Author: Adventures in Cubing

Megaminx Re-Stickering (Cubicle Stickers)

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I’m not a big megaminx solver, as you can tell from my walk-through post. But I do find it a fun break from cubic puzzles. I prefer Dayan megaminxes (with ridges). Like all things Dayan, the stickerless version is excellent. I also have a black one at work, but have never liked the look of the cheap OEM stickers — with their darker shades and poor contrast between like colors. The greens, for example, always seemed too similar, as did red and orange. And cream is just a nasty color.

So, when The Cubicle added Megaminx stickers to their totally awesome sticker picker series, I ordered replacements for the OEM stickers Here’s an overproduced video showing the before/after results (complete with explosions!):

(music: Easy Star All Stars, “Any Colour You Like”; puzzle: Dayan Ridged Megaminx)

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Maru CX3 / 60-Second PLL Time Attack

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It’s been a little while since my last post — that monster parity article that still has my head hurting.  I’ve got a couple things in the works, but I put them aside when I got a Maru CX3 the other day.  I’m really impressed with the cube, and I found my turn style and speed improving with it.  On a whim, I thought I’d give a sub-60 PLL Time Attack another go with the CX3.  I came awfully close, at 60.65 seconds.  Here’s the video (with apologies for some of the out-of-frameness):

(music: Lettuce, “Outta Here”; cube: Maru CX3 w/ stock stickers)

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Parity or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the 4×4

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After painstakingly modding my Shengshou v4s a couple months ago (mod post coming soon), my interest in 4x4s has waxed and waned. On the one hand, I find it a welcome and more challenging distraction from 3x3s; on the other hand, those damn parity algorithms!?! I have finally committed them to muscle memory and am now trotting along at a 2:20 average using the Yau variation of the reduction method. (For more on Yau, and especially the cross-on-right variation that I find easier, check out Cyoubx’ really good Yau intro video.)

For months, parity was my albatross. I finally conquered it, so to speak, not only by finding and learning algorithms that worked for me, but also my learning about the root causes of parity. This was by far my deepest dive into puzzle theory and its associated patois. Keep reading past the jump for much more on the types of cube parity, what causes each, and, most importantly, what we really mean when we sloppily say that a cube has “parity.”

PARITY ALGORITHMS

If you’re just here for the algorithms, look no further:

OLL Parity
4x4-oll-parity

[1] Rw U2 x Rw U2 Rw U2 Rw’ U2 Lw U2
Rw’ U2 Rw U2 Rw’ U2 Rw’

[2] (Rw Lw) U2 Lw’ U2 Rw’ U2′ x’ U2 Rw’ U2′ Rw U2 Rw’ U2′ Rw2 U2

 PLL Parity
4x4-pll-parity

Uw2 Rw2 U2 r2 U2 Rw2 Uw2

Here’s a (now muted due to copyright claims) video showing each:

(music: Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues“; cubes: Konsta+Florian modded Shengshou v4s with Cube Specialists Bright+ modded stickers)

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More OLL Dot Cases (##18-20)

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Generally, I find the OLL “dot” cases frustrating — there are a bunch of them, they’re hard to identify/distinguish quickly, and their algorithms are long. A few months ago, I worked on a couple OLL dot cases that I had previously two-looked. Those came rather easily. Then I got side-tracked by the Megaminx, 4×4 modding, and PLL time attacks.

I decided to work on more OLLs last week, after stumbling onto Ottozing’s very good Cubing World video showing all of the dot cases. Specifically, these three:

OLL #18
(Crown)

oll-18

(r U R’ U) (R U2′) r2′
(U’ R U’ R’) U2 r

OLL #19
(Bunny)

oll-19

M U (R U R’ U’)
M’ (R’ F R F’)

OLL #20
(Checkerboard)

oll-20

(r U R’ U’) (L2 l2′) (U R U’ R’) U’ M’

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Dotted Sun

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‘Twas another beautiful Southern California weekend with many an hour of relaxing in and by the pool. With a nice Punch stogie, Grateful Dead (2/14/68) on the hi-fi, and some new “dot” OLLs in the mix. Another dot OLL video coming soon....