• Welcome to the Speedsolving.com, home of the web's largest puzzle community!
    You are currently viewing our forum as a guest which gives you limited access to join discussions and access our other features.

    Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community of 40,000+ people from around the world today!

    If you are already a member, simply login to hide this message and begin participating in the community!

[Member Intro] Cuber from Montreal :)

Masterdo

Member
Joined
May 19, 2015
Messages
0
Hiya!

I first cubed when I was 12 (16 years ago... I realize I probably raise the age average quite a bit, judging by competition videos :) ). I got a Rubiks cube, did the 3 layers method I guess. Figured the first one, my father showed me one alg for the second layer, and I figured the last one out, over about a year.. I solved it for the first time between two classes, late for the next one, in the staircase at school. Was quite nice.

I picked it back up recently, learned CFOP.

Current:
Best 28.xx
Avg 5 : 32.xx (Used a cube timer on my phone, but I didn't save the results.. Learned better, now using proper timers, and noting evolution on Google Drive)
3BLD : 5:xx.xx (Again.. :( )

Goals:
- Attend Montreal or some Ontario competition this year, get under 30 average in official record, get things started!
- Get sub 20 with CFOP, then check other methods out, ZZ and Roux especially.
- Sub 2:00 on 3BLD, which I feel I can achieve with Nohaha's tutorials.
- First 4x4x4 and 2x2x2 in the mail, check if I like other events.

Next Current Step:
I know full PLL, but not efficient algs, and very little finger tricks. Found cyotheking's PLL finger trick playlist, seems like a reasonable way to start.

Other hobbys:
I play Go, single digit kyu, if that means anything to anyone.
Board game (I own a scary amount of those..)
Bike
Programming (that's actually also my job, and I will write some Android app to allow cubers to take notes of algs with diagrams and stuff... lots of alg apps out there, but not one I could find that lets ME note some down)

Anyway! Lurking is over, that's my first post. Nice to meet you all!
Cheers!
 

TDM

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
7,006
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
WCA
2013MEND03
YouTube
Visit Channel
Welcome!

When you say you're using a proper timer... what do you mean by that? There are four good timers to use: qqTimer (alternative link), Prisma Puzzle Timer (this one you download and use offline, whereas the others are all online times), cTimer, or csTimer. Some people use CubeTimer, but this is a bad timer, so don't use it.

Definitely learn good PLLs; you don't really need to know OLL. Looking at other methods is a great idea though - ZZ has a hard first step but is really easy after that, and Roux is a completely different approach, yet is still just as fast. ZZ is especially good for one-handed solving.

I like the idea of an Android app that lets you input your own algs. At the moment I can just use the Memo app thing, but that's not very helpful for knowing which case the alg is for. It'd be good if you found a way to include images as well - maybe something to do with VisualCube?
 

Masterdo

Member
Joined
May 19, 2015
Messages
0
Hi TDM,

Yes, by proper timer I meant qqTimer. I will now also take a look at all others you mentioned!

Algs and other methods: I actually kinda like learning algs. I realized something in a video of algs Feliks posted, where he could always reverse the alg just as fast to setup cases, or run back and forth in what if scenarios that the point really is not just to learn a sequence of moves, but you get the most out of alg sets when you use it to understand more of the cube. Like following F2L pairs in OLL, feels like when you understand algs in this light, it's almost intuitive. That's why I felt like learning other methods at some point will just add to my understanding of the cube :) I want to reach sub 20 first because I don't want to flip flop methods and stagnate, feels like this would be easy to do, like switching cube to improve rather than just putting in the work.

For the app, yes that's the goal :) F2L tricky cases that have easy solutions I can find on youtube, I have to note down on paper or Google Drive using pictures by VisualCube, I would really like to have an app that just lets me create collections of those. With F2L, PLL and OLL appropriate views. I have never done mobile development, it is actually super far from what I do, so this might take a while.

Thanks for your comments, both TDM and pdilla!
 
Top