adventures in cubing

It’s been a few weeks now since I posted my PLL attack video. It’s not that I’ve been cubing less, but just that I haven’t had a lot of time for documenting things. A particularly busy month at work and family stuff — including a couple great birthday celebrations for my boys — evaporated my free time.

As of my last post, I had learned all PLLs minus the Gs. Since then, I’ve learned Ga well and Gb poorly. The two being inverses, I’m now able to practice them more fluidly.

I also stumbled onto and subscribed to TellerWest’s Youtube channel, featuring some really great “tricked out” algorithms that are far faster and more efficient (for the more advanced and dexterous of cubers). This particular F2L video caught my eye, since F2L edge inserts have been especially slow for me. (Edge inserts are when a corner is properly placed, but the edge is in the top layer.) After watching a few times, I realized that they weren’t the longest or hardest algorithms. So I gave them a try — and, in so doing, encountered my first S slice.

Of the three I learned, I would give myself (i) a B+ on the right-face-into-right-front insertion; (ii) a B on the front-face-into-right-front insertion; and (iii) a B- on the right-face-into-back-right insertion. Much more practice is in order. Below is a quick video showing the three (in the same order), followed by a chart with the setups and algorithms:

(music: in honor of Halloween, Phish playing Zappa’s “Frankenstein” – 10.31.94)

Insertion	Setup	Algorithm
edge: right slot: front-right		R’ F’ (R U R U’) (R’ F)
edge: front slot: front-right		R S’ (R’ U R) S R’
edge: right slot: back-right		x’ (R U R’) F’ (R’ F) (R U’)