• 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] Hi there, Will from Sydney, 42 and tackling the 3x3 again

MindGap

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
6
Hi all,

i am a 42 yo dad in Sydney Australia, I never managed to solve the cube as a kid, we ended up with a number of 3x3 and then the snake ones... My son got a 2x2 that I also can't solve so my wife found her old one from the 80s and gave me a book by Dan Harris to learn it.

I got as far as the last layer/face and I'm stuck, anyway that's for my question thread that I put in the beginner section - I don't know if it was put together incorrectly 30 years ago or so!!

I'm dead keen to learn how to solve it basically so I can show my kids and then solve the 2x2 - for some reason even that has had me stumped - I guess I'm dim with this 3 dimensional spacial orientation stuff.

anyway, if no-one can see my question thread it may be because I've inadvertently broken some rule - I did search and read the rules etc.

I hope to be able to get somewhere with this cube - but if it's baulked I'll buy a new one :)

Cheers,
Will
 

TDM

Member
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
7,006
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
WCA
2013MEND03
YouTube
Visit Channel
Welcome! I can't see your thread, but that's just because you're a new member, and sometimes their threads need mods to approve them, in case you're a bot or something. If you're not sure if your cube is solvable, then take it apart and reassemble it solved. Then no matter how you scramble it, as long as you don't take it apart again it should be solvable. :)

Also 2x2s are definitely harder than they look. They are just like solving the corners of a 3x3, but if you don't know how to do that then it's difficult. You're not dim!
 

mark49152

Premium Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2012
Messages
4,719
Location
UK
WCA
2015RIVE05
YouTube
Visit Channel
Welcome! Nice to see another oldie. Be sure to check out the older cubers' discussion thread, there's quite a few from the 80s generation here.
 

SenorJuan

Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2014
Messages
515
Location
U.K
Make sure if you buy a new cube, buy a decent one. There's 1001 threads on here about what's good, though they will all outperform a 30 year old one.
 

MindGap

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
6
Woot! I solved it last night in bed! The last corner permutes had me totally brain fried because the already solved layers get scrambled and I must have previously been making silly mistakes with the algorithms!

Yay, great feeling. Now I know the cube is sound.

How many of the older/original supposedly "Rubik's" cubes have different opposing colour setups? Because I think my cube has green and blue swapped
 

hooperjaws

Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2015
Messages
0
Congrats! (from another oldie beginner). I heard somewhere that early cubes came with 2 different colour schemes. Id keep it like that - its cool retro, and buy a speed cube to learn on. An original rubix with the non-standard stickers might be worth something also?
 

MindGap

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
6
Gee, I might be tempted to come to see a comp - but I've tried for like four or five attempts today to resolve the cube after giving it to my kids to scramble and I'm hopelessly frustrated again with the last layer corners haha - so addictive - so frustrating!

I will do some research on a speed cube - while I was at Hornsby this morning I looked at the Rubik's at National Geo shop as I knew they would have them $40 for the kits with spring tensionable etc - you all know them all - I'll do the research and buy the right thing based on threads here I think.

At the moment though I can't grasp when it starts to become intuitive -- I still am referring to the pics/diagrams and algorithms for every step - makes you feel both clever and stupid to solve it from the book. lol

One thing I noticed is that I end up concentrating on the rotation/notation and not watching the movement of the tile colours so maybe I'm not yet at the stage where I start to correlate the movements with the start and goal states. Anyway - it's truly fun in the right doses!

Thanks for the warm welcome guys

Will
 

Dene

Premium Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2007
Messages
6,900
WCA
2009BEAR01
YouTube
Visit Channel
I recommend looking at one of the online cube stores in Australia. Stay away from Rubik's brand, tbh there's nothing worth looking at there.

The best place to learn is from youtube videos. Just don't go near pogobat. Try Thrawst or badmephisto for a good tutorial.
 

SenorJuan

Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2014
Messages
515
Location
U.K
"How many of the older/original supposedly "Rubik's" cubes have different opposing colour setups? Because I think my cube has green and blue swapped "
It was very common, it seemed to me to be the normal scheme back then. My own original cube was that way, and I've kept with the scheme ever since, resulting in plenty of sticker-swapping over the years.
"I can't grasp when it starts to become intuitive"
I'm not convinced about the use of the word 'intuitive' myself, a lot of practice and hard pondering is needed before things become intuitive.
 

MindGap

Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
6
Great replies, thank you all very much. And SenorJuan, I totally get your point about intuiting the state of the puzzle. The word is used a fair bit and yet the advice in the book I have is that it is essentially exactly as you have put it - practice, and hard pondering.
Though one or two of the simpler moves where a side is flipped (I think) today actually became quite intuitive once I "saw" how the origin and goal positions related through only about three discrete rotations.
Anyway, I'll check out some cube options and keep at it - certainly I have had nothing but frustration and failure since the one and only time it came out for me - and that is despite thinking I could understand the instructions since getting it right last night! lol.
I took the cube apart and cleaned it and applied Triflow lightly to the central axes and rubbed all the interlocking edges down etc. It is performing very well.
Thank you also for the info about the colour orientation. I'm tempted to get my new cube and sticker it that way myself :)
Cheers all.
Will
 

mark49152

Premium Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2012
Messages
4,719
Location
UK
WCA
2015RIVE05
YouTube
Visit Channel
The word (intuitive) is used a fair bit and yet the advice in the book I have is that it is essentially exactly as you have put it - practice, and hard pondering.
Bear in mind that "intuitive" describes the way you learn it rather than the solution. Whether you choose to learn F2L intuitively or by algorithms, in the long run you end up at the same place. Consensus is that by learning intuitively you develop better flexibility, lookahead, and understanding of the cube. Those who learned intuitively but are now experienced are no longer pondering hard, they are turning automatically from muscle memory while looking ahead to see what's coming next.
 
Top