Sledgehammer
Contents
Introduction
The Sledgehammer' is a move commonly used in F2L pair insertion: R' F R F' on the right or L F' L' F ("left sledgehammer").
From 2022, the 'Sledgehammer' becomes the (only) algorithm used to solve the Rubik's cube with the 'Workbench' approach.
Because it is a symmetry of one of the simplest non-trivial commutators (along with the sexy move), many algs and solving techniques use variations of the sledgehammer.
Properties
The 'sledgehammer' exclusively impacts the cubies forming a kind of 'Y' shape and splits the cube into two regions:
- The 'Workbench': the 'Y' shaped region affected by the 'Sledgehammer;
- The 'Tripod': the region NOT affected by the 'Sledgehammer';
This page shows an introduction to the 'Sledgehammer'
In the context of the 'Workbench' approach
- 1st move is named Action Move (the move the player need to perform)
- 2nd move is named Protection Move (protect the effect of the first move against the next 2 moves.
- 3rd move is a rollback (cancels the 1st move)
- 4th move is a rollback (cancels the 2nd move)
Swap
Inside the 'Y' shaped region affected by the 'Sledgehammer' cubies are affected in that way
- cubies on the 'left branch' of the 'Y' are swapped
- cubies on the right vertex are swapped
This page will make it clear.
Rotation
Every Iteration of the 'Sledgehammer' rotates the edges.
This page will make it clear.
Order
The 'Sledgehammer' is an algorithm of order 6, meaning that repeating the algorithm 6 times returns the cube to its original position.
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Full | R' F R F' |
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Full | L F' L' F |
This page will make it clear.
Reverse
The reverse of a 'Sledgehammer' is still a 'Sledgehammer'
(The reverse of an algorithm is the sequence of moves that cancel the effect of the algorithm)
This page will make it clear.
Alternatives
On the same 'Workbench' (the 'Y' shaped region affected by the 'Sledgehammer') there are 6 different variants of the 'Sledgehammer.
This page will make it clear.
Use and edge control
When an edge pair that needs to be inserted rests on the left or right face of the cube relative to the face towards you, and the cross (bottom) color is facing away, usually you would have to do a cube rotation and insert it using either U' L' U L on the right or U R U' R' on the left, instead, you could utilize the Sledgehammer without a cube rotation.
This F2L pair insertion method is also often used for edge control. Instead of inserting the pair the usual way, say with U R U' R', which could leave you with a no-edges OLL, the Sledgehammer can be used to give you a more favorable, easy-to-execute OLL. This works, however, for only the final pair. If you look ahead to see that no edges are oriented for the upcoming OLL, do the Sledgehammer, and two non-existing edges will come up.
Variations
In addition to the sledgehammer itself, the inverse (sometimes humorously called Hedgeslammer) is often equally useful; it can be used if the F2L pair to insert, is facing left.
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Full | F R' F' R |
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Full | F' L F L' |
The Sledgehammer also has a popular edge-control variant that will also put up an extra two LL edges into the upcoming OLL. When the F2L pair is connected in the top layer, with the cross color facing you, doing R' F R F' on the right or L F' L' F on the left (although not as common as on the right), can also insert the pair as opposed to U R U' R'. To remember this trigger, it is the last trigger on a popular Y Permutation algorithm [F (R U' R' U') (R U R' F') (R U R' U') (R' F R F')] , and subsequently the second and last trigger on a common Key OLL algorithm [(R U R' U') (R' F R F')].
The 'Workbench'
The 'Sledgehammer' is the 'engine' of the Workbench (now the same word: 'Workbench' denotes a solution method), a new approach to the Rubik's cube published in 2022. The 'Workbench' method solves the Rubik's cube in a very easy way using just the 'Sledgehammer'.
