Fred's Thread

[Fred]

Aosu v7 triple track modding is finally complete! I more or less followed this guide, but with a lot of missteps along the way. I tried gluing in 2x1 n35 magnets in the edge to edge slots, but they were so weak I could barely feel them, so I got some super glue debonder and replaced them with 3x1 n35s (and melted a bit of plastic inside the pieces). I still needed to stack another magnet outside of those slots to get the magnetization between slices to my liking, and I reused the ones from the inner track that I removed. (The middle track with the unglued magnets is back to stock strength.) The result is much lighter slices, though it's now possible to tell which slice turns with the core. Still, the slice inconsistency is no worse than on my non-ballcore MGC.

Also got my non-white/yellow 4x4 ao100 under 1:15.

On megaminx, I've been trying to switch from "Eastlund" (y rotations) to "Westlund," (y' rotations) ie I was doing S2L in the wrong direction. My old way was solving a face on the front with RU moves, letting my left hand have the sole job of holding the puzzle, but now that I'm using a much lighter puzzle (switched from yuhu to dayan pro), I'm solving the right face using both hands for better lookahead. In theory. I still need to get used to the different S2L order and the slightly different solutions.

 

[Cubinginatree]

Aosu v7 triple track modding is finally complete! I more or less followed this guide, but with a lot of missteps along the way. I tried gluing in 2x1 n35 magnets in the edge to edge slots, but they were so weak I could barely feel them, so I got some super glue debonder and replaced them with 3x1 n35s (and melted a bit of plastic inside the pieces). I still needed to stack another magnet outside of those slots to get the magnetization between slices to my liking, and I reused the ones from the inner track that I removed. (The middle track with the unglued magnets is back to stock strength.) The result is much lighter slices, though it's now possible to tell which slice turns with the core. Still, the slice inconsistency is no worse than on my non-ballcore MGC.

Also got my non-white/yellow 4x4 ao100 under 1:15.

On megaminx, I've been trying to switch from "Eastlund" (y rotations) to "Westlund," (y' rotations) ie I was doing S2L in the wrong direction. My old way was solving a face on the front with RU moves, letting my left hand have the sole job of holding the puzzle, but now that I'm using a much lighter puzzle (switched from yuhu to dayan pro), I'm solving the right face using both hands for better lookahead. In theory. I still need to get used to the different S2L order and the slightly different solutions.

I have the standard version of the Aosu V7 and it’s such a good puzzle! Also quick question for mega solving, what tutorial would you recommend for solving? Right now I just use my own very slow invented one.

 

[Fred]

I have the standard version of the Aosu V7 and it’s such a good puzzle! Also quick question for mega solving, what tutorial would you recommend for solving? Right now I just use my own very slow invented one.

I don't remember what tutorial I used, if I used one at all. I did look around in the megaminx discord, and there's this big list of megaminx resources. The Jperm tutorial is a good place to start. Basically just keep doing cross/star edges and F2L pairs until last layer and then I recommend learning 4 look last layer unless you love commutators, in which case consider Omega LSLL and Wu Ziyu LL. The slowest part of megaminx is finding the pieces, so it's highly recommended to have an S2L order so you at least know what you're looking for. Good luck!

 

[Fred]

My region's championship this year is happening in my state, but it has some pretty harsh qualification times. 1:40 for 5x5/mega, 2:45 for 6x6, and 4:15 for 7x7. It's frustrating because last year's cutoff times (no qualification times) were 2:00 for 5x5/mega, 3:30 for 6x6, and 4:30 for 7x7, and I could conceivably achieve all of those except 7x7, but the goalposts have moved. Also, you can take up to a minute to do pyra/skewb/clock/2x2, which feels pretty unfair. As a big cube main, I'm not sure I want to go if I don't qualify for at least 5x5. I'm not going to stress out over it; if I make 1:40, great, otherwise I'll just hope that there will be some state championships near me. Probably not this year in my state because of regionals, but maybe a neighboring state. And if not, regular comps are great too.

As for actual cubing progress, I modded my Meilong 6x6 and 7x7 and got some new PBs. The mods may have made me a little bit faster, but it's mostly that I like the cubes more now and want to solve them more. I got a sub-6 ao12 on 7x7 (5:51.86), a sub-4 ao12 on 6x6 (3:56.80), and a sub-3:30 single (3:21.44). I also dropped my 5x5 ao100 under 2:10.00 (2:09.27). The comp on the first page of this thread had a 6 minute cutoff time on 7x7, and I thought it was quite far out of reach for me, but now I can do it!

 

[Cubist-Guitar]

As for actual cubing progress, I modded my Meilong 6x6 and 7x7 and got some new PBs. The mods may have made me a little bit faster, but it's mostly that I like the cubes more now and want to solve them more. I got a sub-6 ao12 on 7x7 (5:51.86), a sub-4 ao12 on 6x6 (3:56.80), and a sub-3:30 single (3:21.44). I also dropped my 5x5 ao100 under 2:10.00 (2:09.27). The comp on the first page of this thread had a 6 minute cutoff time on 7x7, and I thought it was quite far out of reach for me, but now I can do it!

Yooo nice! If you need any help/critiques, I average 1:10 on 5x5, 2:20-2:25 on 6x6 and about 3:30 on 7x7, and I would be more than glad to help you! Dropping a minute off 7x7 is much easier if you know how to improve

 

[Fred]

Yooo nice! If you need any help/critiques, I average 1:10 on 5x5, 2:20-2:25 on 6x6 and about 3:30 on 7x7, and I would be more than glad to help you! Dropping a minute off 7x7 is much easier if you know how to improve

Thanks a bunch! Feel free to critique one or more of the following videos (scrambles in the description):
5x5 solve
6x6 solve
7x7 solve
Let me know if I should post an average.

 

[Fred]

Comp coming up on Saturday. It has 3x3, OH, 5x5, 6x6, pyra, and FTO. I've been focusing on 5x5 lately, and I got a couple of sub-2 ao5s in the weekly comp. I'm most excited for 5x5, 6x6, and FTO. I feel like I haven't done much with 3x3 lately except getting closer to color neutral, so maybe I'll be brave enough to do a non white/yellow solve there. I don't practice OH or pyra that much, but it will be nice to get some updated official times. This will also be my first time staffing. Another reason to be excited is that Max Park is signed up to compete!

 

[Cubinginatree]

That’s a lot of PRs!

 

[Fred]

That’s a lot of PRs!

Plus two more!
Here's some context for those times. I'm delighted to get anything on 3x3, and another sub-20 average. I ended up going all white/yellow since I was not inspecting very well. The 5x5 single is close to my PB single, and I'm very pleased with it. Also it was on blue or green cross---the blue center was a lucky start, 3 moves from 2x2x3.. My averages on 5 and 6 were not as good as I can do, but better than my global. I'm slightly disappointed since that 5x5 single was my first solve and none of the rest of my solves were sub-2. For OH, my first solve I oopsed and did 2 PLLs. I did ZZ with EOline for 4/5 solves. The odd one out had too complicated EO for me to figure out quickly, so I defaulted to CFOP with two-look OLL and got my PR single. Maybe I need to think about my choice of method. Pyraminx I'm just glad I didn't screw up any solve too badly, since I'm still a bit shaky on L4E. Instead, I had trouble making a V. On FTO, the last solve I went on tilt because I messed up building centers and somebody was making announcements about the next round and some raffle winners, but I already had a good average so I wasn't too fussed. Overall, I want to make sure to inspect until 12s, rather than panicking at 8s and starting, plus I should practice some timed inspection before my next comp.

Staffing was pretty cool. It was rather informal, just look to see where you're needed rather than being bossed around. If there were a lot of unscrambled puzzles piling up, help scramble. If there were a lot of scrambled puzzles piling up, help run or judge. Though obviously there's less room for spectating, which was a bit unfortunate given who was there, but I did get to scramble for Max Park. He seems to prefer a solid end of a turn feeling, as opposed to Caleb Chen who likes a very light feeling cube. Even Max's OH cube (Huameng TG) was like that, which surprised me. I also learned that the Aoshi 6x6 is definitely the best. My modded Meilong 6x6 is not quite as good. There was even one non-magnetic puzzle, which was a Gan 3x3. I joked that the logo is clearly more important than having magnets.

 

[Fred]

Reached 1000 solves on 5x5 with Yau:

 

[Fred]

Got a sub-5 single of 7x7 (4:55.51)! And my site kinch score on 5x5 is now above 40 after getting a 1:50.16 ao5 on the weekly comp.

I'm also working on blind. I'm learning Orozco edges as well as bits and pieces of 3-style edges. I'm sticking with OP corners for now, but I took a peek at some corner commutators and they were a lot less scary than I was expecting thanks to the 3-move setup to rotate a corner that's both fast and intuitive. I'm so glad we're no longer only doing move-optimal commutators.

 

[Fred]

A couple more 5x5 PBs: 1:38.42 single (first sub 1:40!), 1:49.35 ao5 (second sub 1:50 because I rolled my 1:49.47), and 1:59.95 ao100!

 

[Fred]

New PB single on 3x3! 11.65:

 Twizzle link 

 Setup 

U F' R U2 F2 L' B2 U2 R D2 L B2 D R2 D2 F L D2 L2

 Moves 

y' //inspection, saw easy xcross+1
R D' R' D' //xcross
U2 R U R' //2nd pair
U2 F' L F L' U R' U' R //3rd pair
U2 L' U L //4th pair
U' R2 D' R U2 R' D R U2 R //CLL
U r U R' U' r' U2 R U R U' R2 U2 R U //ELL

 

[THE_V01DL0RD]

So you use CFCE?

 

[Fred]

So you use CFCE?

Yeah, I used Roux for a while so CFCE was fewer algs to learn for two-look last layer, since CMLL and CLL have a huge amount of overlap.

 

[THE_V01DL0RD]

Yeah, I used Roux for a while so CFCE was fewer algs to learn for two-look last layer, since CMLL and CLL have a huge amount of overlap.

what do you think is better for LL, CFCE or CFOP

 

[Fred]

what do you think is better for LL, CFCE or CFOP

OLL/PLL has the advantage of a lot more resources on it. If you're willing to figure out ELL fingertricks yourself, I think CLL/ELL is pretty close, maybe slightly worse. ELL does have a few more M moves, which could mean a lower TPS cap. An advantage of ELL is that there are 8 really fast cases that are basically U perms with 0 or 2 of the unsolved edges flipped.

 

[Caleb Valenzuela]

New PB single on 3x3! 11.65:

 Twizzle link 

 Setup 

U F' R U2 F2 L' B2 U2 R D2 L B2 D R2 D2 F L D2 L2

 Moves 

y' //inspection, saw easy xcross+1
R D' R' D' //xcross
U2 R U R' //2nd pair
U2 F' L F L' U R' U' R //3rd pair
U2 L' U L //4th pair
U' R2 D' R U2 R' D R U2 R //CLL
U r U R' U' r' U2 R U R U' R2 U2 R U //ELL

proud coach

good job!

 

[Fred]

I have some competitions this weekend. I'm doing 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, 7x7, clock, sq-1, 3bld, fmc, and fto. And next weekend is 3x3, 5-7, and mega.

For blind, I've been learning Orozco and bits of 3-style, but I'll be going back to Old Pochmann for this comp. My only goal is to get a single. I'll have time for two relatively comfortable (but not too comfortable) attempts, given the cumulative time limit of 10 minutes. I have way too much pausing to think with Orozco still, and I'll get back to drilling it after. I find 3-style is kind of like f2l. You've got certain base cases, and the trick is figuring out what's the best way to set up into one of the cases you already know. And there are a handful of cases where it's best just to learn an alg.

I'm spamming clock recently to try to get my inspection sub 15s for 7-simul flip. I found a Cube Master video where he shows how to get by with only 4 numbers/letters, which is a great fallback option, but I'm still going to try to get 6. I've also switched to memorizing letters because they stick in my brain a bit better and can be combined into letter pairs, but I have to get used to what the letters mean.

 

[Fred]

I didn't get a successful blind solve. First attempt I did an extra U move during a three corner twist. Second attempt I lost a slice move somewhere in edges, and I was rushing to beat the time limit. Third attempt was DNS due to cumulative time limit.

I got a great 7x7 single of 4:38.81, nearly matching my at-home PB. Cutoff was 4:30, but I would have been delighted with any sub-5. I double PRed in FTO with a 54.15 single and 1:08.64 average. I'm just pleased to have competed twice in FTO already. FMC is next.