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Cube Patents

Adventures in Cubing1 Comment

Every once in a while, my hobby intersects with my profession. That was the case a year ago when I wrote about the controversy between Dayan and Seven Towns over the latter’s (largely exaggerated, I believe) position that it had a copyright/trade dress claim against any cube maker using the standard yellow-white/red-orange/blue-green color scheme. And it’s the case again now, with my recent project to decorate my new office. I figured that the lawyer who deals with patents by day and speedcubes in his free time might as well have some topical art.

I downloaded a variety of cube related patents, ranging from the very first related patent of which I’m aware (from the 60s), the Japanese magnetic 2×2 patent from the 70s, the Hungarian and US Rubik patents from the early 80s, the (in)famous Verdes V-Cube patents, and the (relatively) recent Dayan ones. In Photoshop, I assembled them into a composite with the abstract pages and key diagrams, had it printed at 24×36 by Kinkos (for $4.50), and framed it (via Aaron Brothers for $35). Voila! Legal-cube-nerd art:

cube-patent-composite-25%

Click on the thumbnail to expand. I’m not convinced there’s a high demand for this sort of thing, but, just in case, here are links for downloading it:

pdf (15MB) | png (16MB) | png (50% size – 6MB)

(Again, I doubt there’s interest, but I would just ask that no-one commercialize it, and that I get credited/linked-back if anyone uses it online.)

And if the composite file isn’t enough, here’s a video. A veritable multimedia smorgasbord!

(music: “Apache,” Incredible Bongo Band)

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PLL Time Attack (72 seconds)

Adventures in Cubing4 Comments

It’s been a little while since I felt like I’ve accomplished much in terms of cubing, especially after plateauing at about 30-35 seconds on 3×3 solves. So, I decided to revisit PLL time attacks, and, after a few days of practice, got a good outcome: an on-camera 72-second PLL attack that started and ended with a solved cube:

(music: Dexter Gordon, “Scrapple from the Apple”; cube: Zhanchi w/ ModCuber fitted full-bright stickers)

By way of brief background, PLL is the last step in CFOP — once you have a solved bottom face, solved bottom two layers, and solved top face. All that’s left is to get those four edges and four corners in the top layer rejiggered into their proper position. There are 21 PLL cases (22 if you count solved), each named after a letter that somewhat resembles the pattern of the edge and corner swaps. More detailed background and the PLL algorithms can be found on the speedsolving.com wiki.

A PLL time attack is the performance of each of the 21 PLLs in a stream without stopping. Completing it in a minute is respectable, but not amazing; forty-five seconds is really good; and better than that is truly impressive. When I first learned PLLs, I did a quasi time attack — quasi because it was truncated (I did the Gs separately), because I did each PLL individually (not in a single stream), and because I used my best of three attempts per PLL. The sum of the 21 parts was 66 seconds. Continue reading →

V Perm (Revisited)

Adventures in Cubing2 Comments

v permI remember learning the V Perm early in my PLL progress and being quite proud of myself. I even wrote this dedicated post containing a video showing my unimpressively slow execution. Unfortunately, the execution never got that much more fluid. Although it was an average speed perm for me when I did my (kinda sorta) PLL attack, it always was one of my clunkier ones.

Last weekend, jskyler91 posted a new Cubing World video showing a “non-standard” V Perm execution based on this algorithm:

z D’ R2′ D (R2 U R’) D’ (R U’) (R U R’) D (R U’) z’

No awkward re-grips and much smoother than the traditional approach. He bemoaned the z rotations; I was intimidated by all the D layer moves. Still, the fact that he could sub-1 the perm led me to believe that I could do it in 2. As this video shows, I’m close:

(music: Eldar Djangirov interpreting “Cool” (West Side Story); cube: Lubix Zhanchi w/ Cube Specialists fitted bright stickers and modded Cubesmith grey stickers for U face)

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crystal cube hack – part 2

Adventures in Cubing3 Comments

hacked crystal cubeI wrote last week in Part 1 of this post about hacking, so to speak, a Ghosthand Crystal Cube. As detailed in that post, I wired past the motion sensor and on-board IC that caused the irritating and impractical blinking. That forced the cube into a constant-on state once I connected two leads that I had temporarily extended through the core for testing.

As described below, I solved that problem with a switch inside the core that could be reached with a paper clip. Here is a video of the final result, showing the cube powering on/off and a sample solve in the pitch dark. It’s not a speed-cube, and it is prone to pops and lock-ups, so I solved at a casual 55-second pace.

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36 seconds (on-video PB)

Adventures in Cubing2 Comments

I just got my fastest recorded (on video) 3×3 solve of 36 seconds. I’ll cut to the chase, and put the long-winded commentary below the media content for once. Here’s the video:

(music: “The War” from the Duplicity soundtrack; cube: properly Lubixed white 57mm Dayan Zhanchi with Cube Depot light matte sticker set)

At 36.10, this was not my fastest 3×3 solve; Continue reading →