Silver cube

Silver cube, scrambled

When the Rubik’s Cube originally came out in the 1980s I was 10ish. I played with one, and could solve a side and the next level. But I could never do the full cube without laboriously paging through a solution book my Dad bought. Once the furor died down, I moved on to other things. Then, last year, a couple of friends picked the cube back up. I was included on their emails as they kept beating each other’s fastest solve times. Finally, I couldn’t resist and started asking questions. What you need to know to solve the classic cube is Bad Mephisto. He does the best job I’ve seen of teaching you how to solve the classic cube. Go to his site and learn the 5 algorithms.

Faster Cubes

I didn’t want to learn to solve the cube fast, I just wanted to learn to solve it. But once you can solve it reliably, you’ll probably want to go faster. The classic cube is fine, but if you want to go faster, it will eventually hold you back. There are ‘speed cubes’ that spin more easily, and also have clipped corners, that allow you to start a turn without the edges being as precisely aligned as the original cube requires. They are also stickerless, so no more peeling stickers. So I got this one from Amazon. With that cube, I average about 2:00 – 2:30 to solve, with a best time of 1:26.

More Challenges

Which brings us to the beauty you see here. When solving the basic cube is no longer daunting, you may find yourself looking for new challenges. This beautiful cube solves with same algorithms as the normal 3×3 cube. But instead of each side being a different color, each side is a different size and shape, so it’s a fun challenge to figure out how to map ‘size and shape’ information onto the color algorithms you already know. And when it’s scrambled it looks fantastic, like a bizarre futuristic building. I got it here on Amazon for about $5, and it always starts a conversation whenever anyone sees it.

Silver cube solved