So… I can follow a tutorial! For the first time ever, I’ve completed a Rubik’s Cube!
Excited, I immediately jumped back to the start to try again- and I forgot the first step. But not a problem- it’s easy to go back and review the tutorial, so now I’m pretty fast on my way to being able to speed solve.
Backing up a little bit… I got my GoCube in the mail today!
I’m not big into “unboxing”, but this was a pretty fun package. The GoCube comes with a travel bag, display stand, and charger, and it’s bundled smoothly in a very clean, 100% recyclable box.
I received the package in the middle of the work day, so I let the cube charge for a few hours before starting with it in the evening.
After about an hour of tutorials, I feel I’ve got a pretty good grasp, at least with the start of the process. I completed the full cycle, but by the time I got to the bottom layer, I had picked up so much that I’m going to need to revisit and practice. So far I’ve got a pretty good handle on:
- Daisy (yellow surrounded by 4 white edges)
- White cross (namesake, plus two of a kind color on each side)
- White face (getting all the white corners in the right place)
The next step after that is finishing the middle face, and while I’ve got a pretty solid grasp of how that works…
- Yellow face, find an edge with no yellow
- Position that edge over the matching center
- Rotate the top away from the side it needs to go to
- Left or right algorithm depending on if I wanted that piece to go left or right from where it was on step 2
- Rotate 90 degrees
- Opposite algorithm from step 4
In the above process, step 5 gets me; I don’t consistently know if that should be clockwise, counterclockwise, or conditional upon the cube. I’ll have to play around with that section of the tutorial for a little bit to get familiar with that step.
Once I finish that, there aren’t many steps left to solve! If I have the chance, I’ll spend a little more time on it tomorrow and see if I can run my first speed solve. I’m guessing it’ll be around 5 minutes judging how long it takes me to do the first steps.
After that, it’s practice, practice, practice! Between this and chess, I’ve got plenty of new mind games to keep me occupied. Not to mention the Red Bull Mind Gamers Discovery Lab, which kicks off with an introductory call tomorrow. More on that later!
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