The Rubic Cube. Any Pelican masters?

[livi]

Twenty years ago, me and my brother were pretty fast with that thing. Have not tried it since. Until today. My 8 year old son got one for his b-day. I spent two hours trying to remember the algorithms. No cigar. Then I handed it over to my brother who spent no more than ten minutes before solving it.

Don´t you just hate it! Some people have a spatial memory or a memory for moves in there hands and fingers that others just lack (me).

Obviously, my son was quite disappointed with my performance. After digging threw the Internet I have now managed to solve it. I can´t believe we actually memorized all those pretty complex algorithms. I had big trouble even following the instructions.

Well, now its done and I am about to glue the whole darn cube together to keep it solved. There are few things that have made me so frustrated as that cube. You have spent 15 minutes and you have only two top corners left to rotate threw a complex maneuver. Half threw the algorithm you realize you have scrambled the whole cube again..literary back to square one.

[svandamme]

i was a rubics cube genius when i was a kid
seriously, it took me less then a minute
to figure out that a small, flat screwdriver was the definitive solution for that contraption

[Aurel]

Ask your kids to do it for ya...

Aurel

[gassy]

I could never do it, but then again I'm not that smart. I could get one side though.

[cantdrv55]

My son can solve that thing is about three minutes. He tried to teach me but it didn't take.

[slodave]

Originally Posted by svandamme

i was a rubics cube genius when i was a kid
seriously, it took me less then a minute
to figure out that a small, flat screwdriver was the definitive solution for that contraption

The true kid genius, learned that if you twist it a certain way, the thing will fall apart. No screwdriver needed.

[Z-man]

My best was 1:27. Friends of mine in Hungary showed me how to solve it, more or less.

I am unsure if I can still solve it. It really isn't that difficult, once you know the proper series of turns.

-Z-man.

[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by Z-man

My best was 1:27. Friends of mine in Hungary showed me how to solve it, more or less.

I am unsure if I can still solve it. It really isn't that difficult, once you know the proper series of turns.

-Z-man.

Yup. Once you get one side, you just follow a pattern and you can knock the whole thing out. I used to solve it for other kids on the bus for a quarter when I was 8. I won't say that I figured it out...my dad bought a book on how to solve it and I memorized that.

[dtw]

Yeah, I had the book memorized back in the day. 2nd or 3rd grade as I recall. It started to 'make sense' after you solved it enough times. Started getting fast enough with the other knurds that we were putting vaseline on the internals to allow for faster working of the puzzle. I could do it in 3-5 minutes easy. That kid in the movie above is amazing.

[trekkor]

Yes to memorizing the book.
1 minute or less for me.

We used to take them apart and sand/grease the internals that touched.


KT

[bell]

i could never get more than 2 sides on the cube.....however the pyramid thing i could do in less than a minute

[Rikao4]

Have a friend who is a very fast,
we switched some of those square colors,
drove him crazy.
Rika

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by bell

i could never get more than 2 sides on the cube.....however the pyramid thing i could do in less than a minute

Same here. The "Pyraminx" or whatever it was called was my thing. There was another snake-like one with trapezoidal segments that I was pretty good at too.

Oddly enough, I seemed to do better with the 4x4 cube than the 3x3 cube. Those never really caught on in popularity though. I think I solved the 4x4 one a couple of times but didn't really "get" the algorithm to do it - it was more of a brute force approach as I recall.

[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Same here. The "Pyraminx" or whatever it was called was my thing. There was another snake-like one with trapezoidal segments that I was pretty good at too.

Good at the snake? LOL



I could rawk that orb thing.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Hey now! I suppose I walked into that one.

I guess it was called the orb or whatever. Kinda' looked like a snake I thought. Dunno.