Kids Accomplishment Thread

First av 5: 15 seconds faster than her official results from German open 2010 :)

Average: 1:56.90
Standard Deviation: 12.09
Best Time: 1:38.49
Worst Time: 2:20.65
Individual Times:
1. (2:20.65) B2 F D U R D' B' F2 D U2 L D' U' L2 R' U2 L B2 F R B2 F2 D U F2
2. (1:38.49) F2 L R' D2 B2 F' D U L D' B F' R' B' L2 R' D' L R2 D2 L' D L B2 D2
3. 1:43.46 D2 F R' B U' B' R' B U' B2 F L F' L B2 L D2 B F L B2 F' L2 R' U2
4. 1:54.47 D2 U2 B' F' R2 D2 U R' B2 F' U R2 B2 L2 R' D B U' L2 F2 L2 R' U' L U'
5. 2:12.78 F D U B' F' U B' D2 L' R2 B D' U F2 L2 R2 B' U B' U2 F' L D U2 F'

Still solving LBL but F2L is coming soon.
She understands the concept of pairing up and then inserting the pair. Including R U R' "pairs".
There a still some execution errors but given enough time she builds them all.
But current focus in speedsolves is just spotting any accidental pairs and putting them to good use.
 
I am teaching my six year old brother. So far he knows how to solve the first layer using a daisy then cross then lining up corners and using the "cool" (known to us as sexy) move to insert the corners. Thought he could only solve on white until I found the orange side solved on my cube when I got home from school :). Will attempt to teach him the second layer soon.
 
uvafan said:
I am teaching my six year old brother. So far he knows how to solve the first layer using a daisy then cross then lining up corners and using the "cool" (known to us as sexy) move to insert the corners. Thought he could only solve on white until I found the orange side solved on my cube when I got home from school :). Will attempt to teach him the second layer soon.
Click to expand...

Nice!
Try to teach him to ínsert the corner 'any way you can' so also using stuff like R U' R' and intuitive versions for the case where the sticker is on top.

antoineccantin said:
Not sure if this belongs here, but my dad got a 1:30.xx single yesterday :)
Click to expand...
As thread starter I approve this post :)

Now for Birgit:

A proud father is pleased to inform you that yesterday at the NEMO Amsterdam Open she smashed her PB's :)
Birgit improved her times from a 1:41.41 single, 2:11.71 average to 1:08.38 single, 1:28.31 average.
28 seconds faster than her first and only av5 (since she started cubing again) last week.

Also this evening she learned 3 OLL's, only 3 more to go for a real 2 look OLL.

Lefty Sune was fun:
- she already knows when righty sune completes orientation in the beginners LL method
- so I told (but not showed) her that the other case with one sticker on top could be solved with the left hand version
- she then just did it

Will let it sink in for a few days and then add headlights.
Not too sure yet about the cases with two oriented corners, may look something up without double layer turns.
 
Awesome thread! Last week I taught my 10-yr-old niece the first layer (3x3).

My kids are aged 4, 2, and 6 weeks right now so I'll be revisiting this thread later. I'm bound to have at least one kid interested in cubing, right? My 4-yr-old daughter, Ruth, likes to play with the timer by starting it and then turning the cube as fast as possible (without actually solving it) and stopping whenever she feels like it. She also showed me the other day how she could do a finger flick. Not bad for such small hands.

Picture of my son... excited about Rubik's Cube!
p1110627.jpg

"Gak gok gak!"
That's Andrew's word for "Rubik's Cube". He's 1.5yrs in the picture.

Oh yeah, and since I started seriously speedcubing about 8 months ago, my husband got into it too. Previously, he had not really solved the Rubik's Cube but he developed his own method and has since solved it about a dozen times. He'd probably be a Petrus solver if he had the time to invest in cubing.
 
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Update:

Birgit now knows all 9 OLL's for a "full" two-look OLL.
For the cases with two oriented corners, she's actually using the "std" algs with double layer turns :)
I first showed her the sledghammer as a possible way to insert a pair.
Then showed sexy hammer OLL
From there it is only a small step to replace the R and R' by r and r'
And finally you just have to move the F' to the front for the "other" case

Times have gone up due to recognition and execution speed but I'm sure this will improve over time :)

She also knows Rido's hunting story for F2L but often forgets to line up as such that you do not take out already solved pair.
Eagles are her favorite as there is less room for error.
 
Bump :)

With some breaks here and there, Birgit is still cubing but not not "practicing" so she no longer knows all 9 corner OLL's.
She typically has her little cube in her coat and if she gets bored (school yard or during car rides) she'll rip it out.

Last weekend we were on a paddling trip with my old kayak club and she impressed everyone with her cubing skills.
She seems to be a bit of a "show-off" as she cubed much more than usual :)

Times are 1:20 to 1:50 which the crowd (young and old) found very fast.

Maybe it is time to revisit F2L and those corner OLL's again :)
 
About teaching the cube to beginniners (I have done this before, but not to siblings), I teach them algs, but by explaining how the algorithm works. If you tech this like petrus last layer, orienting corners with R U R' U R U2 R', or any of its forms, isn't really explainable. You can't desrcibe exactly how it preserves the corner permutation that you solved beforehand, you can just state the fact that corner permutation is preserved if you use a 2 gen set of moves. I do teach F2L, but I take it very slow.

I teach the last layer substeps like this: edge orientation, edge permutation, corner permutation, corner orientation. I teach edge orientation and permutation intuitively as it is pretty simple. I teach them ! alg for corner permutation and explain how it works straying from going to far into commutators. I then teach corner orientation with R' D R D'. Very soon afterwards when I show how the last step works, I show that it can be done by reversing the 4 moves with the second corner and explain a little bit about commutators.

If anyone I teaught ever interested in learning more, I teach them keyholing, partial edge/corner control, blockbuilding, solving edge permutation and orientation of the last layer at the same time, and doing EO first. So far, nobody I've taught is past this point. If anyone I've taught ever gets interested, I would glady teach more concepts that are used in Heise such as psuedo blocks and solving a corner or two with the edges of the last layer and F2L slot. If they ever got past that, I'd show them alot more about commutators and how to get past parities (on other cubes of course and if they know how to solve them) intuitively.
 
elrog said:
About teaching the cube to beginniners (I have done this before, but not to siblings), I teach them algs, but by explaining how the algorithm works. If you tech this like petrus last layer, orienting corners with R U R' U R U2 R', or any of its forms, isn't really explainable. You can't desrcibe exactly how it preserves the corner permutation that you solved beforehand, you can just state the fact that corner permutation is preserved if you use a 2 gen set of moves. I do teach F2L, but I take it very slow.
Click to expand...

Have you (or anyone) ever tried to teach the so called 8355 Method SAM / Single Alg Method, or its variant, the so called Sexy Method)?
It is almost as easy as the beginner's LBL method (I think it is even more easier!), however, it has the advantage that you can perfectly understand why the core algorithm R U R' U' solves the cube (at least the corners, but edges are not hard as well). And basically, it is the only algorithm you need to learn!

I.e., R U R' U' has 4 important properties:
1) swaps DFR and UFR after you do the algorithm once,
2) twist DFR after you do the algorithm twice,
3) results nothing if you do the algorithm 6 times, and
4) on the D side, it only bothers the corner on the DFR place.

Therefore, it is very easy to explain how to twist just two corners, for example DFR clockwise and DFL counterclockwise.

a) twist DFR clockwise be repeating the algorithm twice (2. attribute)
b) Do a D move. Now DFL goes to the place DFR, and you don't have to worry about mess up the cube (4. attribute)
c) This corners has to twisted counterclockwise twice - therefore, you can twist it by repeating it 4 times (2. attribute)
d) Since you repeated the algorithm 6 times, everything else on the cube is back (3. attribute)
e) Do a D' to bring back DFL to its original place. Done!

So, the whole algorithm is (R U R' U')2 D (R U R' U')4 D'
But note that the inverse of the algorithm, U R U' R' has the same attributes, but it twist the DFR counter-clockwise. Also, if you do the main algorithm x times, then you do the inverse x times again, you did nothing, just like the 3. attribute. So, repeating the algorithm 4 times is exactly the same as repeating the inverse 2 times. Therefore, the algorithm for twisting 2 corners is (R U R' U')2 D (U R U' R')2 D', or you can shortened it down due some cancellations: R U R' U' R U R' D R U' R' U R U' R' D'. And you can understand why it works!

This is just the very end of the solve in the method, since you use the core algorithm almost everywhere (taking advantage of its attributes), but the rest is just as easy.

However, there are two main drawback of this method. The first one is just you can not really improve it if you want to solve faster (like using the inverse as well, and a few other small techniques). Unlike LBL, where you can use as many tricks and additional algorithms as you want, getting closer to CFOP or even further.

The second one is if you mess something up during the solve, you probably mess the whole cube up. Again, unlike in LBL, where you probably still have most of your solved cubies when you mess up an algorithm in the middle.

But I think its worth a try!
Here is a nice explanation: http://cube.crider.co.uk/beginner.php?v=full
 
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Birgit now solves Pyraminx :)

Bob Burton method hack:
solve a face
solve another face
repeat until solved
Shortcut: If you just have a 3 cycle left -> R U R' U R U R' (Sune but single U at end)
Use U or U' depending on which direction to cycle in.
U layer turns opposite to where the pieces need to go.
left hand version works just the same: whatever you feel like.

Works every time.
May add more algs later :)
 
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