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Beginner 3x3 Tutorial (1 alg solution)

I want to learn this to teach my cousin but I'm not getting it. That step is messing me up.
 
Playing with 8355 I found that the most common problem I and the person I was teaching had was not completing all four moves of the algorithm. If you've completed the placement and orientation of one of the final five corners you *have* to do the final D (or U' in Cride's variation). If you don't, the cube magic escapes and you'll have a botched cube.

Maybe that's not your problem, but you're not being very forthcoming with specifics.
 
@ tfray94. I'm going to try my hardest to solve your problem, but you need to give me some details about exactly where things are going wrong. So as far as I'm aware, you're fine with solving exactly 3 of the four U-layer edges, and the problem lies in solving the final two.

In this step, as the tutorial says there are 4 scenarios (3 scenarios which you care about, as the fourth is solved). If we're to solve the problem we need to tackle each scenario one by one. Can you tell me exactly what's going wrong when:
(1) the final edge is in the U-layer but flipped
(2) the final edge is in the E-slice and can be placed using an R-move
(3) the final edge is in the E-slice and can be placed using an F-move

@brunson, your diagnosis sounds pretty reasonable. Currently the tutorial doesn't mention any common mistakes or 'gotchas', but I think it would be useful to include a section for that. If you discover any more of these kind of common mistakes, I'd be interested to hear. cheers..
 
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I find that it doesn't cover several "cases" that occur in the last 2 steps.

Example: Instead of the last 2 un-oriented corners being in the same layer they come up in different layers, so that turning one layer doesn't affect both corners. It's not impossible to solve, (you just move one piece down, orient them both, then move it back up) but if I didn't know how to solve it beforehand I would have given up.
 
TheCubeMaster5000 said:
I find that it doesn't cover several "cases" that occur in the last 2 steps.

Example: Instead of the last 2 un-oriented corners being in the same layer they come up in different layers, so that turning one layer doesn't affect both corners. It's not impossible to solve, (you just move one piece down, orient them both, then move it back up) but if I didn't know how to solve it beforehand I would have given up.
Click to expand...

At the end of the "3x More Corners" step you're not supposed to align the bottom layer. I've updated the tutorial to clarify this.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
OK, so I've updated the tutorial to include step-by-step instructions for solving the cross, and also added more detail to the other sections. I'm hoping there's now enough there for a complete beginner.

If anyone is still having troubles please let me know, cheers!
 
Much clearer now. Thanks a lot!

One more thing: When you get to the "3x more corners" section and you are told to flip over the cube, the pictures still show yellow on the top (the same as in the first part). That may possibly be confusing to someone who is trying to follow the illustrations exactly.

I'm not trying to be picky, it's just something I noticed.
 
brunson said:
Playing with 8355 I found that the most common problem I and the person I was teaching had was not completing all four moves of the algorithm. If you've completed the placement and orientation of one of the final five corners you *have* to do the final D (or U' in Cride's variation). If you don't, the cube magic escapes and you'll have a botched cube.

Maybe that's not your problem, but you're not being very forthcoming with specifics.
Click to expand...

I can see that happening with several beginner methods.
I realized early on that a lot of times the final U' isn't necessary when you're dealing with the early stages of solving. But if that realization carries on to the last layer then you will be in trouble.
 
Hi, cheers for the feedback.

Good observation on the inconsistent diagrams, I'm not at home just now, but will fix later on.

Because the method is pitched at absolute beginners, I thought it best to leave any extras/shortcuts unmentioned. I think discovering things like that on your own is all part of the fun! :)

If you're interested in speedsolving with this or 8533 I've posted an 'advancements' section on the wiki [wiki]8355[/wiki] page with info on improving efficiency.
 
I think you have a knack for teaching :D
I learned ZZ from your tutorial, and this also seems like a great method to teach beginners. Great job!

Edit: Read it through pretty carefully, and two things come to mind. First, is there a reason for the choice of edges -> corners keyhole over corners -> edges? It's not a flaw, I'm just curious.
Also, when talking about how to insert the edges right after the cross, I might have missed it, but I don't think you're exactly clear on the fact that the E-slice edge's side color can't be matching up with a center before the insertion. Maybe you could clarify this? (Or did I miss something?)
 
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@Novrill, great to hear the method has worked for you! What (if any) would you say the hardest part to explain was?

@Anon, I chose to go for edges before corners was to keep the corner insertion on the first 3 corners similar to the final 5. Doing it this way means that all corner placements use basically the same concept - with the exception that a solver is free to move the top layer for the first 3. I guess edges first keyhole is possibly easier as well since there's less chance that the solver will 'forget' to do the D-turns to move the keyhole, because the D-layer's position is more integral to the procedure.

For your second point: I found that, although the concept is quite straight forward, explaining E-slice edge placement in simple terms was quite difficult.
The explanation I went for goes:

"Turn the side 90° so that a bottom layer edge moves into the position that the middle layer edge will occupy when solved. Make sure the middle layer edge stays in the top layer."

I guess the final sentence may not be direct enough. How about maybe changing it to:

"Turn the side 90° so that a bottom layer edge moves into the position that the middle layer edge will occupy when solved. Ensure the middle layer edge is not within the side which is turned, so that it stays in the top layer."

... or I could go for something along the lines of ensuring the side stickers don't match in colour, but I feel that it would be more long-winded while not really helping to explain why. What do you think?
 
One thing that may help is if you teach them to use the R' F R F' insertion for the edges, instead of the R U' R' one. This way, all you have to say is,

Locate a middle layer edge, and turn the top layer until its side sticker matches up in color with a center. Turn the cube so that the place where the edge must go is in the front-right position.

As for actual execution, you could explain it something like this:

Turn the face containing the edge you are working with 90 degrees so that it now occupies the correct slot. Using a different side, perform a 90 degree turn to hide away the edge in the bottom layer. Turn the first side you moved so that its cross edge is back in place. Now perform a final turn of the second side we moved so as to return the middle layer edge to the correct position.

Looking at how long the explanation is, I actually don't think it's worth it any more. A tiny bit of trial and error would be the most effort involved in solving the problem I outlined in my other post, even for a beginner. Still, if you decide to do this, this is pretty much how I'd go about doing it.
 
Yup, that's quite a long explanation! I guess explaining things in such basic terms really helps you to see it from a beginner's perspective.

...I think I'll stick to to the original approach, because the steps seem more intuitive, and it will normally be less moves. I changed the explanation around a little to highlight the idea that the middle layer edge needs to be moved away from the side initially, see:
http://cube.crider.co.uk/beginner.html#3me

Is that a bit clearer?
 
Cride5 said:
@Novrill, great to hear the method has worked for you! What (if any) would you say the hardest part to explain was?
Click to expand...


For me it was hardest, when the last two edges have to be placed. But thenagain I didn't pay attention to that chapter in the tutorial. I solve it just by sexymove-ing around and then inserting again :)

The "algs" doesn't work sometimes.. i think. Although I might be mistakeing. Then sexymove-ing around helps :)

This method is no doubt the easiest method so far. Thanks and keep up the good work!
 
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