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Show HN: Rubik's Cube

slides.com

55 pointsPixelWizard32 comments

Nice job.

I used to have the solutions memorized... it helped me get a job offer once because the hiring manager left to get some water and came back less than a minute later with the cube on his desk solved. When you don't know the tricks it can be impressive when someone does that. If you know the tricks it is just a silly time waster.

It's a neat thing to learn. Of course some people like to try to figure out the patterns on their own. :)

Classy!

One Christmas I got my ~6 yr old son a Rubik's Cube. He loved it and carried it around for a couple days. Then I took it from him to explain how you're supposed to mix it up and solve it. He cried when I couldn't get it back together! I felt so terrible. I spent about a week watching videos, reading move patterns, and practicing at night, and finally figured it out.

I have to get out a cube every couple of months and solve it or I forget. It's funny how a few of the patterns still to work from some strange muscle memory or something - and I only have to think about what piece I need where, and then my hands just do it.

The best part of knowing how to solve one is when you come across a mixed up cube at someone's home or a business... they think I'm some kind of genius, yet really I just memorized patterns to put pieces where I need them. But who am I to tell them what to think ;)

I once picked up a rubik's cube because I thought it would be related to a problem I was trying to solve at work, given the kinds of manipulations you could do on it. Turns out it wasn't at all, but I did learn a couple ways to solve it and got to the point where I could solve it in sub-minute times reliably, just by doing it when someone had messed it up from my desk (and they did this a lot).

It was not at all useful as a skill but it's a decent social experience to teach someone how to solve it, and as you say it makes people think you're a genius for some reason (HA!). Well worth the $10 you would spend on a new one.

We buy these[1] $2 cubes ten at a time and hand them out to the kids on the street, cube pusher style, get 'em hooked early ya know. Well, not really, but we do give them away to people we meet who seem interested in learning how to solve the 3x3x3. They're surprisingly high quality and smooth for two dollars.

1. http://www.championscubestore.com/index.php?main_page=produc...

This account has been suspended. - http://www.crider.co.uk/ All the images are hotlinked from this domain

So are unfortunately a bunch of Cubing-Sites... May it be because of HN-Traffic? The site was up some hours ago :/

I would implore anyone who's thinking about playing with a Rubik's Cube to not read any of those "how to solve it quickly" things.

It may have taken me a year of chipping away at it and my process is definitely suboptimal, but at least I have the satisfaction of having worked it out myself.

Also, play with it! It's an incredibly simple but totally mind bending device.

I would encourage a hybrid approach if you are getting nowhere.

There is a trick to finding solving patterns known as commutators. For instance, see http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~converse/rubiks.php?id1=basics&...

Once you learn the basic idea of the commutator, you can easily make up you own system. Essentially you select a part of the cube and make some specific change to it. For instance, you come up with a move sequence that turns one top corner but doesn't affect any other top cubie. If you were to reverse that move, you would be back to normal or course. So if you rotate the top before reversing the move: 1) The only change on top will be a different corner turning 2) The rest of the cube will go back to it's original state.

Therefore, the only difference is that you rotate two corners. It takes some practice to learn how this is done, but I can solve any cube-like puzzle (ok... except Square-1)and I don't have any memorized system.

Thus [A] B [A'] B' is all you need. You just need to find a proper [A]

:) that was pretty much my approach.

The way I attacked it (and suspect people naturally would) was a layer at a time. When you're doing that you try to preserve what you've already solved.

Once you have 2 layers sorted and you're trying to do that last one there's not much room to manoeuvre. I spent countless hours coming up with a combination that preserved my top 2 layers and following where each individual piece moved in the final layer. If nothing else, it's great for memory and spatial awareness.

That's a huge effort! People have asked me if I worked it out myself and my response is something like "No way! I suppose with a pencil, piece of paper, and a Rubik's Cube, and a lot of time you could work it out yourself."

I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn to solve the 3x3x3 and 4x4x4 if I hadn't read how to do it. There's a lot of enjoyment to be had from learning the different methods, and my understanding of how the cubes function is still changing as I learn more efficient methods.

I definitely agree that this is the right approach. The methods with stick with you much better, and you'll have an easier time with higher order rubiks cubes, or other turning-face type puzzles. I have an embarrassingly large collection of these kinds of puzzles now. They're a great way to wake up my brain after lunch.

I totally agree. I spent a couple of weeks playing with it a little bit everyday, until I managed to come up with an algorithm.

For those interested in getting a sub 60 second solve time then try learning CFOP. http://badmephisto.com has some very good resources to get you started.

With more practice and learning the correct algorithms then a sub 15 second solve is achievable.

CFOP stands for (C) = Cross = Cross on bottom layer - (F) = F2L = First 2 Layers = Solve bottom two layer edge and corner pieces at once - (O) = OLL = Orient last layer - (P) = PLL = Permute last layer

FYI For whatever reason, the images are not loading on my machine.

Same issue. I'm on the latest version of Chrome (mac).

Edit: Oops... just saw the reason why.

Mind sharing the reason?

Image source is [1], and if you go to that domain [2] you'll see (~2200GMT 8 July anyway) "account suspended".

[1] http://cube.crider.co.uk/visualcube.php?size=400&pzl=3&bg=t&... [2] http://crider.co.uk

Looks like this site is down: http://cube.crider.co.uk/

If you want to get a cube to muck around with, don't frustrate yourself with something default - either pull apart and lubricate one of the standard ones, or pay a little bit more and get something used by at least keen amateurs. The cheap ones are pretty miserable to use.

I have one of these and it's smooth: http://lubixcube.com/lubix_dayan_guhong_v1.html

Bad Mephisto has already been linked elsewhere - he has some really helpful videos and a cheatsheet to refer to.

I highly recommend any cube from Dayan, but this is my favorite:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008U6V50U

It's smooth as butter, and there are no stickers to cheat with.

Stickerless cubes were until very recently illegal in competitions. The new regulations (in effect from July 2015) allow these now, meaning a stickerless Zhanchi is a really good purchase.

Yeah and get one with plastic stickers as well. The Rubik's brand ones begin to look disgusting before long.

Took me a moment to notice that this is a presentation with multiple slides (despite the site name).

Me too. Instructions on the start page would help.

Interesting though. Last Century a couple friends and I figured out the cube. We did it different than all the methods I've seen: 1 side then all corners, opposite sides, then middle layer.

They are very satisfying to move.

My favorite rubiks cube variant from the 80s (clones where everywhere) was the cube that had all the same colors so you couldn't mess it up.

Good feedback. We'll add some instructions to the page.

Quite confusing indeed...

If you want to get serious, invest in a 'speedcube', the Dayan Zhanchi or the Aolong v2 are great cubes. I use the Aolong v2 myself. 15,2 seconds is my personal best :)

Cool site. I just skimmed through the slides. Seems like it will be an aid for someone who is following some video tutorial if not the standalone source of learning.

I must try this, i have never been able to solve a rubik cube. I usually just mess around and trash it until there is no escape.

Many thanks :)

The images are not loading on mobile for me

The site which provides the image is unofrtunately down :/

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