly stable because each tetrahedron is held firmly in position by the other four. Even more surprising is that not all fve tetrahedra are required in order to achieve this stability -- only three are needed! As such, getting that third tetrahedron properly in position is the most important (and most difficult) part of the assembly process. Once done correctly, determining the correct placement of the remaining two tetrahedra is easy because of the dodecahedral orientation of the verticies of the assembled puzzle.

The name "Merkaba" comes from a meditation technique which involves envisioning the seated body surrounded by two intersecting tetrahedra, one pointed up and the other pointed down. This property of having the vertex of one tetrahedron poking through the face of the opposite tetrahedron (and vice-versa) is seen in the five-tetrahedron Merkaba puzzle as well: every one of the puzzle's tetrahedrons has this relationship with each of the other four, along each of its four axes of 3-fold symmetry.