ZBLL Recognition Trainer

[Jack314]

I have created ZBLL recognition trainer in Microsoft Excel 2013. This is the first version of it. Here is the link from which it can be downloaded:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mlJ11WmU4J5BUghIZiks7zcdTwW38mXNE5eRN-qVaXo/edit?usp=sharing

How to use it:
(1) Go to the 'ZBLL Recognition Trainer' sheet. Click on the A10 cell. Then: View > Window > Split. This splits the sheet in two.
(2) On the 'ZBLL List' sheet each ZBLL is number from 1 to 494 (PLLs and the solved stated are included). Each ZBLL from 1 to 472 has the algorithm from the PDF
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMn3kHUFEgFtKUF2A7E3I9Kp3u1BpxK4/view?usp=sharing
(I got this PDF from the description of one of Tao Yu's YouTube videos). The numbering starts at the first T ZBLL then goes down the first column of the T ZBLLs, then down the second column of the T ZBLLs and so on. ZBLLs 473 to 494 are given their PLL name in the 'ZBLL algorithm' column. Columns D - Y are hidden and contain the information which encodes the ZBLL.
(3) Go to the 'ZBLL RT (Data Entry)' sheet. Highlight columns B - D and click copy. Right click on cell G1. Go to 'special paste' and then paste 'Values (V)' (pasting in this way is VERY IMPORTANT).
(4) Go to the 'ZBLL Recognition' sheet. Go to the lower half of the sheet split. At cell E19 it says "Settings". Replacing a 0 in the hide row with a 1 hides the corresponding face (so you can practice 2, 3 and 4 sided recognition). Scroll down to cell G36. Here is where you test your recognition. Determine which ZBLL is shown on the cube in the upper half of the page. Enter the number corresponding to the ZBLL, press enter. A new ZBLL should appear now enter your answer for that case. Keep doing this. IMPORTANT: Do not leave any blanks as the correct ZBLL will not be shown on the cube. You can stop whenever you want (the maximum number is 500). Scroll back up "Settings". "Correct answers" says how many of your answers were correct. Enter "1" in the cell next to "Show results". This makes a the cell on the right of where you entered your responses appear green if your answer is correct and it remains black otherwise. You can further analyse your responses by going to 'ZBLL RT (Data Entry)'.

If any of this is confusing let me know. As I wrote earlier, this is the first version of it. There are many additions/improvements that I have already thought of, but I just wanted to get a first version out to see what others thought of it or what could be added. My ideas of what could be included are: (a) colour neutrality, (b) renaming ZBLLs (so you are able to enter something with more meaning than just 1 to 494), (c) a results section, (d) showing a scramble to get the state and the algorithm to solve it, (e) include ability to practice other subsets, (f) expand it to a 1LLL trainer (and able to practice predicting PLL), (g) selecting which cases can appear.

Let me know what you think of it.

 

[Tao Yu]

First off, I'm quite impressed you were able to make this all in Excel. Nice job!

A big problem with this kind of trainer, however, is that people rarely learn numbers or names for ZBLL cases. Even though I know full ZBLL, I'm able to score exactly zero points on your trainer, since I don't know any of my ZBLLs by number.

Moreover, I feel that it may be inadvisable to learn names/numbers for all of your ZBLLs anyway, since it's a lot of extra information to remember, and I don't see an obvious advantage to knowing them. It's not like PLL, where you have a low number of cases to learn names for, and most of the names are easy to remember. It's going to take ages to come up with 472 different names for ZBLL cases, and I don't think it would be worth the time.

This might sound a bit strange, but I feel that my ideal ZBLL recognition trainer would be pretty simple: It would first show me the ZBLL with only the U, F and R sides showing. I would then guess what the B and L sides roughly look like, in my head. After that, I would press a button, and it would show me the B and L sides. I would judge by myself whether I had guessed more or less correctly, and I would press a button to mark it as right or wrong.

Another idea that I like, is to have a program which first displays a picture of the U, F and R sides of a ZBLL case, plus a scramble for that ZBLL case. With this, I can take a physical cube, scramble it under the table, and try to figure out what the alg is from looking at the picture. I would then try and solve it under the table, and then bring it up and look at it when I'm done. If the cube is solved, then I got it correct (This is actually already possible at http://bestsiteever.ru/zbll/).

There may be other good ideas as well, but I must say that I firmly believe that using names to indicate the ZBLL case is the wrong way to go.

 

[notme]

Man I love Dublin! How about Anki flash cards?
"a program which first displays a picture of the U, F and R sides of a ZBLL case,"
So one can make cards for this...mebbe...