Speedcubing
Two weeks before Devcon07 (Green Hippos annual Developers Conference) I picked up a Rubik's Cube (3x3x3). When I was a teenager I knew a (quite unoptimized) way to solve it, but I did not remember all the moves anymore. So I browsed the web to look for some solutions. Besides some really good sources I also learned that "speedcubing" or "solving the cube blindfolded" are quite popular sports. Just for fun I started to learn some simple sequences of moves, which already allows to solve a 3x3x3 cube in less than 2 minutes, as proved at Devcon07 2 weeks later:
Here a list of the much appreciated online sources I found:
- Rubik cube standard notation overview. Self explaining.
- A Java-Applet that allows you to copy-paste the algorithms in standard notation into the url, and then plays the single steps. Very useful!
- Jessica Fridrichs speed cukbing page - Jessica is *the* queen of speedcubing! In the 80s she solved the cube in less than 20 seconds with her method (CFOP)..! Today, there are even more efficient (or at least simpler to learn but not less effective) known methods, but considering that she found all algorithms without the help of a computer nearly 30 years ago, she is absolutely remarkable! I also enjoyed her article "20 years of speedcubing" very much!
- An easy-to-memorize solution, already more efficient than most other beginner solutions, since it uses a keyhole-corner in the first layer to solve corners of the last layer.
- Lars Petrus - one of the best speedcubers in the world - explains his tricks and system in great detail! A must-see for every seriously addicted speedcuber!
- Complete last-layer collection of perfect algorithms made by Bernard Helmstetter.
- Lars Vandenbergh's Cube Zone. A site with lots of wonderful lookup tables of advanced algorithms (ZB F2L, OLL, PLL, COLL) made by Belgiums No. 1 speedcuber!
- Gilles and his Cubes: A simple beginners method as well as an exotic but very advanced method (called roux) - very well illustrated! The video section there is also very cool!
- And if all that still does not feel like a real challenge to you, then here is a guide for solving NxNxN cubes, or you might even want to solve a 4D cube! :-D
My personal mix from all the systems above is the following:
- Use Lars Petrus method for the first two layers (F2L), including the orientation of the edges of the last layer (steps 1 - 4).
- Use COLL (well, there is still some work to learn all the moves, but even if you just know a few it is already no problem to solve the whole cube) to position and orient the corners of the last layer (LL), without changing the orientation of the already oriented edges. In some special cases I prefer OLL + PLL (just the simple ones that don't affect the edges at all) rather than COLL.
- In the final step, position the edges, as described by Lars Petrus in step 7.
