Two Moves Method

[campos20]

I'm pretty sure this is a new method and I'm not the inventor of it. I'm going to make a material on it and I thought the idea should be published here (for brainstorm, sharing and giving the proper credits). The inventor is Gabriel Dechichi Barbar and it's already explained here (portuguese).

Aim: A method to solve the 3x3 children friendly.
About: 8 steps, based on LBL/CFOP.
Pros: Use of no algs or notation, just two moves.
Cons: Common beginner's method cons (slow execution, lots of steps...) and it doesn't give too much ground for improving.
Prerequisites: understanding that there are 3 types of pieces (centers, edges, corners) and that the center are fixed (and they establish the color's face).

Although we're assuming you are teaching kids, this can be used to teach people of all ages (starting perhaps at 6 years old). Here, I'm going to describe the method and give some tips to teach kids, based on my experience. The notes on Spoilers are intended for you, the Teacher, not for the kids.

The two moves

• Move 1 right hand

• Move 2 right hand

• Move 1 left hand

• Move 2 left hand

The cube is in front view.

Spoiler

Personally, for Move 1 I say: Hide, Up, Back, Down.
For Move 1 Right we hide this sticker (pink)

on the left face.

Spoiler

Blue face is F, what makes Move 2 be Sexy Move (R U R' U') and Move 1 its inverse (U R U' R').

Tip: First, teach the kid about centers, edges and corners and tell we are going to keep, most of the time, white on bottom and yellow on top.

Step 1 - White cross in Yellow​

This step can be done intuitively of skipped. Note that the white cross must be done in the opposite color to white (usually yellow).

Tip: if it's difficult for the kid to achieve this, split it in two cases: easy and hard.

Easy case: white in the middle.

Just put the white on top.

Spoiler

If it's on the right side, do R. If it's on left, do L'.

Hard case: white is on top or bottom.

Hard case is not really hard. It's more about a different name kid friendly.

Do a rotation to turn the hard case into easy case.

Spoiler

If white is on top or bottom, do an F move.

Tip: sometimes, in easy case, there's already a white in place. We call this One Above The Other. You have to take it out of the way first. Just rotate the top.

Spoiler

Do U moves until the spot is clear.

Spoiler

Before performing any of the previous, first ask the kid to locate and point a white edge, without lifting the cube from the table. Ask him/her to locate by rotating the entire cube keeping the yellow on top. Kids tend to randomly rotate the cube and get lost or select corner. The strange case here is when the white is on the white face. In that case, we must lift the cube. That's ok. This case can be considered the easy one. We must take care the the One Above The Other case as well.

Step 2 - White cross​

In this step, we put the white cross on the white face. First, we have to make the front sticker of the top front edge match the front center color, then rotate the front twice. Repeat 4 times to complete the white cross.

Step 3 - First layer​

Locate a piece on the top layer that has a white sticker. This piece also has 2 other colors, let's say Blue and Red. Rotate the top layer until this piece is over Blue and Red face at the same time.

The easiest case there is when we have white on the top layer, but not facing the top. If that's the case, put white facing you.

If the piece is on the left, do the Move 1 Left. Is it's on the right do the Move 1 Right.

Other cases

• White facing top

If white is on top, we have to do the Move 1 until the piece is in the right spot. You can choose either Move 1 Left or Move 1 Right. The Move 1 has to be performed 3 times.

• Piece incorrectly oriented

Just repeat the Move 1 until you get it correctly oriented.

• If there's no white sticker on top, they are all on the bottom, perhaps in the wrong spot. If you do Move 1, the piece on the bottom layer goes to the top layer.

 

[campos20]

Step 4 - Second layer​

First, locate an edge that doesn't have any yellow sticker and make its front color match the center. Then, decide if the piece needs to fall right or left.

Case Left

Perform Move 1 Left. This takes a white sticker out of the second layer. Put it back like Step 3.

Spoiler

This can be performed as U' L' U L y' U R U' R'.

Case Right

Perform Move 1 Right. This takes a white sticker out of the second layer. Put it back like Step 3.

Spoiler

This can be performed as U R U' R' y U' L' U L.

Other Cases

If there's a flipped piece, change it with other piece (using Case Left or Case Right). If the second layer is not done, but all the edges on top layer have yellow, you have to insert an edge with yellow in the spot of a piece that's not solved.

Step 5 - Top Cross​

If there's a cross on the top face, we're done. If not, do the following:

Spoiler

F (U R U' R') F'

If you can see a L shape, put it like 9 o'clock and perform it one last time.

From now on, we'll sometimes put the cube upside down.

Step 6 - Top face​

If the yellow face is complete, we're done here. If not, put the cube upside down. We're completing the yellow face using a flipping spot. The pink piece is our flipping spot.

Using the flipping spot, perform Move 1 Right until you can see a yellow sticker facing down. Then, turn the bottom layer (do not rotate the entire cube, just the bottom layer) and repeat until the yellow face is complete.

Return the cube to its original position (yellow on top).

Spoiler

After the cube is upside down, do Sexy Moves until you can see a yellow sticker facing down. Then do a D move without rotating the cube until you get a non yellow sticker facing down in the flipping spot.

Step 7 - Fix corners​

We haven't used Move 2 sor far. Here it comes.

If there are 4 headlights, we are done. In this case, headlights are two sticker of the same color, in the same face on top layer.

If there's 1 headlights, put the cube upside down again, making sure headlights if facing back. If there's no headlights, put the cube upside down and perform the following anyway.

Put the cube in the original orientation. If there are 4 headlights, we are done. If not, repeat.

Spoiler

After locating headlights, put it on front. Then do x2 (U R U' R') D2 (R U R' U') D (U R U' R') D (R U R' U') x2

Step 8 - Fix edges​

If the are 4 bars, we are done. If not, locate a bar. A bar is composed by three pieces sharing the same color on the same face, top layer.

Put the bar on front then perform the following. If there are no bars, perform it anyway.

Spoiler

(R U R' U') (L' U' L U) (U R U' R') (U' L' U L)

If you can see 4 bars, just adjust the top layer to finish. If not, repeat.