Rubiks Takes Over

Brooke Bryan — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:14:39 +0000

A few weeks back Jordan (designer @ Just Develop It) brought in his rubiks cube into the office and we were all amazed that he could complete the cube. The fact he could do it in under 5 minutes just added to the amazement. Between writing code and sleeping, Rich and myself found ourselves trying to solve the cube wondering what logic we could apply to come to a solution. After about a week not being able to complete more than the first 2 layers I cracked and looked around youtube.com for a way to complete the cube.

Much to my suprise, there was a logical way to solve the cube based on a few algorithms. Easy when you know how So, the youtube video I found was by pogobat and made the cube easy to understand. You can see the video here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HsQIoPyfQzM. The algorithms for the cube are as follows:

Fi U Li Ui
Ri Di R D
U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F
Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi
F R U Ri Ui Fi
R U Ri U R U U Ri
U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L
Ri Di R D

Ok, the letters above dont mean very much unless you can watched the video. You always need to hold the cube in the same position for any of this to work

F = The face closest to you (Front)
U = The face on the top (Up)
L = The face in your left hand (Left)
R = The face in your right hand (Right)
D = The face on the bottom of the cube (Down)

There is also i. This stands for ‘inverted’ or ‘counter clockwise’

If you see Ri, you should turn the right face counter clockwise. Should you see R you should turn the right face clockwise. Be sure to only move that one face and not rotate the cube, else it will all end in disaster

Once I got to grips with the algorithms, everything slotted into place and I could complete the cube serveral times in one night. Its a very impressive skill to learn.

Get yourself onto youtube.com and watch the video linked above and learn the cube for yourself

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Brooke Bryan - Make Life Easy, Automate Everything » logical

Rubiks Takes Over