Older cubers discussions

JanW said:
Hi there cubers! Mind if I join the fun, despite being a youngster in my mid 30s? I've been lurking this thread for a while now, and I must say it is very inspirational to see the progress of all you guys.

I got myself a rubik's brand cube a few years ago and learned some beginner's method for solving it, but then it lay on the shelf for a few years, until I picked it up again about 3 weeks ago. Last few weeks I've been trying to learn intuitive F2L and experimenting with some other techniques as well. Also realized that the rubik's brand is way too heavy to turn and ordered a couple of ZhanChis, which I finally got last week.

Yesterday I decided it's time to see where I stand, so I installed a timer app and did two sets of 50 solves. Here are the results:

View attachment 5576

Very happy to (barely) average under one minute. Also happy to say that the fastest 43s solve did not include any skips. :)

For now I will focus on getting more comfortable with F2L. That is by far the slowest part of my solve. My goal at the moment is to get faster in small steps, next milestone would be the 50 second barrier. I think I can get there quite fast by improving F2L.

I'll try to post progress updates with Ao50s or Ao100s at least every week, and at some point I must figure out a way to set up a video camera so that I can get better feedback on my solves. Though the next week I will spend mostly doing slow F2L solves instead of timed solves. Possibly I'll try practicing with a metronome, which I read could be a good technique. At least that wouldn't be anything new to me. As a professional pianist, I've done thousands of hours of metronome drills in the past.
Click to expand...
Welcome! I had a same start like you around July this year, having learned to solve a long time ago. For me, I advanced to the low 30s pretty quickly, it's been a bit slower since but I'm still loving it! :)
 
Thanks all! And thank you Marcel for that video, was very helpful. Did some fine tuning of my stickerless and it feels much better now.

SenorJuan said:
It would be interesting to see how metronome training works for you, I personally found it unsuitable, solves aren't naturally 'smooth', cube rotations in particular affect things, and there are times when bursts of speed are OK, times when slower is more helpful.
Click to expand...
I'll be interested to see how that works as well. Made myself a little training schedule today for the next few days. Will take on the problem just like I did with finger exercises back in the days at the music academy. Will let you know the results by the end of the week.
 
It's been kind of quiet here... It's a little depressing when there aren't any posts to read. :)

I've kind of got 29 of the OLLs memorized. Although not real well yet. I think I took too many at once so I'm kind of getting them mixed up still. :) I'll get there eventually.

I also joined the race to sub 30 thread so that's exciting. I've kind of plateaued still, and probably working on the OLLs has temporarily slowed me down, but it's all good. ;)

What else is up?
 
I'm drilling Turbo in 3bld and some easy comms for edges. Best time 1:17 - not so bad but avg around 2 minutes. Also I plan to make some sessions with cross (blind cross, fast cross, cross, cross, cross) - it's my weakest point. I can make cross in 2 seconds, but often in 5 or more. Sometimes I do cross in 8-10 seconds and finish a solove in around 25 or little over. I've realized I could be sub-20 or around if I make my cross more efficient.
 
I've been practicing with the megaminx, so time consuming... but I like it, I've solved it less that 10 times, with around 20 minutes being the best.

One question, it's a stickerless yuhu and I have trouble differentiating (at least) one of the colors from other, do you think it would be possible (and competition legal) to spray paint (or maybe just use a permanent marker) to change one of the colors (or two)?
 
Well, here I am trying to diversify what I solve, after a year or more focused in becoming sub-20 at 3x3 and having a hard time with it.
In particular this week I've been doing 2x2, trying to learn some more algs for Ortega/Varasano, like PBL for diag swap on top / bar on bottom to avoid a z2 rotation and still pending, hopefully for this weekend, some shorter algs to replace T and Y perms, that I still use in 2x2 for bar / solved and diag swap / solved cases. Also trying to focus in predicting AUF while executing PBL so that I don't have to pause (I keep doing the AUF wrong many, many times) and trying also to concentrate in not grasping the cube too firmly to avoid catching. I managed to get my 1st (barely) sub-7 Ao100 so, happy with that.
 
I tried practicing F2L with metronome, but then I realized it's too early for that. Even at the slowest speeds I couldn't recognize the case and see the solution fast enough, so I kept making too many mistakes and unnecessary moves. Instead I went back to just doing it at my own pace, looking at the case, figuring out what moves are necessary, then execute the moves. I need to work on that for a while to make recognition faster and get more familiar with the different cases.

But practice payed off so far. I did a 53.7 Ao50 today, that's about 6 seconds faster than 3 days ago. I also timed some LL only solves and found I average that in about 15 seconds (with recognition). That puts cross+F2L at almost 40 seconds, so still plenty to shave off. For now I'm aiming at having F2L done in 30 seconds, which should bring total times down to about 45.
 
Improvement is here to stay (apparently) :)

Generated By csTimer on 2015-10-23
solves/total: 101/101

single
best: 13.39
worst: 25.43

mean of 3
current: 19.68 (σ = 5.13)
best: 15.57 (σ = 1.95)

avg of 5
current: 18.51 (σ = 1.37)
best: 15.88 (σ = 1.46)

avg of 12
current: 18.08 (σ = 1.39)
best: 16.96 (σ = 0.78)

avg of 50
current: 18.28 (σ = 1.35)
best: 17.80 (σ = 1.44)

avg of 100
current: 18.09 (σ = 1.43)
best: 18.06 (σ = 1.40)

Average: 18.09 (σ = 1.38)
Mean: 18.13
 
Whoa Marcel. Nice!

And me: 18.99 ao5 at the moment. In the middle of the week my best ao5 was around 23 seconds - I had a lot stuff in the job in the last time, but now I have a few days of rest.
 
muchacho said:
I've been practicing with the megaminx, so time consuming... but I like it, I've solved it less that 10 times, with around 20 minutes being the best.

One question, it's a stickerless yuhu and I have trouble differentiating (at least) one of the colors from other, do you think it would be possible (and competition legal) to spray paint (or maybe just use a permanent marker) to change one of the colors (or two)?
Click to expand...

I think it would be up to the delegate's discretion if that changed the feeling of the pieces. I would personally try dyeing the pieces. Rit Dyes come in many colors and some quick searches turned up instructions for dyeing plastic beads. I suspect the instructions would be exactly the same for cube parts.
 
Great to see the wide variety of things other oldies are working on. And nice PBs Marcel :)

I'm still concentrating on 3BLD. The majority of my successes are now around 2:20-2:40 but my averages are dragged down by a significant number of more difficult solves of around 3:30+.

I also did some 3x3 speed averages this week expecting my times to be worsened, as they were when I started BLD, but was pleasantly suprised to see them around 18 secs, which is where I've been plateaued for several months now. So not worse, at least :D
 
First properly timed (Prisma Puzzle Timer) Megaminx solve, 13:41.64.

I'm trying to see if someday I may come close to a competition worthy time, 5 minutes would be fine? what are usually the cutoff times? 3 minutes?
 
muchacho said:
First properly timed (Prisma Puzzle Timer) Megaminx solve, 13:41.64.

I'm trying to see if someday I may come close to a competition worthy time, 5 minutes would be fine? what are usually the cutoff times? 3 minutes?
Click to expand...

Cutoffs are unfortunately usually around 2:30 or 2 minutes. Do you use a specific S2L order?
 
No, i should? I randomly choose one color, solve the 3 pieces under the center and then I continue to the next color to the right or the left, when all ¿arrows? are finished I put the remaining pieces as I see them.

I add the pieces one by one, I suppose I should learn to make pairs and insert them, right?
 
muchacho said:
No, i should? I randomly choose one color, solve the 3 pieces under the center and then I continue to the next color to the right or the left, when all ¿arrows? are finished I put the remaining pieces as I see them.

I add the pieces one by one, I suppose I should learn to make pairs and insert them, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is recommended that you choose an S2L order, because it will make finding pieces easier since you have specific pieces to find. Most people use either Simon Westlund's, Balint Bodor's or Yu Da Hyun's.

Westlund and Balint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxWrXrXlEs0&list=PLJ1BFt1hZm2rIeW_2dpDYuUb6xxD6H3UI&index=3
Balint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkLahEn83n4
Yu Da-Hyun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-H3V7XGxE
 
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