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Rubik's Cube

Fri, 22/08/2008 - 4:47pm — msemtd

My writings on Rubik's Cube type puzzles

"I Started Something..."

Hi people,
I've found myself unexpectedly drawn into the world of cubing and I must say what a fascinating world it is! On Fathers' Day this year (05/06/08) my wife and children presented me with a 3x3x3 cube and I decided to learn how to solve it.

Back in the early '80s when the Rubiks Cube became a fixture in the childhoods of so many, my elder brother owned one, but I regret that I didn't take the time to learn a solution although I could solve the first two layers by intuition and a simple algorithm respectively.

Well, the resources available for learning new skills have certainly become more accessible! With the masses of tutorials and beautifully crafted pages on the net I was able to find some memorable beginners algorithms from the "cubing for lazy people" type tutorials and within a couple of weeks I had achieved my initial goal and I could impress my children with a solve in about 3 minutes (they're easily impressed by their dad :D ).

Of course I couldn't help being amazed by the YouTube footage of speedcubers and in that context my achievement seems laudable! However, I like to view myself as a happy lifelong learner and I embrace the absurdity of my feeble efforts: I'm proud of this little goal!

After a couple of weeks I found that my cube was getting a bit loose and was locking up in annoying ways. This cube was an unbranded clone from a gift shop costing £5 and it felt pretty shoddy so I started looking out for a genuine Rubik's Cube. I found one for £10 in a toy shop whilst shopping in Nottingham and the difference was amazing: no lock ups, smooth and quick movement, a delight to handle. My solve times dropped to about 2 minutes and I started looking for more puzzles and for some cube lube!

Back in the day we used to use furniture polish to lubricate a Rubik's Cube but I was wary of ruining my new cube: there's plenty of warnings on speedcubing websites about which lubricants are suitable for cubes, so I waited until I could get my hands on some silicone spray from a local Maplin store (http://www.maplin.co.uk/­Module.aspx?ModuleNo=30030 N71AN Silicone Grease with PTFE 200ml spray). This made a significant difference to the cube if not to my solve times!

Moving forward...

Further explorations can be read in the child pages below.