Spreading the Rubiks Way

[Edward]

Updaytez


I just got two of my friends back into cubing.

 

[Ethan]

I average about 15 or 16 seconds now.
I need to enter a WCA competition soon. haha.

And I'm teaching another kid beginner Fridrich (he doesn't want fast times, just to be able to solve it in like 5 minutes or less.)

How long have you been cubing?
I have for a little less than 2 months.

Wow, so many interesting things in this post. First off, with beginner method and about 2 weeks of non intensive practice, you can get sub-2:00 easily. I mean Dan Brown beginner; cubing at its rawest form. Second, you have been cubing for a little less than 2 months and you average 15-16 seconds? Are you sure about that? The great Yu Nakajima took 2 months to learn full Fridrich, then another few months to sub-20. Many other great cubers couldn't hit that even after a year and a few competitions. On the note of this thread, I tried to teach someone how to cube, but it didn't turn out too well. I think I just needed to be a better teacher.

Yep.
I just find memorizing things very easy, and I have always had good dexterity.
I can play piano and guitar pretty well. I think I usually go around 4 tps or something like that. Not really sure, I've never measured.

& also, I don't even use full Fridrich. I have about 50 OLLs and all PLLs memorized. Recognizing most cases isn't hard for me except for E perms and it also takes me a second to distinguish between Sune and Anti-Sune :/

I probably won't be able to sub-10 for a long long time though. Hopefully, in a year.


On another note -
what's everyone here's 2x2 PB's?
My PB is 2.84 but it was an easy case. like a 9 or 10 move solve I think.
My goal is to sub-1 before Christmas.

 

[Anthony]

I taught a person yesterday (3rd person I've taught 3x3) and he was so good. I took about 20 minutes. He memorises the algs the first time I show them to him. He could go far with ZB.

Even though he learnt a very simple method pretty quickly it's still very far-fetched to make the assumption that he could easily learn hundreds of algorithms and remember when to apply each one. Only one person has done it so far, ever (Go Chris!). Could he possibly do it? Sure. Is he extraordinarily gifted in algorithm memorization because he learnt a couple algorithms relatively quickly? Not really.

Edit:

On another note -
what's everyone here's 2x2 PB's?
My PB is 2.84 but it was an easy case. like a 9 or 10 move solve I think.
My goal is to sub-1 before Christmas.

2x2 single is the most meaningless event there is in official competitions. Don't get me wrong, I like 2x2, but what it comes down to is average, not single. Although, in some cases averages are still pretty meaningless due to how lucky you can get. Ex: A 4.09 average of 5 with a LL skip and 3 PLL skips.

 

[Ethan]

2x2 single is the most meaningless event there is in official competitions. Don't get me wrong, I like 2x2, but what it comes down to is average, not single. Although, in some cases averages are still pretty meaningless due to how lucky you can get. Ex: A 4.09 average of 5 with a LL skip and 3 PLL skips.

I know what you mean.
A 2x2 is definitely very easy to solve, even intuitively.
And I do find it somewhat meaningless to do 2x2 singles.
I still very much enjoy getting fast times on any puzzle I can get my hands on.

Also I looked at your WCA page.
DAYUMMMMMMM

 

[Anthony]

2x2 single is the most meaningless event there is in official competitions. Don't get me wrong, I like 2x2, but what it comes down to is average, not single. Although, in some cases averages are still pretty meaningless due to how lucky you can get. Ex: A 4.09 average of 5 with a LL skip and 3 PLL skips.

I know what you mean.
A 2x2 is definitely very easy to solve, even intuitively.
And I do find it somewhat meaningless to do 2x2 singles.
I still very much enjoy getting fast times on any puzzle I can get my hands on.

Also I looked at your WCA page.
DAYUMMMMMMM

Well, it's not meaningless to do 2x2 single solves because that's how you get an average.

Oh, and thanks. lol. But if you're referring to 2x2 or 3x3, I can do much better. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

 

[Ethan]

2x2 single is the most meaningless event there is in official competitions. Don't get me wrong, I like 2x2, but what it comes down to is average, not single. Although, in some cases averages are still pretty meaningless due to how lucky you can get. Ex: A 4.09 average of 5 with a LL skip and 3 PLL skips.

I know what you mean.
A 2x2 is definitely very easy to solve, even intuitively.
And I do find it somewhat meaningless to do 2x2 singles.
I still very much enjoy getting fast times on any puzzle I can get my hands on.

Also I looked at your WCA page.
DAYUMMMMMMM

Well, it's not meaningless to do 2x2 single solves because that's how you get an average.

Oh, and thanks. lol. But if you're referring to 2x2 or 3x3, I can do much better. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Welcome. I was referring to all of your events. Hahaha.
I think I may be going to Thankscubing Day and the Carnegie Mellon Fall.
Hopefully I can get some decent solves in.

 

[Anthony]

2x2 single is the most meaningless event there is in official competitions. Don't get me wrong, I like 2x2, but what it comes down to is average, not single. Although, in some cases averages are still pretty meaningless due to how lucky you can get. Ex: A 4.09 average of 5 with a LL skip and 3 PLL skips.

I know what you mean.
A 2x2 is definitely very easy to solve, even intuitively.
And I do find it somewhat meaningless to do 2x2 singles.
I still very much enjoy getting fast times on any puzzle I can get my hands on.

Also I looked at your WCA page.
DAYUMMMMMMM

Well, it's not meaningless to do 2x2 single solves because that's how you get an average.

Oh, and thanks. lol. But if you're referring to 2x2 or 3x3, I can do much better. Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Welcome. I was referring to all of your events. Hahaha.
I think I may be going to Thankscubing Day and the Carnegie Mellon Fall.
Hopefully I can get some decent solves in.

Awesome. Good luck.

 

[THE_V01DL0RD]

I used to have 5 cubes. I now only have 2.

 

[VincentCuber]

One of my friends and me brought our cubes to school one time. Now 7 people solve it in our class, more in other classes

 

[arbivara]

I teach cubing as an after school class (as in extra-curricular) in a school here in São Paulo, for kids 6 to 15 (but mostly 8 to 10), but always in very small groups - it isn't a very popular after school activity yet. Sidenote: my older brother teaches chess as an after school activity in the same school for, like, 20 years; in his first year he had only one student now its way more popular, so I'm hoping for a similar phenomena in my, although I don't have his selling skills.
Here is the basic scheme I use (with lots of variations to acommodate my perceptions on the level of concept grabbing for each kid, and sometimes also to reflect the puzzles they already own):
- show the cube, its color scheme, its interior
- play tic-tac-toe on a 3x3x3. I use this moment to teach them: a. how never to lose in this game; b. our basic manouver for rubik's cube and most of twisty puzzles.

Spoiler: Basic manouver

Basic manouver (sledgehammer and similar manouvers):
1. Put the piece you want where you want
2. Hide this piece with a lateral movement
3. Undo move 1
4. Undo move 2

- I then usually go to pyramidal twisty puzzles, usually starting with the trivial tips-only pyraminx (Moyu has six teaching pyramidal puzzles and this is the easiest of them - I call it typminx as it only has the tips, but I don't recall its brand name)
- Usually we then proceed to pyraminx, in which we would use a five step solution scheme:

Spoiler: Pyraminx 5-steps method

1. solve the tips for one color (a step they've probably already learned from the previous puzzle)
2. solve what I call the boomerang (i.e., the tips and the pieces adjacent to it) for that color - from this point on this color will be the base of our pyramid and will be mostly hidden from sight
3. solve the edges of thar color - and for that we use our basic manouver (here it asumes the form of "down, down, up, up")
4. solve the 3 remaining edges in three substeps (its not uncommon to have a skip here):
a. position each edge in its place; if they are all solved, proceed to next step; if they aren't, hold the puzzle with the solved edge on the back and the two unsolved in the front
b. do the basic manouver - a edge from our base color will apear in the front face
c. hide that edge on the other side of the front face, lift its original side up, bring it back, and down with all the base color pieces
5. solve the last two upper pieces with a sune-like manouver (also not uncommon to have a skip here)

- we then proceed to learning the 3x3x3 and the 2x2x2 (I use a easy to learn but not very efficient lbl method, that is intended to be mostly useful when learning puzzles with center orientation)
- after that we might proceed to other puzzles or to work on becoming faster, depending on the wills of each student

Note 1: the main goal of my system, is to keep as much possible from one puzzle to the others, so to facilitate the learning experience
Note 2: Unless with the kids who reach the "want to be faster" stage, I don't use Thistlethwaite's notation. Many of my students don't know clockwise from anti-clockwise. Some don't even know right from left - that was specially challenging during zoom-pandemic times

 

[Deleted member 36445]

I teach cubing as an after school class (as in extra-curricular) in a school here in São Paulo, for kids 6 to 15 (but mostly 8 to 10), but always in very small groups - it isn't a very popular after school activity yet. Sidenote: my older brother teaches chess as an after school activity in the same school for, like, 20 years; in his first year he had only one student now its way more popular, so I'm hoping for a similar phenomena in my, although I don't have his selling skills.
Here is the basic scheme I use (with lots of variations to acommodate my perceptions on the level of concept grabbing for each kid, and sometimes also to reflect the puzzles they already own):
- show the cube, its color scheme, its interior
- play tic-tac-toe on a 3x3x3. I use this moment to teach them: a. how never to lose in this game; b. our basic manouver for rubik's cube and most of twisty puzzles.

Spoiler: Basic manouver

Basic manouver (sledgehammer and similar manouvers):
1. Put the piece you want where you want
2. Hide this piece with a lateral movement
3. Undo move 1
4. Undo move 2

- I then usually go to pyramidal twisty puzzles, usually starting with the trivial tips-only pyraminx (Moyu has six teaching pyramidal puzzles and this is the easiest of them - I call it typminx as it only has the tips, but I don't recall its brand name)
- Usually we then proceed to pyraminx, in which we would use a five step solution scheme:

Spoiler: Pyraminx 5-steps method

1. solve the tips for one color (a step they've probably already learned from the previous puzzle)
2. solve what I call the boomerang (i.e., the tips and the pieces adjacent to it) for that color - from this point on this color will be the base of our pyramid and will be mostly hidden from sight
3. solve the edges of thar color - and for that we use our basic manouver (here it asumes the form of "down, down, up, up")
4. solve the 3 remaining edges in three substeps (its not uncommon to have a skip here):
a. position each edge in its place; if they are all solved, proceed to next step; if they aren't, hold the puzzle with the solved edge on the back and the two unsolved in the front
b. do the basic manouver - a edge from our base color will apear in the front face
c. hide that edge on the other side of the front face, lift its original side up, bring it back, and down with all the base color pieces
5. solve the last two upper pieces with a sune-like manouver (also not uncommon to have a skip here)

- we then proceed to learning the 3x3x3 and the 2x2x2 (I use a easy to learn but not very efficient lbl method, that is intended to be mostly useful when learning puzzles with center orientation)
- after that we might proceed to other puzzles or to work on becoming faster, depending on the wills of each student

Note 1: the main goal of my system, is to keep as much possible from one puzzle to the others, so to facilitate the learning experience
Note 2: Unless with the kids who reach the "want to be faster" stage, I don't use Thistlethwaite's notation. Many of my students don't know clockwise from anti-clockwise. Some don't even know right from left - that was specially challenging during zoom-pandemic times

hey dude
thanks for explaining your methods!
I love to study easier ways to solve the cube to teach others.

- play tic-tac-toe on a 3x3x3. I use this moment to teach them: a. how never to lose in this game; b. our basic manouver for rubik's cube and most of twisty puzzles.

that seems like a brilliant idea! can you explain how you do that?

 

[arbivara]

hey dude
thanks for explaining your methods!
I love to study easier ways to solve the cube to teach others.

that seems like a brilliant idea! can you explain how you do that?

We start with white (or "blank") face up. Each player must choose one of the adjacent colors (so, not yellow) - it's better if they choose colors opposing each other. A move consist in replacing one white piece in the up face with one piece of one's color without disturbing the reminder of the up face. From there, ttt rules apply

 

[Deleted member 36445]

We start with white (or "blank") face up. Each player must choose one of the adjacent colors (so, not yellow) - it's better if they choose colors opposing each other. A move consist in replacing one white piece in the up face with one piece of one's color without disturbing the reminder of the up face. From there, ttt rules apply

omg omg omg

that is so coool!!
I did it on my cube, very nice idea! : D

I will resticker a cube with just white, blue and red, it will be better to play this way

 

[Luke Solves Cubes]

I used to have 5 cubes. I now only have 2.

Please don't bump a thread after 14 years when you could just post the post on another thread, it is fine to do this is you have added a lot to the topic, but in this case it isn't.

 

[arbivara]

I will resticker a cube with just white, blue and red, it will be better to play this way

Loved it! Will do as well

 

[Deleted member 36445]

Loved it! Will do as well

i did it

 

[Cuber Score]

i did it
View attachment 23498

stop being cuberscorephobic
this is a microagression
also
that isn't stickered

 

[Garf]

I have started this thing at my school called EHS cubing tutorials. I want to get a bunch of people interested in learning how to solve a Rubik's Cube so that I can get a club started and hopefully go to a WCA comp with everyone. I've been to 4 already, and want to show other people how fun it is.