[Paper] The Unusual Symmetry of the Elite Mod

[7ombie]

The Elite Mod creates novel geometry that could potentially ruin your cube if you do not understand it. QiYi know about this, and opted for a mitigation strategy on the Valk 3 Elite M. The community (as far as can tell) are completely unaware of this, as every tutorial gets it wrong.

While QiYi opted to mitigate the issue, you can also invert and exploit the geometry to create a novel (but powerful) side-effect, similar to the core magnets introduced by the GAN 11 Pro and Duo. I'm not sure if QiYi ever realized that this was possible. In any case, I've written it all up and illustrated everything, and am attaching a short report as a PDF. I hope the community find it useful.

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EDIT: This issue, and the potential to exploit it, was mentioned, in this forum, by @xyzzy, back in October 2020. The document has been updated to reflect that. Nonetheless, the modding community remains largely unaware of this stuff, and the doc contains other useful information for anyone looking into the Elite Mod.

 

[xyzzy]

The community (as far as can tell) are completely unaware of this

ahem

(edit) Interesting observations about how centre-edge magnetisation would interact with maglev, and definitely very nice illustrations in the paper too.

 

[7ombie]

Hey @xyzzy. Thanks for the link. I searched everywhere for more information, but didn't find any of that.

I'm thinking to edit the doc, and change the tone to just simple documentation, or maybe just cannibalize the most useful stuff for the wiki or something. I need to properly look into the stuff you pointed me to first. Thanks again.

 

[7ombie]

P.S. Whatever I end up doing, I will include a prop to you for spotting this first, @xyzzy.

None of the tutorials mention the issue (on YouTube - I can't find anything written), and they often mod cubes with relatively centered tractor magnets, so the issue is still worth documenting.

 

[7ombie]

I updated the doc (and the original post), renaming the mod after @xyzzy (is it pronounced zee-zee?) and crediting @xyzzy for proposing it.

There's a new note in there that explains that tractor magnets will always attract slightly more than repel in practice, basically due to the cube not being perfectly rigid, so the magnets pull together slightly when they attract, and push apart slightly when they repel. If you've read the doc, there's nothing else you haven't seen already.

I don't think I could easily move the content to the wiki, as the doc introduces too much unconventional terminology, and it'd be painful explaining everything without introducing some terms.

Thank you for the feedback, guys. Much appreciated.

 

[xyzzy]

is it pronounced zee-zee?

There's no canonical pronunciation since it's a nonsense word, but that works, haha. (Wiktionary does have that as the example pronunciation.) Anyway, I'm probably not the first to have noticed the interaction so I'm not sure if I deserve credit for it; if someone else says they thought of it even earlier, would you rename it again for them too?

The magnet interaction was actually also mentioned in Picubeshop's video about the MS V1 (original in Chinese; translation by me):
Dialogue: 0,0:01:15.67,0:01:19.94,Default,,0,0,0,,The dual magnet version also feels a bit like the Valk 3 Elite.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:19.94,0:01:28.20,Default,,0,0,0,,That said, unlike the Valk 3 Elite, the centre magnets of the dual magnet version are not placed on the sides of the centre and edge pieces,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:28.20,0:01:31.82,Default,,0,0,0,,but rather on the base of the centre piece and on top of the edge foot.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:31.82,0:01:36.03,Default,,0,0,0,,This avoids the magnet interaction between edge pieces when a layer is turned 45 degrees.

 

[7ombie]

> I'm probably not the first to have noticed the interaction so I'm not sure if I deserve credit for it; if someone else says they thought of it even earlier, would you rename it again for them too?

@xyzzy - Plausibly, but probably not.

I originally called it the Ghetto Mod, as it inverts the Elite Mod, but changed it to the Elite Inversion at the last minute. I never really liked the Elite Inversion though. It's sounds pretentious, especially when I'm already talking about tractor arrays and matrices.

On the other hand, I think the Xyzzy Mod is good name. It has a nice community vibe that captures the history. Of course, it may turn out that somebody somewhere noticed it even earlier, but I'm sharing it with this community, so only need names that make sense "round here", and you were the first on this forum.

Ultimately, I don't control the language. I can introduce whatever terms and names I want to use in my own writing, but only the community can turn any of them into conventions. People will either adopt the name or come up with something else. I just needed something better than the Elite Inversion to improve my own work, and naming it after you made sense to me.

If you explicitly insisted that I not use your name, I'd obviously respect that, but if you're just being modest, I really think Xyzzy Mod is a good name for it