How would you teach the intuitive steps of solving the Rubik's Cube?

[mark49152]

Luckily my gf thinks cubing is ridiculous and pointless, so I won't be having to teach her. Great!

 

[uniacto]

Luckily my gf thinks cubing is ridiculous and pointless, so I won't be having to teach her. Great!

I'm not sure if that's a good thing, bro.

 

[JF1zl3]

Intelligence =/= spatial awareness or cubing ability.

I taught my ex girlfriend at uni how to solve the cube using a weird beginner's method I used at the time. Took a LONG time and a LOT of patience, and the hardest thing was getting her to understand the concept of the cross. Bearing in mind she spoke 8 languages fluently, had never got a grade below an A in her life, and a few months later graduated with joint 1st class honours from Oxford. Pretty smart girl.

My favourite explanation is the concept that the cube is made up of 3 axes (plural of axis, not three axes as used by lumberjacks, that would be weird), which meet in the centre. These axes are fixed, and the other pieces rotate around them. The cross is solved by moving pieces from an incorrect axis onto the correct one, with the correct flip/orientation. In order to correct the flip/orientation, you just need to take them OFF the correct axis, turn the adjacent axis, then return them to their correct axis again.

Demonstrate the movement of the pieces AROUND the axis by doing R2/whatever2 on a solved cube. Let them play with the cube for a while.

I think it just requires persistence and patience to teach anyone to solve the cube. As the saying goes - there's no such thing as a bad teacher, only a bad student. If you get frustrated with the student then they will give up. With enough patience, you can find the method that give the 'Eureka' moment for anyone solving the cube, whether they understand it mathematically, algorithmically, spatially, or what have you.

As an example, I used the axes explanation with my brother-in-law, who's a mechanic and high-school dropout. He understood immediately and solved the cross straight away (in about a minute). He then proceeded to solve the white face (albeit completely wrongly, but one face all the same colour!) with no further guidance. I showed him his mistake and he understood.

So a mechanic with little education can 'get' the concept in minutes, while it took me weeks to get through to a girl with a genius level IQ. Go figure!

Then again, the person has to want to learn. If she's not interested, make sure she's got a book/ipod/ejector seat, because 11 hours in the back of a car is a long time, especially when the car isn't parked, and your parents are in the front!!!

I have never known an effective way to explain how to flip an edge in any way until I read what you said about the adjacent axes, that is a very insightful method of teaching, thank you.

 

[JF1zl3]

Update:
Today she did it! Well actually she did it once a week ago, but with massive amounts of help, she didn't really understand notation or any algorithms, but today she can effectively solve the cube on her own.

Her time: 11:48.90
Her scramble (like it matters lol): L2 D2 B' D2 F' L2 B2 F' R2 U' F' R F' U2 F' U F2 U2 L

I taught her Green cross, so if you attempt this do green cross (or do y2 x' before the scramble for white cross), and she doesn't know relative cross, just to match the adjacent-to-green sticker to its respective center and then match the green sticker to the green center.

She still has the most trouble with the cross, but she keeps getting better, and I am so proud of her.

 

[jeffyoats]

This is an old thread lol but if someone does stumble on it and wants to learn CFOP then I have CFOP beginners guide for absolute noobs. Knowledge of basic notation is a requirement, but everything else will be taught. It covers what to do once you get the corner and edge together so I suppose a bit of knowledge with that would be necessary as well.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TbAOlcE3DjqMsBCgh5RGpmsi4N6n6veSK062h93gENU/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Cubemaster248]

That's why I wrote "If she can't intuitively figure out how to solve
the cross then she can't be able to solve the
cube, ever." My neighbor is a straight A student and she just couldn't grasp how to get the cross done, after one week of trying. I explained it once to my brother and in ten minutes he did the first layer.

I agree.
I once tried to teach about half of my class how to solve a cube. About 3 of them got the first layer and cross and stuff, but the other 12 got stuck. I know a guy who is top in the country for chess, but he can't grasp the cross. Some are talented in this field, others just aren't.