Well done.
I'd be interesting to hear more detail if you have time.
e.g. What method you taught. What they picked up easily and what was harder than expected. What would you teach differently next time if not the method itself but in the way you explained it?
I've taught people at various levels and I find this an interesting side to cubing.
Sure! I taught LBL using two algs to do the edges of the second layer, then taught them really basic last layer algs. For the last layer the steps were 1. Orient edges 2. Permute edges 3. Permute corners 4. Orient corners using commutators. 6 algorithms total for the last layer if you count the corner commutator.
Their difficulties: For the cross I explained that it not only had the be all of the edges of a cross, but that it had to be in the correct spot so that it matched both centers, instead of just the cross color that they were working on. This is this biggest trouble that they had with solving, but they finally got it. When first learning notation for algs, they would sometimes turn it the wrong way and do like R instead of R' which would mess up stuff that they already solved. I did a lot of examples of how to not mess up algs though, so they got past that really good. For the second layer, they would sometimes solve the wrong edge and stuff, but they learned pretty quick.
What they learned easily: They picked up the last layer extremely quickly which was the opposite of what I expected. Another thing that they do good is that I got them all to be color neutral which was one of my goals after someone on this thread suggested it. I guess once they were comfortable with the second layer edge algs and notation it msde other algs easoer to learn.
What I would teach differently: I would definitely allow more time to teach. I kind've over estimated their abilities and forgot about the troubles that I had when I first learned. I would come at the cross from different angles since they had the most troubles with that.
How did you taught them the cross? It's very intuitive and I guess hard to teach, so this would be interesting.
That is exactly what I was expecting, but for most of them the cross was not intuitive. They had no troubles getting all of the edges of a certain color, but would put them in the wrong place and have edges that needed to be switched. They also had trouble with getting the last edge of the cross, if all 3 of them were solved, but the last one couldn't be solved wthout messing them up they got stuck. I showed them that they could temporarily misplace an edge in order to solve the last edge (basically the sledgehammer).
Overall this was a fun experience and I am glad that I was able to get other people interested in cubing
