Rules to play Rubiks Cube

1. Pay attention to the mechanism of the puzzle. You can even take it apart if you like just turn a face about 45 degrees and pop out the edge piece (the one with two stickers) with a screwdriver. Just remember to put it back in its solved state, or otherwise theres a 1112 chance that its unsolvable. .....

Try to solve small parts of the cube

2. Trying to solve for example a single layer or to construct a little 2 by 2 by 2 cube is great workout for the brain. And its fun. .....

Think of a logical order of solving the pieces

3. Think about different orders the obvious face by face approach isnt actually at all smart. Divide your solution in numerous steps, as ten little problems are easier than a single difficult one. .....

Try to execute your plan

4. The first stages might be easy after a bit of practice. Remember to write down notes about your findings, such as the effects of a certain sequence of moves. Illustrations are rather useful. You might want to invent a notation to write down move sequences. This proves decisive especially in the last parts, as its often necessary to back up a few moves. .....

Optimize your system

5. After having solved the cube which might have taken a good few months you can still continue finding new challenges. Try figuring out more move sequences and alter the steps of your method. With a lot of work you might even be able to solve the puzzle in less than 100 turns every time. .....

Try speed solving

6. Theres an ever growing community of Rubiks cube enthusiasts calling themselves speed cubers. These people have created highly optimized solving systems and might know up to hundreds of move sequences by heart. Just ask for tips in one of the many speed cubing forums. .....

Solve the cross

7. Set into position the four edge pieces that contain white. (You should be able to do this by yourself without needing algorithms.) All four edge pieces can be placed in a maximum of eight moves (five or six in general).Place the cross at the bottom. Turn the cube over 180 .....

Background

8. The Strategy of 8 Corners was first developed by one of my classmate, Mr. Edward Leung. The basic rules of his original design include eges are easier to move corners edges on the middle slice (planes without corners) are the easiest to move the symmetry of the cube should be exploited More basic rules have been discovered, and are used to reselect the algorithms used. .....

General

9. We usually start the cube in a random configuration. The aim is to solve the cube. That is, to restore it back to the configuration where each face shows only one colour.An algorithm is any sequence of movements with an interesting result (e.g. twisting a corner by 120 .....

Parts of the Cube

10. Names are assigned to parts of the cube. All names are relative to the spatial directions irrespective of colour of the faces.The six faces are called Right, Left, Up, Down, Front, and Back. Although they are perfectly symmetric, algorithms concentrates their movements on the RDUF faces (in descending priority). Observation are nearly always made on FU faces. Thus, the algorithms usually move faces easiest to move and observations are on faces e .....

Movements

11. Rotations are named by the name of the face. A rotation X rotates the face X clockwise by 90 .....

Twists and Flips

12. A corner at a certain place can have three states. Algorithms that take a corner from one state to another twists a corner. For pratical reasons, twisting is considered undefined when a corner does not stay at the same place. Mathematically, twisting can still be defined, but only in a less intuitive way of little concern to us. When viewed from the exterior toward the corner, a clockwise twist of 120 .....

The Strategy of 8 Corners

13. These pages describe basic rules in designing algorithms to solve the Rubiks Cube. Based on these rules, a strategy (the Strategy of 8 Corners) is built. You would develop a new perspective of the cube, with which you can design algorithms and strategies on your own. Some prior experience on meddling with the cube and on using algorithms are needed. The algorithms are demonstrated using Neil Rashbrooks java applet showing the Rubiks Cube. Lear .....

Paradigm

14. The essence of my solution is a new paradigm. A new way to look at the cube.The way you look at something affects how you think about it, and affects what you think you can do to it. If you see it as a cube with six faces that you can turn, you would very soon be frustrated by the wild number of interactions between the things you can do. Each of your rotation makes changes to the four adjacent faces, and soon you lose track of what is happening .....

Basis Algorithms

15. From Mathematics, a vector space of dimension N can be spanned by N basis vectors. It has been proven that two algorithms alone are sufficient to span the whole pattern space of the cube (and therefore can bring you to any pattern, including solving the cube). Unfortunately, these two sequences are very very long, and you need to combine them in the correct way to arrive at the desired target pattern. On the other hand, it is obvious that the s .....

Conservation Laws

16. Three things are always conserved by any algorithm total number of twists (modulus 3), total number of flips (modulus 2), and total number of piece exchanges (modulus 2). This is a useful property when you are designing algorithms you do not have to worry that the cube might end up with one edge flipped, or two corners twisted in the same direction .....

Edges

17. When performing edge movements, view the eight corners as if it is an iron cage. Feel the strain when you twist them from their original positions. All algorithms end by relieving this strain, therefore preserving the corners. Remember the paradigm is more important than the sequences themselves.There will be more and more slice movements (M, C, S), because the three slices flows (like rivers) without affecting the corners. After all, every edge .....

Last U D edges

18. Since EM1 affects FD, there will be one edge in U and one in D that cannot be settled by EM1. Solve them simultaneously as followsYour browser doesnt understand the tag. Move the edge required at FD to UF (using some form of EM1B), and the edge required at UF to BR using Mn; thenEM1BR will capture BR into UF, while at the same time moving UF to FD.This assumes that at least one of the two required pieces is in the M slice. It does not work if F .....

C edges

19. At this stage, all U and D edges (except perhaps the exchange required at the end of last section) have been settled. Physically rotate the cube sideways to view the remaining four M edges as C edges.w that both the the R and L faces (ie the original U and D faces) have been (largely) settled, we shift to a new paradigm. Regard these two faces as two metal plates with the C slice in between. Only this C slice have edges to be solved. They can al .....

Centers

20. The Strategy of Eight Corners tend to view the centers as mobile. The iron cage of eight corners is regarded as the rest frame in the previous sections. When all edges have been settled, the centers may be away from their face.Most cubists treats center movements as pretty patterns without giving them as serious thought. .....

Afterwards

21. This completes the Algorithms of the Eight Corners Strategy. Once understood, it is quite easy to rebuild everything from scratch (especially when you have a cube in hand to look at). The general idea is to find simple moves to achive useful subgoals, and that very simple subgoals are good enough to solve the cube. I hope that this text has given you more insights into the Rubiks cube instead of just another pile of algorithms. .....

Permute the corners

22. At this step, our goal is to place the corners of the last layer in their correct position, regardless of their orientation. Locate two adjacent corners that share a color other than the color of the top layer (other than yellow in our case).Turn the top layer until these two corners are on the correct color side, facing you. For instance, if the two adjacent corners both contain red, turn the top layer until those two corners are on the red side .....

Terminology

23. "When describing the solution for the 2nd and 3rd layers, standard cube notation will be used. Heres what you need to know to read it F = front face B = back face R = right face L = left face U = up face D = down face In addition to a letter, each move may be accompanied by an apostrophe or the number two A letter by itself means turn that face 90 degrees clockwise (eg. F). A letter followed by an a .....

Other stuff

24. The method Ive documented here is what I believe to be a good beginner method. The problem with some beginner methods is that they are not scalable to improve your cubing you have to unlearn much of what you know and relearn it in a different way. This method focuses on memorising very few algorithms, but is structured in a way that allows for development into an intermediate or advanced method. Other thing I should say is that I didnt actually .....