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Rubik's Cube

Submitted by Jon on January 6, 2007 - 5:23pm. Remember Outdoors

I got myself a Cube with a little Chrismas money, and I've been able to follow the included solve instructions to solve it. I haven't had it for a week yet, but I am now able to solve it on my own, without referring to the manual. The method they include now is Dan Knights method. It works fairly well. I'm at the point I can solve a scrambled cube in under 5 minutes. If I remember all the sequences right off I can probably do it in 3.

I should note that I spent many years of my youth following instructions for folding origami, so my manual dexterity is decent, but hampered by big hands/fingers and my instruction following skills are pretty good, along with a good knack for 3D spatial orientation overall...

Anybody else a Cubist, or have one they haven't gotten around to solving yet? Eye-wink

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astro_rob's picture

"Rubik's DNA"

Submitted by astro_rob on January 6, 2007 - 7:21pm.

Been playing with der Cube since 1981; wrote an essay about it back then that I still have in my one surviving journal from that period, "Rubik's DNA".
Sadly... not particularly good at solving it still...

» Tinker Ergo Sum!
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doug-doug the mighty's picture

theoretical limits of a Rubik's Cube

Submitted by doug-doug the mighty on January 6, 2007 - 8:32pm.

I read that the fewest steps taken to solve was 22 and that the theroetical minimum number of steps is 11. My personal best is still in the high hundreds (read as "low thousands"), but I have not committed too many patterns to memory since I am going for the 'occupy my time' approach.

» --DDTM ('Fritter Critter' since Apr 26 2004 - 18:16)

'If it ain't broke, take it apart anyways. If you can't take it apart, break it so that you can fix it.'

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coius's picture

Personally, I like the

Submitted by coius on January 6, 2007 - 9:38pm.

Personally, I like the "remove sticker and place elsewhere" method Sticking out tongue

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Jon's picture

The minimal limits on solving

Submitted by Jon on January 6, 2007 - 11:43pm.

The minimal limits on solving it usually involve a computer to handle deciding what steps to take. There are speed solving variations that have many different methods to decide what to do, but they require a lot of training to memorize and use. The method included is a 7 step series of sequences that has about 8 sequences. It's fairly straight forward.

From what I've read somebody wrote software to calculate the minimum moves to arrive at any scrambled state, and thus also the minimum moves to solve for any state. That was a good approach, as trying to find minimal solution moves from every scrambled state would have been a lot of CPU power going down blind alleys.

» I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine. - Fritz Perls

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I can solve it in two steps:A temporary hardware modification.

Submitted by mutant_pie on January 7, 2007 - 4:45pm.

I first encountered the insidious cube in the late '70's (I think). My method for solving it would correlate with future hardware hacking activities. I didn't invent this method, but neither do I remember where it originated. I probably saw it on some TV show. This was a real fad at the time, if that isn't an oxymoron. Yes, there were TV shows about this dumb/clever little toy.

Step 1: Disassemble it ( you do this by having it configured in a cube, then rotating the top layer 45 degrees, and then forcing up and out any of the middle (not corner) pieces. The you can then remove the rest of the pieces. The frame consists of the center squares and a hub.)

Step 2: Reassemble it but in the reverse order/method of Step 1, and with the colors matching.

This yields much cleaner results than the "remove and replace sticker" maneuver.

Mutant_Pie

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Brings back memories...

Submitted by reklus on January 8, 2007 - 9:00pm.

I went for a fairly major stomach operation when I was 4/5 and I remember being "the kid" that could solve rubik's cubes. After the I woke up from anaesthetic, not only was I not able to ever solve one again, my math scores dropped almost 15 points in testing and my english abilities went from mid 80th percentile to the 99.9th percentile in standardized testing!

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