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 Puzzle Workshop 4th August 2003 

I am invited as a guest speaker at a puzzle Workshop on the Dutch Summer camp for young Mathematics (children 10 years and older) in the Netherlands. This workshop is organisted by Wim Berkelmans and Jantine Bloemhof.  I am planning to tell and show them how to puzzle and use a special sticker variation of the Rubik's cube:

The Rubik's Cube has six sides that can turn plus three middle layers you can turn

    Right, Left, Up, Front, Back , Down , Equator, Middle, Side

We have edges      corners    and center parts 

Solution

Find the red center and keep this side up. 

The following situation are possible:

1-1. R            

Turn the right side clock wise to upper layer ( R ) 

1-2. R   R     

Turn the right side twice clock wise to upper layer ( R R )

1-3. D   R  R

Now first turn de down side anti clock wise ( D ) and than do ( R R )

If you can not turn right because there already is a red edge then do:

1-4.   U    R     

Turn the upper side clock wise ( U ) and than turn right ( R ) 

The reason that we do not do all four corners is that we will use the "free" corner in the next step 3.

Locate a red corner in the upper layer, turn the upper layer until a red corner is above a blue corner now we do:

 R    U   R-     

Turn the right side clock wise to upper layer ( R ) 
Turn the upper side clock wise ( U )
Turn the right side anti clock wise to upper layer ( R- ) we write this as R- because the R move is the other direction

In short is this ( R U R- )

Repeat step 2 until three red  corners are in place

The first step is to locate a blue edge in the middle layer, turn this blue edge above the blue corner that is in the down side. The following situation can occur:

1.     The blue is left the the blue corner in the down side turn the down layer anti clock wise (if you face that layer),  we write this as D- because the D move is the other direction

The best way to turn is hold the down layer fixed and turn the Equator and Up layer like this

So you actually turn:      but has the same affect as D-

2.     The blue is to the right the the blue corner in the down side turn the middle layer clock wise, ( D)

3.   The blue is at the back diagonal to the the blue corner in the down side turn the middle layer twice, ( D D) 

4.      If all red corner are in place, we just locate a blue edge in the middle layer

 

Now we will put a white edge in place

Locate a white edge in the upper layer and put it left of the blue edge and corner like this:

     or if all red corner where in place   

Now we turn

R   U-    R-    

Right clock wise ( R) ,  Up  anti clock wise ( U-) and then Right anti clock wise ( R-)     

Repeat step 3 until all white edges are in place in the middle layer

Locate the last corner, we must put the red corner above the blue corner that is on the down side. The following situation can occur if the red corner is not already above the blue:

   1.     U

    2.    U  U 

   3.    U-

Now we do:

R U-  R- F- U   U  F

( R U- R- F- U U F )

You pronouns this formula as:

Right, min Up, min Right, min Front, Up, Up,  Front

We also write this as R U- R- F U2 F 

Advanced Solution

If you learn a bit more complex method to solve , you can solve this cube in 10 seconds!

This is the same as above. But this can always be done in 4 turns, before you turn inspect the cube for 15 seconds and put the cross in 4 turns in place, in most situation this can be done in 1 second!

In short we call this F2L.  For this you can use the following table, we look for a pairs of a red corner and a white edge and turn this column in place. In the following table you always look for a red corner and place it in the column that you want to make. locate a white edge and turn this pair in place. If you look ahead for the next pair while making this pair you can solve this cube in 10 seconds!

1)    Try to find the correct sequences and fill in the table, in the left corner there is the number of turns of the solution.

2)     Put the logo on the white center in the correct position.

What More?

You can also puzzle for the fewest moves to solve the puzzle, try to solve the puzzle in 12-18 turns!

You can peal off the stickers on two sides, than it look like this: