How to Solve a Rubik's Cube - A beginners method.
Rubik’s Cube:
A Rubik’s cube is an interesting puzzle invented by Erno Rubik, it was first called as “Magic Cube”. A Rubik’s cube (3x3x3) though it seems so complex it can be solved by using methods and algorithms discovered by Mathematicians and enthusiasts etc.
Some of the Methods are Fridrich Method invented by Jessica Fridrich, Lars Petrus system invented by Lars Petrus, There are many more approaches available but these are the most widely known Algorithms.
It seems more complex now about the algorithms and methods so we will start with the beginner’s method from which I learnt to solve the Rubik’s cube.
Notations:
The first thing we need to know about is the notation that is used to denote the sides of the cube
- F (Front): The front side facing the cuber
- B (Back): the side behind(back of) the front side
- U (Up): The side on the Top
- D (Down): the side opposite the top, underneath the Cube
- L (Left): Left hand side of the cube
- R (Right): the right hand side of the cube.
The next thing you need to know is about the rotation, clock wise and anti clock wise. If a face is denoted with apostrophe then we need to do a anti clockwise rotation else it is clock wise rotation.
E.g. If given as F we need to do a 90 degree clockwise rotation, if given as F’ we need to do a 90 degree anti clock wise rotation.
One tip is when you do a clockwise rotation on a side bring the side to front do the clockwise rotation and take it back to its correct side.
E.g. If you want to do a clockwise rotation on L (left hand side) turn the cube completely anticlockwise so that left hand side is now F (front), do the clockwise rotation for the front and turn the cube completely clockwise so that the left hand side is again Left hand side.
If a side is specified as 180 or 2 we need to do a 180 degree clock wise or anti clockwise rotation.
E.g. R180 – rotate the right hand side of the cube 180 degree
R2 – rotate the right hand side of the cube 90 degree twice which is equivalent to 180 degrees.
These are the basic notations; I will provide the advanced notations once we complete the beginner’s method.
The method which is little easy to learn is the Jessica Fridrich which is called CFOL (Cross, First 2 Layers, Orienting the last layer and Permuting the last layer)
A nice tutorial is available in the YouTube which I found in the internet which helps in learning to solve the Rubik’s cube see below.
Cross:
The first step to do is to learn to do a cross. Please visit the below video to learn to solve the cross
More examples on how to solve a cross
Bottom Layer:
The next step is to solve the bottom layer completely after forming the cross.
Please visit the below video to learn to solve the bottom layer
Middle Layer:
If you reached this step tap yourself because you have just completed the bottom layer! The next step is to complete the middle layer.
Please visit the below video to learn to solve the middle layer
More examples on solving the middle layer
Top Cross:
The next step is to make the top cross. In a few more steps we will be solving the Rubik’s cube.
Please visit the below video to learn to solve the top cross.
Complete Top Face:
The next step is to complete the Top face.
Please visit the below video to learn to solve the top face.
Top Layer Corners:
The next step is to complete the Top Layer Corners. You only need to do one more step to complete the cube.
Please visit the below video to learn to solve the top layer corners.
Finishing the cube:
The last and the final step used to solve the cube. Follow this to solve the cube and enjoy.
Please visit the below video to learn to complete the cube.
You have just learned to solve the Rubik’s cube, just practice and practice to get it right. Thanks to Rob for his wonderful tutorial
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