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Random Cubing Discussion

molarmanful

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Just a thought: how many calories would you burn by speedsolving a 3x3, assuming that you are doing an average of 5, no pauses in between (solve -> immediately scramble after stopping timer)? This randomly popped into my head while reading the Seven Towns Infringement thread.
 

obelisk477

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Just a thought: how many calories would you burn by speedsolving a 3x3, assuming that you are doing an average of 5, no pauses in between (solve -> immediately scramble after stopping timer)? This randomly popped into my head while reading the Seven Towns Infringement thread.

From a quick test, my Hualong has a kinetic frictional resistance of about 1.53 N. To get this to a unit of energy, we need to multiply this by a distance; namely, the length the cube travels through per turn. Most cubes are 57mm and so have a radius of ~28mm, meaning that you expend about .0673 J of energy per quarter turn. But you typically do, say, maybe 2 half turns for every 3 quarter turns in a solve, so to account for this we might say that you expend more like .0942 J per turn in a solve, since some are quarter and some are half. An average speedsolve is something like 55 moves, so you might expend 5.18 J per speedsolve. As for the scramble, if it's random state (most of which use more half turns in the scrambles), you might expend .1 J per turn and so use a total of 2 J to scramble, bringing the total per scramble and solve to ~7.18 J per solve, or 35.9 J in an average of 5 which converts to:

tl;dr: 8.58 calories per avg5 or 171.6 calories per avg100.

I suspect its a little higher than this; you expend energy turning your hands and fingers and holding up your arms and the cube and whatnot. But that seems roughly accurate.
 

molarmanful

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From a quick test, my Hualong has a kinetic frictional resistance of about 1.53 N. To get this to a unit of energy, we need to multiply this by a distance; namely, the length the cube travels through per turn. Most cubes are 57mm and so have a radius of ~28mm, meaning that you expend about .0673 J of energy per quarter turn. But you typically do, say, maybe 2 half turns for every 3 quarter turns in a solve, so to account for this we might say that you expend more like .0942 J per turn in a solve, since some are quarter and some are half. An average speedsolve is something like 55 moves, so you might expend 5.18 J per speedsolve. As for the scramble, if it's random state (most of which use more half turns in the scrambles), you might expend .1 J per turn and so use a total of 2 J to scramble, bringing the total per scramble and solve to ~7.18 J per solve, or 35.9 J in an average of 5 which converts to:

tl;dr: 8.58 calories per avg5 or 171.6 calories per avg100.

I suspect its a little higher than this; you expend energy turning your hands and fingers and holding up your arms and the cube and whatnot. But that seems roughly accurate.

Wow, there's actually less calories burned in an average of 5 (given that it takes you 5 minutes to finish an average of 5, scrambling time included) than there is after sitting for 5 minutes (which burns ~15 calories). If your math is right, and cubing is considered a sport, then sitting should probably be considered a sport because it actually burns more calories :)

Of course, I'm assuming that we're defining a sport by the amount of calories it burns.
 

obelisk477

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Wow, there's actually less calories burned in an average of 5 (given that it takes you 5 minutes to finish an average of 5, scrambling time included) than there is after sitting for 5 minutes (which burns ~15 calories). If your math is right, and cubing is considered a sport, then sitting should probably be considered a sport because it actually burns more calories :)

Of course, I'm assuming that we're defining a sport by the amount of calories it burns.

Yeah, your body has to do alot to keep itself warm and the brain running and heart pumping. But I think your ~15 calorie number is off. If that were true, you'd burn 180 calories per hour sitting, 2880 if you sat all 16 hours of a waking day. That seems high, I would imagine its more like ~7 calories for sitting for 5 minutes

EDIT: And I only calculated *additional* calories. So the number should be the one i calculated + calories burned sitting and thinking
 
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willtri4

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From a quick test, my Hualong has a kinetic frictional resistance of about 1.53 N. To get this to a unit of energy, we need to multiply this by a distance; namely, the length the cube travels through per turn. Most cubes are 57mm and so have a radius of ~28mm, meaning that you expend about .0673 J of energy per quarter turn. But you typically do, say, maybe 2 half turns for every 3 quarter turns in a solve, so to account for this we might say that you expend more like .0942 J per turn in a solve, since some are quarter and some are half. An average speedsolve is something like 55 moves, so you might expend 5.18 J per speedsolve. As for the scramble, if it's random state (most of which use more half turns in the scrambles), you might expend .1 J per turn and so use a total of 2 J to scramble, bringing the total per scramble and solve to ~7.18 J per solve, or 35.9 J in an average of 5 which converts to:

tl;dr: 8.58 calories per avg5 or 171.6 calories per avg100.

I suspect its a little higher than this; you expend energy turning your hands and fingers and holding up your arms and the cube and whatnot. But that seems roughly accurate.

In cycling, a good rule of thumb is that the number of calories burned is roughly equal to the number of joules expended. This is because even though there there are 4.184 joules in a calorie, only about a quarter of the calories burned are put towards the work being measured. I expect it would be similar in cubing.
 
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In cycling, a good rule of thumb is that the number of calories burned is roughly equal to the number of joules expended. This is because even though there there are 4.184 joules in a calorie, only about a quarter of the calories burned are put towards the work being measured. I expect it would be similar in cubing.

are you talking about CALORIES or KILOCALORIES? the larger unit, kilocalorie, is more commonly used for dietary reasons because it is more convenient, and it is equal to 4.184 KILOJOULES.
 

qqwref

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Solving a cube by sight is easy, and by touch is not that much harder. So there are three senses left. Anyone wanna try solving a cube by taste?

It'd be like a textured cube, but each side is white and has a different white powder on it: salt (salty), sugar (sweet), flour (mild taste), msg (savory), citric acid (acidic/lemony), malic acid (sour).
 

obelisk477

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Solving a cube by sight is easy, and by touch is not that much harder. So there are three senses left. Anyone wanna try solving a cube by taste?

It'd be like a textured cube, but each side is white and has a different white powder on it: salt (salty), sugar (sweet), flour (mild taste), msg (savory), citric acid (acidic/lemony), malic acid (sour).

The only event grosser than feet
 

guysensei1

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Solving a cube by sight is easy, and by touch is not that much harder. So there are three senses left. Anyone wanna try solving a cube by taste?

It'd be like a textured cube, but each side is white and has a different white powder on it: salt (salty), sugar (sweet), flour (mild taste), msg (savory), citric acid (acidic/lemony), malic acid (sour).
those stickers are gonna wear off real quick.
 

Isaac Lai

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I doubt that this is possible to do, but it would be awesome if someone was able to take the cube image out of a video of someone speedsolving and allow us to see only the hand movements. It would be interesting to see, especially for OH and skewb solves (and maybe feet).
 

WayneMigraine

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From a quick test, my Hualong has a kinetic frictional resistance of about 1.53 N. To get this to a unit of energy, we need to multiply this by a distance; namely, the length the cube travels through per turn. Most cubes are 57mm and so have a radius of ~28mm, meaning that you expend about .0673 J of energy per quarter turn. But you typically do, say, maybe 2 half turns for every 3 quarter turns in a solve, so to account for this we might say that you expend more like .0942 J per turn in a solve, since some are quarter and some are half. An average speedsolve is something like 55 moves, so you might expend 5.18 J per speedsolve. As for the scramble, if it's random state (most of which use more half turns in the scrambles), you might expend .1 J per turn and so use a total of 2 J to scramble, bringing the total per scramble and solve to ~7.18 J per solve, or 35.9 J in an average of 5 which converts to:

tl;dr: 8.58 calories per avg5 or 171.6 calories per avg100.

I suspect its a little higher than this; you expend energy turning your hands and fingers and holding up your arms and the cube and whatnot. But that seems roughly accurate.

True, but the frictional force is applied perpendicular to the radius so shouldn't it actually be calculated as a torque force (unless you already took that into account when calculating μ?)
 
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obelisk477

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True, but the frictional force is applied perpendicular to the radius so shouldn't it actually be calculated as a torque force (unless you already took that into account when calculating μ?)

If I told you the way I measured it you would probably cringe, so suffice it to say that the total turning force (integrating torque over the length of the radius) was measured, and not at a specific point on the radius.
 
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