Fred
Member
Hi, I'm Fred. I apparently have an account from ages ago when I first got into speedsolving, but I've been inactive for well over a decade, so I thought I'd reintroduce myself. I started cubing in 2006 and went to one competition at Caltech. I used CFOP (Fridrich back in the day) and got a sub-30 average and also did OH and BLD. Unfortunately I triple-DNFed BLD. There were a lot of people in the BLD event, and most of them also triple DNFed. I think Tyson Mao and Leyan Lo were teaching a lot of their classmates how to do 3BLD at the time. However, I didn't manage to get other people into speedcubing at my school, so my interest faded a bit, though I did get the V-Cubes 5 through 7. I solved them using a direct solving method based on Roux, so I also switched to Roux on 3x3. My best achievement was teaching a non-cuber friend of mine how to come up with her own algs using commutators to solve the cube. I didn't teach her any algs at all---she came up with all of them herself.
Recently, a friend of mine showed me a math paper about Rubik's cubes, so I dug out my old cubes and got back into it, and also ordered several new ones that are so much better. I especially like the removable center caps that don't fall off accidentally, and the stickerless pieces. It's so much easier to find the pieces on a megaminx when I'm looking for pure purple (for example) instead of purple on black. I love the magnets in big cubes so I don't have to realign the layers every so often. I'm also interested in FMC. I'm not good at domino reduction and I'm worse at what comes after, but EO, (pseudo) blockbuilding, NISS, and commutator insertions are fun and get me pretty far. For 3x3, I've forgotten most of my OLLs and PLLs, and I'm slowly learning CMLL right now. I've got a 2x2 on the way, which will hopefully encourage me to drill those algs.
Recently, a friend of mine showed me a math paper about Rubik's cubes, so I dug out my old cubes and got back into it, and also ordered several new ones that are so much better. I especially like the removable center caps that don't fall off accidentally, and the stickerless pieces. It's so much easier to find the pieces on a megaminx when I'm looking for pure purple (for example) instead of purple on black. I love the magnets in big cubes so I don't have to realign the layers every so often. I'm also interested in FMC. I'm not good at domino reduction and I'm worse at what comes after, but EO, (pseudo) blockbuilding, NISS, and commutator insertions are fun and get me pretty far. For 3x3, I've forgotten most of my OLLs and PLLs, and I'm slowly learning CMLL right now. I've got a 2x2 on the way, which will hopefully encourage me to drill those algs.
