Lee Morgan

1-Second Sidewinder (OLL #25)

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OLL #25
(Sidewinder)

(R’ F) (R B’) (R’ F’) (R B)

setup: L F R’ F’ L’ F R F’

I’m fairly meticulous when it comes to learning new algorithms, especially OLLs. My first stop is usually the speedsolving wiki OLL page. But beware: Rarely is the first algorithm for each case the best. The most common or most obvious, perhaps. But rarely the best.

Such was definitely the case with the Sidewinder (OLL 25). The first algorithm listed required a four-move setup, two Sexy Moves, and then a closing three-move trigger. The second one is equally clunky. But then the third is short and sweet. It starts with a y2, but that’s not really any different than just treating a different orientation as “home” for the case. After a few minutes of experimenting, it became obvious that the third option was the most efficient, lending itself to easy finger tricks. Continue reading →

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Feeling Gray

Adventures in Cubing2 Comments

grayA couple months ago I stumbled onto a video by Teal Cubes showing his custom color scheme — blue opposite green, gray opposite white, and pink opposite yellow. The video makes a pretty compelling demonstration that there are better schemes than the 1980s Rubik’s one that most of use without much further thought. That said, I don’t really like pink stickers, and I’m not quite ready to make three color changes at once.

I was curious about the gray U face, though — and I re-stickered a black and a white cube to give it a shot.* The idea is that gray contrasts better against white than does yellow. Obviously, black would contrast even better, but it gets lost on a black cube; gray plays nicely with both black and white plastic. Here’s a video with a further explanation:

Continue reading →