The One-Answer Question Thread [closed]

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Hi, guys, may i know if z stickers for megaminx allow for application using application tape for the dayan minx? Without ridges
And, does ss mini 7x7 core ( the white one, not the whole thing)work in the normal ss7x7?
 
Machine said:
how fast can one possibly get using beginners method?
Click to expand...

I believe some uber fast cubers are sub 20 with beginners. Not sure the fastest that has been recorded, but I'd expect somewhere in the 12-14 second region.

Not that you'd want to persist with beginners as your main method.
 
I have a question;
in reading this forum iv come across many terms i do not recognize, such as say a U perm and other perms that i dont understand. can anyone answer this for me? if this is in the wrong place i apologize as i did not think this question required its own thread.
 
Alive said:
I have a question;
in reading this forum iv come across many terms i do not recognize, such as say a U perm and other perms that i dont understand. can anyone answer this for me? if this is in the wrong place i apologize as i did not think this question required its own thread.
Click to expand...

You posted this in the right place.

U perm (U permutation) and other perms usually refers to a PLL (permutation of the last layer). clicky
Most common terms are probably going to be found somewhere in here

This might help a little
You can always try to search the wiki or something (wiki isn't always updated) for terms that you don't understand and you can always just ask here if you don't know what the term means.
 
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Yuxuibbs said:
U perm (U permutation) and other perms usually refers to a PLL (permutation of the last layer). clicky


This might help a little
You can always try to search the wiki or something (wiki isn't always updated) for terms that you don't understand and you can always just ask here if you don't know what the term means.

You posted this in the right place.
Click to expand...

thanks and also on the notation page of speedsolving wiki i didnt understand the description of multilayer movement "On the 4x4x4 and larger puzzles, single-layer turns are not enough to fully scramble or solve the puzzle. Thus there are notations to describe turns of multiple layers on the same face. A double-layer turn, for instance, might include both the outside layer and the parallel layer touching it.

Double-layer turns are also popular in algorithms for the 3x3x3. There are two main ways to write this, using the U face as an example:

Uw - this notation is widely used by Japanese cubers and was recently adopted by the WCA.
u - this notation is often preferred by English-speaking cubers, and originally appeared for writing down 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 moves.

For turns of more than two layers, it is impossible to use single letters to write down turns, but a popular proposal is to use numbers to show the number of layers that are being turned. There are several ways to write these turns, using the U face as an example and 3 as an example number of layers, but the best is either 3U or 3u, because putting the number after the letter can cause confusion when there is a half turn (giving it the suffix 2)."
 
aboeglin said:
You got it right about triggers yes. But don't learn triggers to learn triggers, but rather try to split the algs the way you find it easier to execute. And when learning a new alg, try to see if there are triggers that you've been using already, if so, it should make it much easier to perform and learn. Also, different cubers might split algs differently because of different fingertricks. Also, I don't know this alg, but it doesn't seem handy to perform, try to avoid B moves in algs. So for this one you could start with x' so your Bs become Us, your Rs stay Rs, and your Fs becomes Ds.

And, I hear your frustration, I still don't perform full PLL very well, but what I like in it is that I know I'll get better at it with time so I don't put too much effort on this for now, I still strongly focus on F2L, which is the real bottleneck. If I get my F2L done in less than 20sec I'm most likely to get a sub30 solve, but if I can't, it's much harder except I have an OLL or PLL skip.

If I were you I'd start with F2L if you haven't already. Just practice F2L only for a day or two, doing a few complete solves from time to time, and once you can solve F2L pairs confidently you start doing full solves again until you get sub60. Your LL will definitely get better, but you need to deal with the fact that you learned a bunch of algs in a short amount of time and it takes much more to master them.
Click to expand...

Hi! Thanks for everything! I've narrowed down my time to roughly 1:30. I began to average 1:28, but when I let go of the cube for a few days, my times dropped back to 1:45-2:00. I'm very frustrated at the times it take me to complete the first layer. I've almost mastered 4LLL now and I practice solving each orientation state before I do timed solves. I attacked F2L and have chipped away at 8 algs. I try to do the algs and then watch how the first layer corners and middle layer pieces are put together and inserted in place. It still confuses me, though, mostly since I try to learn an alg and its mirror (for those that have mirrors) at the same time. I thought it was basically learning the same alg twice, but it only gets confusing.
Does anyone have any tips for F2L and maybe how to get my first layer cross in under 20 seconds?
 
martydj123 said:
Hi! Thanks for everything! I've narrowed down my time to roughly 1:30. I began to average 1:28, but when I let go of the cube for a few days, my times dropped back to 1:45-2:00. I'm very frustrated at the times it take me to complete the first layer. I've almost mastered 4LLL now and I practice solving each orientation state before I do timed solves. I attacked F2L and have chipped away at 8 algs. I try to do the algs and then watch how the first layer corners and middle layer pieces are put together and inserted in place. It still confuses me, though, mostly since I try to learn an alg and its mirror (for those that have mirrors) at the same time. I thought it was basically learning the same alg twice, but it only gets confusing.
Does anyone have any tips for F2L and maybe how to get my first layer cross in under 20 seconds?
Click to expand...

Watch Badmephisto's cross tutorial. Job done.

Also, strongly agree with Phillip, DON'T use algorithmic F2L. All basic intuitive F2L involves is setting up pieces into one of two states: one where the pair is made in the U layer, and can be inserted using U R U' R' (or similar); the other case is where the pieces are on opposite sides of the U face, with opposite edge colours facing up, and can be inserted using R U R'. Everything else in intuitive F2l effectively boils down to setup moves for these cases. I only use two algs for F2L, both for 'stuck piece' cases, where the intuitive solution is really inefficient. Here's 'intuitive' F2L in a nutshell:

1. Find edge and corner
2. If they are stuck together, separate them
3. Set up either an U R U' R' or R U R' case
4. Insert
5. Back to 1

You will notice patterns, which will make you more efficient, but don't learn F2L cases and algs, it will fill your mind with unnecessary clutter. You'll notice that most of the F2L 'algs' you're learning end in either URU'R' or RUR'. That's because all they do is set up one of these basic cases. Instead of learning these algs, look at what they do in order to set up the basic inserts, and try to replicate this yourself. Without algs!

Good luck.
 
martydj123 said:
Hi! Thanks for everything! I've narrowed down my time to roughly 1:30. I began to average 1:28, but when I let go of the cube for a few days, my times dropped back to 1:45-2:00. I'm very frustrated at the times it take me to complete the first layer. I've almost mastered 4LLL now and I practice solving each orientation state before I do timed solves. I attacked F2L and have chipped away at 8 algs. I try to do the algs and then watch how the first layer corners and middle layer pieces are put together and inserted in place. It still confuses me, though, mostly since I try to learn an alg and its mirror (for those that have mirrors) at the same time. I thought it was basically learning the same alg twice, but it only gets confusing.
Does anyone have any tips for F2L and maybe how to get my first layer cross in under 20 seconds?
Click to expand...

Yes I have a tip for you F2L. Don't look up algs. Just practice it and try to understand how the pieces are put together, it is usually not that hard. Either the pieces are separated with say, a corner in a slot. Most of the time you can take it on the top layer and pair it with the edge at the same time. Other cases are a little less straight forward but you'll get them. Other common cases are the ones where the pieces are already together, but not oriented correctly, for these most of the time it consists of separating them and putting them back together the correct way, or coming back to the basic case where you have two different colors on the U face of your pair cubies and solving it with RUR' and such. Inconsistent progress is going to follow you all the way down. There are days I can average more or less 30sec, other days I am at 35, and I heard many people more or less sub20 saying this too.

About your cross, go on youtube and check badmephisto advanced cross video. What I did until about sub50 was aligning each corner edge with its face. So the blue/white ( white cross ), would be aligned so that the blue side of the edge matches the blue center of the blue face, and then I would just need to rotate it to get it down and solve the piece. What I do now, I put every corner edge on the bottom face with white on bottom so that. The only restriction is to keep the order of the edges which is a little confusing at first. You already know opposite colors I suppose, so orange opposite red and green opposite blue. And then if you remember the WCA orientation which is white on top, green on front, orange on left and red on right, you can easily remember the order once you white cross is on bottom. You just invert it, meaning orange goes to right and red to left. Also, avoid cube rotations during cross, even if you have to do a B or F move. Cross is usually not that much about tps since you can get it under 6-7 moves most of the time. Also, worst cases are the ones where you have an edge on the top layer which is inverted, meaning a R2 F2 L2 or B2 is not going to solve it. For these, the best is to use the turn of another face to orient it. Take a solved cube and perform : R F' U'. The cross is solved except two pieces. You see that if you perform an F move you're going to solve one more edge, but it'll leave you with an incorrectly oriented edge on the top layer which you absolutely wanna avoid. Therefore to solve it the most efficiently, the idea is to use this F move to orient the edge on the top layer. So you want to bring this edge on the front face to benefit from this F move that you'll have to perform anyway. So the good way to solve the case would be to do U F R'. And a last thing, try to plan as many moves as you can for the cross, even if inspection takes a minute or more. While doing slow solves you can count how many moves you perform to solve the cross. If it's more than 10-11 it's definitely bad, if its in the range 8-10 and you feel comfortable with the moves I guess it's ok ( I myself sometimes end up with 12 moves but I use one or two triggers such as R'uR'u' ( changes the orientation of the edge on RD ). So if I see that I can do a quick cross but would eventually end up with an incorrectly oriented edge on the R or L face, I use this trigger which is really fast to perform ( left version is : Lu'Lu ). This is in badmephisto's video along with other good tips.

Also, obviously you've been through a lot of things to improve lately, 4LLL, F2L, they all take some time to improve. But keep doing full solves for now, the more you go on, the more you'll understand about how pieces move, you'll find shortcuts for cross and F2L, you'll get better at drilling algs and recognizing F2L / LL cases. I bet at the moment you have a lot of unsure moves and pauses that your timer does not forget. So, until you're sub60 or sub50 I wouldn't worry too much, it'll happen so fast that you'll soon be asking about how to get sub40.

Phillip1847 said:
Generally, learning algorithms is not the way to go in F2L.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-xbcAMfWwM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GxLM_dZqg4
might want to watch these videos.
I don't know how you are doing your cross, but just solving the cube over and over got my cross down to like 5-6 seconds, then I had to focus a bit and I think its a little faster now.
Click to expand...
I got a sub4 cross at 32sec average, so I believe with your times your cross must be at least sub3 by now !

Edit:

Also, one more reason not to go for F2L algs : most of the time they assume the only empty slot you have is the one that you'll solve. This would be the worst case, meaning you'll drill an alg that is longer that what you could solve in 75% of the cases ( since 75% of the F2L pairs you solve are done with 2 or more empty slots ). So, knowing that you have additional empty slots gives you additional freedom to hide corners or edges. What I do to practice F2L at the moment is taking a case, and try to reproduce it, then solve it. All intuitively of course, and I repeat it until it is in muscle memory. What makes it especially hard to learn is that there is a huge amount of cases than can happen ( actually much more than the 41 ( +1 solved case ), since you can also have all these cases with empty slots, and for each case you should be able to solve it in the 4 slots ( so it's 4x41 at least, even though there are lots and lots of mirrors ). The idea on the long run, is to have them all in muscle memory so that when you find your two pieces, you can execute the moves while "looking ahead", which can only happen once you're really confident at solving F2L pairs from every angle.
 
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martydj123 said:
Hi! Thanks for everything! I've narrowed down my time to roughly 1:30. I began to average 1:28, but when I let go of the cube for a few days, my times dropped back to 1:45-2:00. I'm very frustrated at the times it take me to complete the first layer. I've almost mastered 4LLL now and I practice solving each orientation state before I do timed solves. I attacked F2L and have chipped away at 8 algs. I try to do the algs and then watch how the first layer corners and middle layer pieces are put together and inserted in place. It still confuses me, though, mostly since I try to learn an alg and its mirror (for those that have mirrors) at the same time. I thought it was basically learning the same alg twice, but it only gets confusing.
Does anyone have any tips for F2L and maybe how to get my first layer cross in under 20 seconds?
Click to expand...

I will further support everyone's suggestion. You should learn F2L intuitively, NOT with algorithms. It is actually easier to most people to do it intuitively, and moreover, learning it intuitively will force you to learn your cube better, recognize cases/colors, and just overall enhance your solving ability. Furthermore, most people go back after he or she has learned F2L (intuitively) and will pick 3 or so cases that are difficult, and just learn the algorithms. The algorithms should only be used to enhance your abilities once you learn F2L intuitively.
 
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