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Dad taught me when I was 10, in 2 hours. When u find one at a friend’s house I’m surprised I still know how to do it!
Yes, I carefully off the stickers and placed them where they should be.
Yes. I took it apart and then put it back together solved
Back in the 80s, before they even had books with the solution (the Internet? What’s that?), my Dad quit smoking using a Rubik’s Cube.
Getting rid of the nicotine habit takes about 3 weeks to flush it from your system, but smokers are still left with lots of hand-mouth habits that all quitters will tell you is the most difficult thing to overcome. My Dad was a pipe smoker (that was a thing back then), which required a lot of ritualistic behavior, opening the tobacco bag, stuffing the pipe, relighting it with every puff, etc. Lots more than just just pulling out a coffin nail and lighting it.
So to fight the physical habits, he would just pick up his Rubik’s Cube, and try to solve it. He didn’t just play with it, though, he got analytical about it, writing down moves and steps, and eventually putting together his own cheat guide, before anyone had published one. We didn’t think of it at the time, but he could have tightened it up, and probably sold it to a publisher.
I’m any case, it worked. By the time he had solved the Cube, he no longer had the urge to smoke.
looked up the algorithm
Yes, by looking up how to do it and then practicing until I could actually implement the instructions.
That Rubik himself figured it out with no guide is impressive as hell.
Yes. I looked up algorithms for the last layer. After a few solves it stuck in muscle memory.
The first solves took a good while, but I was getting consistently under a minute after a week.
I haven’t speedcubed in quite a few years, but I spin the 4x4x4 a few times a week to keep those parity problems in muscle memory.
Same. It took me a little longer but it makes such a nice fidget for lectures / meetings. The procedurality of it is almost soothing.
Yes. I got two for my oldest children as Easter gifts. They scrambled them and after a few minutes of frustration, left them lying on the floor.
I encourage them to keep trying to solve them but they told me " what chance do I have if you can’t even do it?" I thought about it and realized that they were right.
I downloaded a PDF of a Rubik’s beginner guide I found online and solved it in about an hour. I felt like I had conquered the world!
While bragging to my wife I saw my youngest scrambling it again and my heart sank. My wife saw my reaction and said “what’s the big deal? Don’t you know how to do it now?”
I explained that I had essentially cheated, but had to admit that the steps weren’t as hard as I had imagined. I decided then and there that I was going to learn and eventually memorized the beginner method!
After getting a speed cube and lots of practice, I started averaging about 2 mins. After watching some videos online I decided to give the CFOP method a try. It felt like starting over but I was patient and now I can do it in close to 30sec.
I dismantled it and rebuilt it.
I took the stickers off and then put them back on. But then it was still wrong because I’m colourblind.
Jperm has great beginner method videos on YouTube. Learned how to solve the 3x3 last year practicing side by side with that video for an hour or so for approx 3 days.
I just solved the 12 sided megaminx a few days ago for the first time. It’s addicting lol
ah
Came here to post Jperm, highly recommended. Got me from never picking up a cube before to a sub 2 minute solve with the beginner’s method. He has a website as well with graphic instructions that is very handy
I had one as a kid, and it came with a little booklet that showed the series of moves to move pieces around. This definitely wasn’t the fastest way to solve, but it worked.
I remember it said to solve the top layer first, then align that with the correct “center” cubes on the second/middle layer. Then you’d get the “edges” of the second/middle layer in place using the series of moves. For the bottom, there was another couple sets of moves.
I was super into them as a teenager, learned to solve the usual 3x3 and even bigger the usual way, i.e. mostly by memorising a bunch of algorithms (tonnes of “beginner” tutorials out there). After not touching them for over a decade I was disappointed that I had forgotten most of how to do it! Now I’ve re-learned and finding a way that relies on understanding or intuition so that I don’t have to worry about algorithms or memorisation, I feel like this is a much nicer way to learn to do it!
No, it confounds me how they even move how they do.
It’s got parts inside
Neat, just like us.
I had one when I was a kid, best I could do was 1 side…
I was like that too xD
