Square-1 Tutorial?

looking for a good beginners tutorial for the square one. thnkx

Look for the "poor mans solution" at Speedcubing.com

This one is even easier: http://www.nerdparadise.com/puzzles/square1/

Basic idea:

1. Get all 8 edges connected on the same layer than distribute them to return to "Square-1". (basically intuitive)
2. Put corners in the correct layer (intuitive)
3. Put edges in the correct layer (using 2 very short algs as the basic moves)
4. Permute corners (using the same 2 very short algs)
5. Permute edges (using the same 2 very short algs)
6. Fix parity (very bad, but easy way), middle layer and slice-state (basically intuitive)

I use this method on a really bad Square-1 and got it down to 2 minutes on average after 50 solves. I learned a better way to fix parity though!

Arnaud, you forgot to tell him about the orientation steps !!!

It is important to first orient edges and corners.

However, on average, this step takes 0 moves

An easy to learn alg for parity is: if you know how to get from "star shape" to Cube shape"?

Then you probably also know how to do cube->star?

Ok, here is my alg:

cube->star : turn star one step : star->cube

In the end, when forming the cube, you can add a few, easy to find turns and also preserve layers, it only affects edges in one layer then (at least my version does =)

AvG, thats one heck of a Square-1 site!!
I think I'll finally be able to learn this stuff.. all other sites (at least a couple) use funny notation. I like this visual way of showing the moves

thanks!!

If you wanna get fast really quickly, then go straight to cubezone.be and start learning those algs. That's what I did, and I got a sub-50 average in less than a week.

Is there a 'secret trick' going from scrambled state to cube state without turning one layer into a star first? I always have to do this and have learnt those 5 algs for the different shapes, but I find it time-consuming and unnecessary. Looking on some videos, say from Lars v, he turns it into a cube in 4-5 moves always.

If you have played with a Magic / Master Magic for a while you might have noticed that you started to recognize certain shapes and know how to get it flat from there. Lars (and others) can do the same for Square-1. He just recognises the shape and has the experience to turn it back into cube-shape. I think that will only come from................................................................................................................... practice, practice, practice.

Arnaud, you forgot to tell him about the orientation steps !!!

It is important to first orient edges and corners.

However, on average, this step takes 0 moves

Click to expand...

And I thought I had some special technique (luck) that always made me skip the orientation phases. Now I know better

I recently bought a square one and can finally solve it now.
But I have a few questions,
1.Can parity be identified early in the solve?
2.What are the different ways of dealing with parity?
3.What are the algs to be learnt to get decent times like say 1min30secs-2.00 mins?I dont' mind getting even faster

cubezone.be

How do you do a symmetrical U perm on a Square 1?

I've my Square 1 with the original Rubik's Cube colors.

So the state is:
U (Yellow) Solved
D (White) Solved
B (Red) Solved
L (Green) Need to Shift Upper and Lower Middle pieces (blue) Clockwise
F (Orange) Need to Shift Upper and Lower Middle pieces (green) Clockwise
R (Blue) Need to Shift Upper and Lower middle pieces (orange) Clockwise

If it were a 3x3x3 I'd have the Red face as L and solve it as:
R2UFB'R2F'BUR2 x2 R2U'FB'R2F'BU'R2

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but it seemed tidier than creating a new one...

I've learned to solve the square-1 in the past couple of weeks, and am currently averaging around 2 minutes. I'm assuming that with practice this will get faster, but I'm wondering if the method I'm using is reasonable or if I should be transitioning to something more efficient. Here's what I do:

1. Cube-shape: I get all the corners together intuitively, and I've memorised the moves for each of the five cases you can reach.
2. Corner orientation: intuitive
3. Edge orientation: I have two algorithms: 1,0/-1,-1/0,1 and a longer one for just swapping an edge on the top with an edge on the bottom
4. Corner permutation: I use what I guess is a J-Perm until all the corners are oriented
5. Edge permutation: I use an algorithm that swaps two adjacent edges on top and bottom or if I get a lucky case I use that edge orientation alg twice to swap two opposite edges on top and bottom
6. Parity: Yuck.

I'm not aiming for Sub-10 or anything, but I'd like to make the hard-cut which seems to be around 1 minute. Should I stick with the method I'm using and just learn more algorithms? Or is there a fundamentally better approach?

bubbagrub said:

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but it seemed tidier than creating a new one...

I've learned to solve the square-1 in the past couple of weeks, and am currently averaging around 2 minutes. I'm assuming that with practice this will get faster, but I'm wondering if the method I'm using is reasonable or if I should be transitioning to something more efficient. Here's what I do:

1. Cube-shape: I get all the corners together intuitively, and I've memorised the moves for each of the five cases you can reach.
2. Corner orientation: intuitive
3. Edge orientation: I have two algorithms: 1,0/-1,-1/0,1 and a longer one for just swapping an edge on the top with an edge on the bottom
4. Corner permutation: I use what I guess is a J-Perm until all the corners are oriented
5. Edge permutation: I use an algorithm that swaps two adjacent edges on top and bottom or if I get a lucky case I use that edge orientation alg twice to swap two opposite edges on top and bottom
6. Parity: Yuck.

I'm not aiming for Sub-10 or anything, but I'd like to make the hard-cut which seems to be around 1 minute. Should I stick with the method I'm using and just learn more algorithms? Or is there a fundamentally better approach?

Click to expand...

I managed to get to 1 minute using that method without much practise.

Cubeshape: Learn some of the easy cases like barrel-barrel, barrel-kite, scallop-scallop, etc. There are some videos and text guides for it. Try to plan out at least 4 edges in inspection.

Edge orientation: Learn the case for when each side has two adjacent edges unoriented (this). The alg is (1,0) / (3,0) / (-1,-1) / (-3,0) / (0,1), which is basically the same as the EP alg with the ending done differently. Make sure you don't use more than 2 single edge swaps.

Corner permutation: I'm not sure if you know single J or double J. You should know cases #2, #4 and #5 from here.

Edge permutation: Learn the H perm from both sides. It's a horrible case to do with adj-adj swap. The Z perm is also easy to learn (M2 U M2 U' M2, when M2 is 1,0/-1,-1/0,1).

Parity: Yep.

bubbagrub said:

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but it seemed tidier than creating a new one...

I've learned to solve the square-1 in the past couple of weeks, and am currently averaging around 2 minutes. I'm assuming that with practice this will get faster, but I'm wondering if the method I'm using is reasonable or if I should be transitioning to something more efficient. Here's what I do:

1. Cube-shape: I get all the corners together intuitively, and I've memorised the moves for each of the five cases you can reach.
2. Corner orientation: intuitive
3. Edge orientation: I have two algorithms: 1,0/-1,-1/0,1 and a longer one for just swapping an edge on the top with an edge on the bottom
4. Corner permutation: I use what I guess is a J-Perm until all the corners are oriented
5. Edge permutation: I use an algorithm that swaps two adjacent edges on top and bottom or if I get a lucky case I use that edge orientation alg twice to swap two opposite edges on top and bottom
6. Parity: Yuck.

I'm not aiming for Sub-10 or anything, but I'd like to make the hard-cut which seems to be around 1 minute. Should I stick with the method I'm using and just learn more algorithms? Or is there a fundamentally better approach?

Click to expand...

Practically all fast people use that method with more algs. I recommend learning full CP, because those algs are fast and easy to learn. Then learn the EOs and some more EPs. I use the algs from http://sarah.cubing.net/square-1/cp.

Learn the adjacent - adjacent corner swap. Very common and so short!

Randomno: Thanks! Very helpful.

Berd: can you provide that alg? Sounds useful...

bubbagrub said:

Randomno: Thanks! Very helpful.

Berd: can you provide that alg? Sounds useful...

Click to expand...

Others at Sarah Strongs cubing site!

Cool! Thanks. That's a good one.

bubbagrub said:

Sorry for reviving such an old thread, but it seemed tidier than creating a new one...

I've learned to solve the square-1 in the past couple of weeks, and am currently averaging around 2 minutes. I'm assuming that with practice this will get faster, but I'm wondering if the method I'm using is reasonable or if I should be transitioning to something more efficient. Here's what I do:

1. Cube-shape: I get all the corners together intuitively, and I've memorised the moves for each of the five cases you can reach.
2. Corner orientation: intuitive
3. Edge orientation: I have two algorithms: 1,0/-1,-1/0,1 and a longer one for just swapping an edge on the top with an edge on the bottom
4. Corner permutation: I use what I guess is a J-Perm until all the corners are oriented
5. Edge permutation: I use an algorithm that swaps two adjacent edges on top and bottom or if I get a lucky case I use that edge orientation alg twice to swap two opposite edges on top and bottom
6. Parity: Yuck.

I'm not aiming for Sub-10 or anything, but I'd like to make the hard-cut which seems to be around 1 minute. Should I stick with the method I'm using and just learn more algorithms? Or is there a fundamentally better approach?

Click to expand...

Remember you can do M2 U2 M2 (U2) which is an opp-opp edge swap, during edge permutation.
Also make use of M2 when you're doing 'EO', to make sure you only ever do one single-single edge swap

Other than that, I would certainly recommend learning 1-look CP - the algs are all really easy!

What do you do for parity? I fix parity during CP, but if I was fixing it during edges, I'd use this at the start of EP (recgonise if you have 1 layer which has a 3x3 EPLL on it and 1 which doesn't): / (-3,-3) / (3,0) / (-3,-3) / (-2,0) / (-2,4) / (2,-4) / (-1,0) / (-3,-3) /