(The current world record is less than 3.5 seconds!) After two days of playing with the cube and memorizing the sequences, I got my times down to what I felt was a respectable 2 minutes. Nevertheless, I eventually managed to solve the cube several times without the instructions.
Missing a move or turning something the wrong way nearly always forced me to go back to the beginning.
The Final StageĬompleting the final stage involves memorizing a 13-move sequence of turns and two 12-move sequences. At this point I was just trusting the algorithms blindly and trying to build some muscle memory as I practiced the various sets of twists and turns. Each of these sequences is paired with a particular cube orientation. The next stage of the instructions include three 6-move sequences and an 8-move sequence that sometimes gets repeated. Unlike the previous steps, these sequences were starting to feel like magic. However, I never really understood why these turns worked and was a little skeptical about my newfound skills. I learned to orient the cube properly and memorized both sequences (U, R, Ui, Ri, Ui, Fi, U, F and Ui, Li, U, L, U, F, Ui, Fi) until I could solve two thirds of the cube without peeking at the instructions. This involves memorizing two sets of sequences that allow you to swap pieces from the top layer to the middle layer (without peeling off stickers!) while keeping the solved face intact. The next step is to solve the middle third of the cube. I was mildly embarrassed that I didn’t think of this earlier, but also happy to be learning something. You don’t move the centers, you move the pieces around them. A standard turn is clockwise, and a counter-clockwise turn is denoted by an “i” for inverted.Īs a child, I never really considered that the colors on each face always match the color of the center square. There are 12 possible quarter-turn moves, named by the face you are turning (Right, Left, Back, Front, and the more awkwardly named Down and Up faces). The yellow face is always opposite the white face, for example.
Center pieces have one color, and they don’t move relative to each other. I learned that the hard way 30 years earlier. Edge pieces always have two different colors. The pamphlet of instructions began with some useful terms and symbols. This was my chance at redemption! Terms and Symbols for Set Up
#RUBIKS CUBE FLIP BOTTOM MIDDLE HOW TO#
They’ve got cubes, and they’ve got instructions on how to solve them, and I have plenty of time. At the table next to ours are representatives from Rubik’s. I am manning the AoPS table at the annual national MATHCOUNTS championships. My father’s confidence in my budding genius probably never fully recovered.įast-forward 30 years. Information like that eventually helped me swap stickers more efficiently, but it was never enough to help me actually solve the cube. It took me a while to realize that two same-colored stickers should never share an edge on the cube, or that having more than four same-colored stickers on corner pieces was a bad idea. The resulting cube would impress my younger brother at first, but after noticing the slightly-skewed stickers with wrinkled edges, he too learned my secret to “solving” the cube.īy swapping stickers, my brother and I would unwittingly make solving some faces impossible. Then, frustrated that any further manipulation would ruin all of my hard work, I did what I assume most kids my age did - I peeled off stickers and swapped them. Occasionally, I would luck into completing most of a second face. Sure, I could complete one face of the cube. Ike most other children who grew up in the '80s, I owned a Rubik’s Cube that I couldn’t solve.
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