Okay, I’m a bit of a nerd, yeah! I have many crazy hobbies and one of them is solving cubes. I’m not into speed cubing (yet) but like to solve different cubes.
3×3
Yeah, the basic cube. All methods of solving cubes basically come down to variations on the solution for the 3×3. So here is a short version of the solve for beginners:
- make the white layer, cross first, corners after that.
- second layer:
- U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F -or- U’ L’ U L U F U’ F’
- cross on third layer:
- repeat: F R U R’ U’ F‘
- position edges:
- R U R’ U R U2 R’ U
- position corners:
- U R U’ L’ U R’ U’ L -or- U’ L’ U R U’ L U R’
- orient corners (put the up-face or yellow face LEFT):
- repeat (6x): U’ R’ U R
Okay, now let’s start talking about parity!
2×2
Super simple cube, no edges, just put corners in position. One parity, switched corners:
- next to each other, on front:
- U’ L’ U R U’ L U R’
Octagonal Barrel
Two possible parities: The first one is that after completing the second layer you don’t find 0, 2 or 4 edges with their yellow side up, but you might also have 1 or 3. In this case choose on edge from the second layer and rotate this edge:
- (U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F) U2 (U R U’ R’ U’ F’ U F)
The second parity is with the final corners: two corners are swapped:
- R U R’ U’ L’ U’ L U’ F U’ F2 U2 F
4×4
Reduce to a 3×3. Centers first, edges after that. Team up to edge pieces on either side of a center:
- Dd R F’ U R’ F Dd’
Last top edge (or wings) swapped:
- r’ U2 l F2 l’ F2 r2 U2 r U2 r’ U2 F2 r2 F2
Last two corners swapped:
- r2 U2 r2 Uu2 r2 Uu2