Hey all,
I've been thinking about ways to improve curvy copter scrambling and have a couple ideas to share.
1. Jumbling Notation: I think the current notation for indicating a jumbling move is needlessly long. Take (UR+ LF+ UF UR- LF-) for example.
I propose we replace this long notation with something like: J(UR,LF)+ instead. I think anyone who is scrambling a CC would be able to understand this notation if they could read the long form version and not need UF or the setup and unsetup moves. This would make the scrambles more compact and save ink over time if people were printing scrambles.
2. Final Verification of Scrambles: I was also thinking about the fact that it would be pretty difficult and/or take up a lot of space to have a visual verification of the puzzle's final state after it is scrambled beyond cubeshape. Instead I propose a very simple system that can be done to check the shape verification.
Since each edge of the puzzle has 6 positions, we can simply label each position with a number, and at then end of the scramble, have a box that lists the final position of each edge.
For standardization, for each U edge, the U sticker would be the sticker tracked, equator edges would track the F or B edge stickers (IE, with white top green front, the green stickers would be tracked for FL and FR and blue stickers for BL and BR), and for D edges, the D color sticker would be the sticker tracked for positioning.
As a potential example, for UF, Solved would be position 1, UF+ pos 2, UF++ pos 3, 180 rotation from solved would be pos 4, UF-- pos 5, and UF- pos 6.
With a notation along these lines, after the puzzle is finished scrambling, it could have a box below the verification image of the cube pre-shape-jumbling that would have something like:
UF: 1 FR: 2 DF: 1
UR: 4 FL: 3 DR: 6
UB: 3 BR: 5 DB: 3
UL: 5 BL: 6 DL: 4
This would allow complete verification of the puzzle's fully scrambled state and prevent any possible ambiguity or confusion on what the puzzle should look like after the scramble is complete!
I apologize if any of that was confusing. If anyone wants I could make a quick video that could visually show the idea, but I think most people would get the general idea.
Let me know what you guys think! I've always really enjoyed the puzzle, and want to see things related to it get better and better!