Older cubers discussions

[MarcelP]

New single pb: 11.12

Scramble:F2 U L2 D F2 D L2 R2 D2 F2 U' F' U2 L2 D R' U2 R' D' R'
z2y'//preinspection
R2 D U L2 R2 //xcross. During R2 I've noticed that it was xcross. I wasnt planning it but I thought in such cross (R2/L2 moves) it might happen.
y' U L' U2 L U L' U' L //
y U' R U R'//
y' R U R' U' R U R'//
U' R' F R U R' U' F' U R // OLL
U2// PLL
alg.cubing.net

35htm/11.12=3,15 TPS

It's a part of 17.75 ao5 which is 0.3 worse from my best and a part of 19.91 ao50.

Great solve! I had a 12.75 full step yesterday and was so happy. Unfortunatly my Ao50 was 20.01.. My times are getting worse (or I had a bad hair day).. But I enjoy practicing again so I should be back on track soon.

 

[h2f]

Thats the same, David.

I rolled my ao50 to 19.53. All solves done today between other stuff that I'm doing. In ao100 which I do since yesterday I got 56 solves sub20.

 

[Shaky Hands]

Great meeting you too. I very nearly made the same mistake on the last clock scramble too and that would have DNFed the average. Its 6 o'clock ... everywhere!

I think I know what confused me with that solve... it was the first time I'd done Clock in a comp and when I scramble at home I always start it orientated the correct way so didn't think to check for this in the comp itself. I guess it's easy to change the orientation when the judge brings the scrambled clock over. It wasn't the judge's fault though, it was mine for not checking and I'll know to check the orientation in future.

 

[mafergut]

New single pb: 11.12

Scramble:F2 U L2 D F2 D L2 R2 D2 F2 U' F' U2 L2 D R' U2 R' D' R'
z2y'//preinspection
R2 D U L2 R2 //xcross. During R2 I've noticed that it was xcross. I wasnt planning it but I thought in such cross (R2/L2 moves) it might happen.
y' U L' U2 L U L' U' L //
y U' R U R'//
y' R U R' U' R U R'//
U' R' F R U R' U' F' U R // OLL
U2// PLL
alg.cubing.net

35htm/11.12=3,15 TPS

It's a part of 17.75 ao5 which is 0.3 worse from my best and a part of 19.91 ao50.

Very, very nice solve, Grzegorz! You beat my PB for more than half a second now. I'll have to practise more

 

[h2f]

@All, thanks again, I dont want to miss anyone's post.

@Miguel, I think I'm still far away from you...

 

[Logiqx]

Phew. Quickly skimmed through the last week of posts!

Congrats on the official PBs in Exeter and unofficial PBs elsewhere in the thread. I'll watch the videos at home when I start catching up on YouTube. I haven't logged on to it in almost a week!

As expected, I didn't find much time to practice whilst I was away but I did manage to do 100 timed solves yesterday. The Ao50 and Ao100 are in my sig and felt pretty representative of my current speed. I'm looking forward to getting my practice time back!

Edit: @Jason... when did you start cubing? You seem to be improving really quickly! I may also have some tips regarding teaching as well as I've taught a number of people (9yrs to 50+) and some of my experiences may be of helpful.

 

[h2f]

19.99 ao100 with a part of 30 solves from yesterday's session.

 

[Jason Green]

Thanks. My sheet says it's best ao50. After few solves it's 19.78

Great job, awesome single! I guess sub 10 will be soon.

 

[Jason Green]

Chris, I'll let my brother know you might get a second one.

Mike I first learned to solve Petrus probably 8 years ago. I didn't practice much and would forget how when I would try again, and my best time was over 2 mins. I couldn't even read notation, I learned from Lars' animations on his site.

Then I got into speed cubing last July when I saw a high school kid's cube. I tried to show a solve to him and failed of course. He was about 1:30 so it peaked my interest, and then I found so much on YouTube! I think my previous knowledge of the cube made it easier for me to pick up CFOP (I did not know color scheme even so it was limited).

Any teaching advice would be great! I have ideas in my head but we'll see how it goes.

 

[muchacho]

@Chris Why didn't you compete in 4x4 at Exeter?

__
Skewb PBs:
Ao5: 13.138 (it was 13.405)
Ao12: 15.648 (it was 15.723)

I've forgotten the cat 1 cases, and almost how to perform the other (is it called hedge?) move

 

[mafergut]

@Chris Why didn't you compete in 4x4 at Exeter?

__
Skewb PBs:
Ao5: 13.247 (it was 13.405)
Ao12: 15.648 (it was 15.723)

I've forgotten the cat 1 cases, and almost how to perform the other (is called hedge?) move

I think he arrived late because of the car issues?

Regarding skewb, congrats for your PBs. I never got to learning more than 1 or 2 cat 1 cases and now I don't know which is which of the cases I use. I need to stop just solving and go back to learning something new here and there once in a while, because otherwise progress is kind of difficult. Yeah, the other move I also don't use is the hedge[slammer]. I am supposed to know how to do it but when I get a case where I could use it I just rotate the skewb a y2 and do a sledge

Right now, what I hate the most because it surely will spoil my time for the solve are:
- the "peanut" case for top corners, as it takes me 4 sledges (two, y rotation, and another two).
- "H-perm", I learned an alg for it but never learned to do it fast so I'm so bad at it.
- "Z-perm", never got to learn an alg for it and it takes two U-perms and a rotation in between that I mess up often
If I get a "peanut" AND a "Z-perm" in the same solve then I'm probably going over 15-18 seconds.

This week's comp scrambles were so lucky, though Almost all where 2-4 move 1st layer, easy top corners case and U-perm. So I beat my PB (1st sub-10 Ao5 ever).

 

[Logiqx]

@Chris Why didn't you compete in 4x4 at Exeter?

Car trouble... I think I read that whilst skimming through the posts.

 

[muchacho]

So many posts, I think I read everything but somehow I missed that.

 

[h2f]

I did it! After a dinner I've finished todays solves: ao100 19.66 including new single pb: 11.12.

Spoiler

Generated By csTimer on 2016-4-4
solves/total: 100/100

single
best: 11.12
worst: 25.32

mean of 3
current: 18.36 (σ = 1.08)
best: 17.22 (σ = 5.30)

avg of 5
current: 19.23 (σ = 1.31)
best: 17.75 (σ = 2.26)

avg of 12
current: 19.89 (σ = 1.79)
best: 18.56 (σ = 1.82)

avg of 50
current: 19.80 (σ = 1.71)
best: 19.46 (σ = 1.44)

avg of 100
current: 19.66 (σ = 1.60)
best: 19.66 (σ = 1.60)

Average: 19.66 (σ = 1.60)
Mean: 19.68

Time List:
19.73, 19.78, 20.62, 21.91, 16.68, 19.52, 18.02, 22.91, 19.76, 18.21, 21.17, 18.62, 18.33, 17.86, 19.30, 21.53, 21.92, 22.51, 15.41, 17.92, 22.96, 11.12, 19.91, 20.63, 16.63, 18.11, 17.29, 19.23, 19.26, 21.17, 17.95, 18.25, 24.36, 21.35, 19.83, 20.59, 19.54, 19.14, 18.58, 19.92, 22.40, 18.65, 17.30, 20.85, 19.13, 17.73, 20.26, 19.47, 19.16, 21.02, 18.91, 18.53, 19.23, 21.53, 17.13, 24.35, 17.82, 20.85, 19.28, 19.80, 22.11, 18.27, 21.40, 20.23, 19.03, 18.35, 18.38, 24.56, 16.57, 21.45, 19.74, 18.85, 25.32, 18.80, 19.62, 17.88, 19.74, 16.05, 20.03, 17.13, 23.30, 21.29, 18.39, 19.88, 20.11, 19.41, 18.49, 22.88, 24.92, 22.11, 15.83, 17.42, 21.06, 19.41, 21.63, 20.31, 21.84, 19.61, 17.78, 17.70

 

[muchacho]

Congrats!

More than half a second improvement (20.18) must feel great (and be difficult and rare once below 20 seconds).

 

[mafergut]

Congratulations, Grzegorz!!! Very nice Ao100 and very good small (5, 12) averages in there as well.

 

[h2f]

Awsome feeling. I'm exausted... My previous ao100 was made more than month ago that's why the gap is so big. Although I havent done it in one session but solves were done whole day when I had a break from other stuff, I count it as an ao100. Maybe soon I will have enough time to do it in one sitting.

 

[Logiqx]

Any teaching advice would be great! I have ideas in my head but we'll see how it goes.

Perhaps the biggest surprise when trying to teach people is how much longer it takes than expected. I've taught 3 people individually and 2 people simultaneously (lunchtime sessions at work). In total, it's generally taken about 2-3 hours to teach individuals and 3-4 hours to teach multiple people.

The approach I took for my work colleagues (2 people at once) was 4 sessions using carefully prepared cheat sheets. I thought the sessions would be 20-30 minutes each but they actually took 40-60 minutes for the skills to stick:

1) Cube background (basic facts, 43 quintillion positions, etc) and the "cross"
2) F2L - corners then edges (URU'R' + U'L'UL + y / y' rotations)
3) LL steps 1+2 (EO - FUR, CP - Niklas)
4) LL steps 3+4 (CO - Sune, EP - Sune + Lefty Mirror)

Lesson 1 - Cross

Teaching people to directly solve the cross is surprisingly hard. Teaching individuals you can manage it but as soon as you're teaching multiple people, I'd recommend the "daisy" approach where you place white edges around the yellow centre first. This makes it MUCH easier to begin with and once they can solve the cube you can transition them to solving the cross directly.

Lesson 2 - F2L

Unconventionally, I chose to use URU'R' to insert to the FR corner (U'L'UL for the FL corner) because it's more intuitive (IMHO) and you can re-use the same alg for the middle layer edges. Everyone grasps this approach really quickly. The middle layer edges then use the lefty or righty alg to start plus a rotation followed by re-insertion of the corner (point this out and they never forget the last 4 moves). Again this was pretty easy for everyone.

Lesson 3 - EO + CP

Using the FUR algorithm is good for two reasons. Firstly, it orients the edges twice as often as FRU and secondly it uses the exact same algorithm used during F2L, just with F / F' added to the start / end. Using Niklas for CP is the easiest option IMHO. Everyone that I've taught grasps Niklas immediately (teach them to watch the F2L pairs) whereas A-perm is more challenging to remember and easier to mess up.

Lesson 4 - CO + EP

Basic Sune is easy to teach if you show the F2L pair moving around in the U layer. I would advise against teaching a mirror / inverse to beginners as it just adds complexity. When they've done a dozen solves, tell them how / when they can use lefty Sune. I teach Sune and it's lefty mirror as a simple U-perm. This step is effectively "free" and does not require any new algorithms, just the lefty mirror of Sune. I'd advise against teaching them to distinguish between Ua and Ub until they done a dozen solves at which point you can tell them to apply righty+lefty or lefty+righty depending on the 3-cycle case.


I can't prepare you for how difficult some people find the cross... it can be quite staggering! Keep it simple and go for the daisy approach right away, especially when teaching a group. Make it as easy as possible to solve the cube initially.

One of my colleagues went away and went on to teach his sister-in-law who had previously tried YouTube videos and given up. Apparently she thought my approach was a lot easier and it has to be a good sign that days after my lessons he was able to use the same approach to teach another person.

Once they're able to solve the cube you can introduce things such as RUR' for corners, FRU for edge oriention and savvy use of lefty/righty Sune for CO/EP. Anyone who is interested in speed solving can be switched to the traditional EO+CO+CP+EP and taught proper permutation algs leading them towards 4LLL and beyond.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[Jason Green]

Thanks that is great advice! I was actually planning to do OLL and PLL with simplified algs, but your suggestion is probably much better. I'll have to review what Niklas is I don't recall all the Petrus names (didn't he come up with the names?)

What is FUR? Just the FURU'R'F' that you would do for EO in 2 look PLL?

 

[Logiqx]

Thanks that is great advice! I was actually planning to do OLL and PLL with simplified algs, but your suggestion is probably much better. I'll have to review what Niklas is I don't recall all the Petrus names (didn't he come up with the names?)

What is FUR? Just the FURU'R'F' that you would do for EO in 2 look PLL?

Niklas - R U' L' U R' U' L (U) swaps corners on right
FUR - F (U R U' R') F'

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