TecSpy.com Michael Erskine's Domain

Anybody who has spent time with me in the past few months will have been subjected to my obsession with the Rubik's Cube and other such puzzles. In the run up to the Rubik's UK Open 2008 I tried my hardest to achieve a self-set goal of an average 3x3x3 solve time of one minute. This achieved I was then free to concentrate on the more exotic puzzles in my collection: the Megaminx and the higher-order cubes (4x4x4 and 7x7x7). After working out how to solve the Megaminx and learning a great new technique for edge pairing on the 7x7x7, I started timing my solves for these puzzles and thereafter started trying to reduce those times.

And then I realised I was having less fun. :(

The Megaminx solves are quite striking: it takes me 12 minutes to solve the Megaminx (a minute per side - fair enough). If I work really hard at a solve then I can reduce that time by a minute but the effort just isn't worth it to me with the reduced enjoyment. My Megaminx maybe isn't geared up to speedsolving - it's quite a workout!

I think in brief it is sufficient to state that I like "the leisurely solve".

I thought about this and what my motivations were for quicker solves. Well, the obvious thing is that quick solves are impressive - and boy am I a sucker for trying to impress people! Another quite obvious motivation is the personal/group challenge: to beat ones own goals/to set oneself in the higher ranks of the group. Many of the speedsolving.com forum members post shockingly fast personal best times and averages.

(To be continued...)

Carl Honoré, "In Praise of Slow", http://www.carlhonore.com/