Skewb Notation

[Carson]

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I have been unable to locate any serious discussion regarding this topic.

I think that we should perhaps, due to having some upcoming competitions including the Skewb and also the discussion about making the Skewb an official competition puzzle at some point in the future, decide upon a consistent notation to be used.

Due to the Skewb having fixed corners as opposed to fixed centers, there are only eight possible moves available. These moves can be represented by X and X' rotations of the corners. Since moving opposite corners effectively creates the same move, these eight moves can be made by using only the four corners on a given plane. The Skewb Scrambler on Bryan Logan's site uses a very common sense oriented notation to take advantage of this. Check out the link to see the specifics...

The only issue with this notation is that it really only accommodates scrambling. Even though rotating corners on the top layer produces the same effect as rotating corners on the bottom layer and performing a cube rotation, there are times in which we may want to perform those moves to perform specific algorithms.

My proposal is to use the notation from Bryan's scrambler, and to add the additional moves r b l f (lowercase) to designate rotations around top face corners. For scrambling purposes, only the uppercase moves would be needed?

Thoughts?

 

[qqwref]

I don't like the idea of using lowercase letters for actual single-layer turns, but I'll take it if it's the only intuitive way to do it. Would it be too much of an issue to use DF, DR, DL, DB, UF, etc.?

 

[Owen]

I use numbers. 1 for right, 2 for left, and you notate the corners or 1 or 2 with 1, 2, 3, 4, right to left. Example: ULB would be 11, and FRD would be 23.

 

[Carson]

I don't like the idea of using lowercase letters for actual single-layer turns, but I'll take it if it's the only intuitive way to do it. Would it be too much of an issue to use DF, DR, DL, DB, UF, etc.?

I don't think this would be an issue, but I certainly can't speak for the majority.

I use numbers. 1 for right, 2 for left, and you notate the corners or 1 or 2 with 1, 2, 3, 4, right to left. Example: ULB would be 11, and FRD would be 23.

This makes sense, but at first, would be very confusing.

 

[Mike Hughey]

I use numbers. 1 for right, 2 for left, and you notate the corners or 1 or 2 with 1, 2, 3, 4, right to left. Example: ULB would be 11, and FRD would be 23.

This makes sense, but at first, would be very confusing.

This would seem too much like the old megaminx notation - the numbers essentially are random, and therefore hard to remember if you're unfamiliar with the notation. We want something that's easy to use for someone who doesn't use it all the time.

I've been using qqwref's scrambler for applying scrambles to practice with, and I've found that notation very easy to use for applying scrambles. I admit we do have a problem expressing algorithms, though.