Rubik's Cube World Championships 202
cadaeibfed writes "Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the iconic puzzle's introduction to the world was the second Rubik's world championship, held in Orlando, FL this weekend. Competing under official World Cube Association rules, competitors from around the world vied for recognition in this nerd olympiad. Some new world records set include the 4x4 solve, solving using only feet, and blindfolded solving. The winner, Jean Pons of France, finished with an average solution time of 15.10 seconds on a standard 3x3 cube. Here are the full results."
Re:What's that for a standard ? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow. (Score:3, Informative)
Follow the "videos" link at the top, towards the bottom
of this page is a 13.86 second solve.
Re:how... (Score:5, Informative)
the timing system... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Friend of mine can do this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fun with Rubik's Cube geeks... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fun with Rubik's Cube geeks... (Score:1, Informative)
Videos (Score:3, Informative)
True Story (Score:5, Informative)
It was only a few months later that they hit the market and I couldn't wait to get my hands on one. I eventually got to the point of being able to solve it consistently within a half hour or less. Then I lost interest in the challenge.
I also remember a Scientific American cover story (c. 1980), where I finally learned about the mechanism, disassembly and reassembly. Of course, they also discussed algorithms, but I wasn't interested in that. I never use cheats. Takes most of the fun out.
Re:What's that for a standard ? (Score:3, Informative)
Anecdote: My Record (Score:1, Informative)
Anyway, I did solve it on stage, in 1 minute 28 seconds, my best time ever.
Re:Been There, Done That (Score:2, Informative)
Not true. There are many examples, but here are a couple examples sequences that leave only two faces scrambled:
1) F2 R2 F2 R2 F2 R2
2) R2 U' F2 R2 F2 U2 R2 F2 R2 U' R2
> The easiest way to split a cube apart is to rotate one side by 45 degrees, and push the protruding corner piece until its latch pops out.
That's a pretty rough way to do it. You're better off turning the top face by 45 degrees and using a scredriver (or your finger) to pry one of the edge pieces upward until it pops out. The rest of the pieces will come out pretty easily after that.
It's a decent challenge. (Score:2, Informative)
The guys that solve the cube in mere seconds or minutes have memorized moves and sequences to several cubes in place simultaneously, but it's really not necessary if you don't mind taking up a few more minutes to solve it.
3x3 in 10.95 sec (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.xpert.co.kr/1enjoy/2game/cube/pds/1095
Some amusing well-deserved gleeful cackling at the end!
Link posted in the "chatter" section of Macky's page:
http://cubefreak.hp.infoseek.co.jp/ [infoseek.co.jp]
More videos (fastest 10.29 secs) (Score:2, Informative)
They have a search by time and puzzle. The fastest I found was 10.29s for 3x3x3. It looks as if it was timed a bit different though.
Re:True Story (Score:3, Informative)
They are lying. They never spent a fantastic amount of time doing the cube, but it was a big deal back when, and everyone had one and probably many of their friends could solve it (having read the solution in a book). The idea of having solved it "once" seems plausible, not terribly baostful, a perfectly innocent little white lie. But serious cubers know it's BS. Claiming to have solved it on your own even once is actually a stupendous boast; discovering the solution on your own is fantastically difficult, and the probability is near zero of doing so without the cube having been a major part of your life.
Again, they're not being particularly malicious, their memories of the cube may even be so vauge that they just assume they must have solved it "once". But they didn't solve it all on their own, or they'd know claiming to have solved it "once" was a ridiculous claim.
For the record, I spent many months developing my algorithm until I could reliably produce a cube that had a 25% chance of being solved, vs having 2 or 4 edge peices flipped. After several more monts of frustration, I let somone show me that final move. Now I can do the cube in a little under 2 minutes.
"semi-guided trial-and-error " won't get you there. The position I could reliably get too was very "close" to solved, but still requires discovering the specific 20 twist series that will get you from there to solved, via positions that seem much less close.
Where to get new stickers (Score:3, Informative)
I do mine myself, but if you're not DIY inclined and/or want professional quality stuff, you can order from Cubesmith [cubesmith.com].
Re:True Story (Score:2, Informative)
It happened after I first watched the movie Pi one night. I was walking around wondering how much brain-time I've wasted, what I could do if I tried, etc. I saw that someone in the apartment complex had a cube. I asked nicely and borrowed it.
First, I did an algorithm for one layer, that was done and written out before I slept that night. The next couple of days I fiddled around with it constantly (carried it around everywhere) and came up with various notations, trying to get a grip on the large space.
Then upon advice from a friend to simplify the search down and not branch so much, I narrowed my focus on a 7 turn sequence that I came to call "the basic". Using repetitions of the basic intermixed with other simple to remember alterations, I was able to whittle the space of arrangements down bit by bit until my algorithm could walk me from random to solved.
Over the next months, I learned when reverse and mirror-image versions of my canned-moves would be faster than the canned-moves themselves, cutting my time down to a reliable minute and a half.
Only after teaching some friends my method did one of them later look up a more elegant set of canned-moves and teach those back to me. That elegant solution is the one that I use now (unless I'm feeling nostalgic). But those notes and explorations in notation I made those first few days were about half the fun of the whole thing. Which I why I have taken up and solved numerous other permutation puzzles using the same approach.
That is my story. I solved the Rubik's Cube in a few days by developing my own algorithm. I'm not ashamed of that humble boast; I earned it. Apply yourself, and you can too.
HOWTO spot a tampered cube / tamper with it (Score:3, Informative)
The central squares on each face of the cube cannot be moved, only rotated. So, for example, if two of them are same color, the cube has been tampered with.
Anyway the surest way is to look at those "opposing" colors. IIRC most cubes had the green face opposed to the blue one, white face to yellow, orange to dark red...
anyway one can just look at the cube's central squares and see what the opposite colors should be if the cube were not tampered with.
Spotting lateral or angular little cubes which have opposing colors on their faces means the cube has been tampered with. Easier to spot on angular little cubes.
That's because most people think that the more they mess with the colors the more they will confuse you. Instead, switching only two couples of stickers will be enough and quite more difficult to spot.
I had learned a simple way to solve the cube, with 3 main sequences, average time 3 and a half minutes without fretting too much.