User:Vincenzo1111
About Me
Hi everyone,
I’m Vincenzo, a 65-year-old software engineer from Italy, currently living in Malta.
I developed the Workbench during a pivotal time in my life when everything changed. It took me about four years to 'assemble' it. During that time, I explored many different approaches, but they all seemed to lack a certain consistency (they were constantly changing their 'approach' as the solving process evolved).
Eventually, the method that emerged, which I now call 'Workbench', is characterised by a single algorithm and a unified approach.
For teaching purposes, I’ve slightly 'hybridised' the method using three different approaches:
- The first is much more intuitive for positioning the first three corners.
- The second is the true Workbench method.
- The third is for swap edges (it turned out to be so elegant and intuitive that it even overshadowed the Workbench method itself).
I’ve also created a couple of websites:
- easycubing.net: A tutorial on the Workbench and the cube.
- cubeiteasy.com: A solver that can resolve any possible scramble step by step, with explanations.
Additionally, I’ve written some pages on this wiki:
- sledgehammer: A description of the Sledgehammer, one of the many algorithms (the little brother of the sexy move and THE algorithm used by the Workbench).
- Workbench: The approach I developed.
- swap edges: This page discusses how to solve the configuration where two edges are swapped. I’m not sure if it was an original result, but the explanation of what makes the algorithm powerful was original to me, as I’ve never read anything similar.
This year (2026), around March, I had the intuition that my approach can be applied to the standard Layer-by-Layer method.
It took about a month but I created the "Layer-by-Layer 2.0"
This new version evolves the standard LbL focusing attention on Beginners or first time solvers.
It makes no sense to ask beginners to complete a layer: once done, you lock yourself out The exact moment layer 1 is complete, the only rotations that do not damage your progress are U or U' (the top layer). Any other turn (R, L, F, B) breaks what you just did.
Tutorials forcing the beginner into this constraint add an unnecessary level of complexity, forcing them to memorise many abstract algorithms just to bypass the lock you put on yourself.
Leaving the layers incomplete opens up an unexpected structural advantage: the whole cube can be solved with just one, one single 4-move algorithm (the Sledgehammer).
The sledgehammer makes everythings simpler but it is on layer 3 where version 2.0 shines: with the 'sledgehammaer solving the layer 3 becomes easy, understandable and does not require new algorithms.
To prove that, I built an interactive site:
The Sledgehammer is so powerful that it opens up many different pathways to solve layer 3 — all new and different from one another. It is even possible to follow the standard structure of the classical Layer-by-Layer method, but without the need to use its traditional algorithms.
Cheers,
Vincenzo
