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[Unofficial] Liliya Kamaltdinova: megaminx BLD UWR 16:17.01[8:55.18]

Mike Hughey

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But megaminx only has 2 kind of pieces: with 60 stickers for each set (instead of the 24 you have in a cube) you can't use a standard alphabet-based memo system (well, it depends on the alphabet). I can't think of a memo system that uses less than two letters per piece on a megaminx (I've never tried to solve it BLD though).

I guess that's the thing. The memo system I use is so incompatible with megaminx that I find it incredibly hard to memorize one. I suppose that if someone came up with a memo system that worked well for megaminx (and several people have indicated that they have), it would be much easier. I admit this is just my own shortcoming - I'm too used to my alphabetical memorization scheme. Ultimately, it really probably shouldn't be all that difficult.

Now a gigaminx (which I've tried a few times) really is much harder, and that's due to tracking pieces covered while memorizing. I still haven't been able to even think of a good way to accomplish that part - how do you keep track of the centers you have and have not memorized? It's a major problem for gigaminx. For megaminx, there's only really edges that get somewhat difficult to track, and you can get lucky and get a scramble with a single cycle on edges. So then it's just down to memorization - with a memorization scheme that doesn't rely on a 26-letter alphabet, it's probably not bad at all.

So I guess I'm wrong about it being actually amazing generically. But it does amaze me personally, because of my limited view.
 

Stefan

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how do you keep track of the centers you have and have not memorized? It's a major problem for gigaminx.

Just define a first center on each side, fill each side clockwise, and put a finger on the next center of each side. When you run out of fingers, use toes.
Or short term memory, it's just two sides so that should be doable.
 

Mike Hughey

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Just define a first center on each side, fill each side clockwise, and put a finger on the next center of each side. When you run out of fingers, use toes.
Or short term memory, it's just two sides so that should be doable.

That's exactly what I tried to do (well, except for the toes part - maybe I should really try that :) ). But trust me, it's not that practical. (Don't forget how big the puzzle is - it's kind of hard to hold.) Eventually I decided that I could keep fingers on about 6 sides realistically, so I just tried to short-term remember the other six. Then when that gave out (which was inevitable and always happened less than halfway), I'd memorize where my fingers were with letters, and then start from the beginning again and trace through using fingers on the other 6 sides. I'd go back and forth until I got through it all. It was agony.
 
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