After never completing the Rubik’s Cube in my youth and I never really tried because it just didn’t feel like fun,. That was until my son asked my to show him how – I think a friend of his could solve it and he wanted to also.
So, now I HAD to learn – I want to maintain just a few more years where my son thinks I am really smart. I only have a few years left untill he is a teenager and I will likely become the dumbest person on earth in his eyes. Oh, and then lets add Rubik’s Cube Revenge (the 4×4 cube)
4x4 - make center axis
4x4 - make middle edges match
4x4 - Straight Across middle edge
Uw' R F' U R' F Uw
Daisy, White Cross, level 1, level 2
Yellow Cross (12 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 9 o'clock)
F U R U' R' F'
4x4 Yellow Cross Parity (get a three handed clock)
Rw U2 x Rw U2 Rw U2 Rw' U2 Lw U2 Rw' U2 Rw U2 Rw' U2 Rw'
Make/solve Fish (yellow on left close)
R U R' U R U2 R'
Solve Corners - matching face left hand
L' U R U' L U R' R U R' U R U2 R'
Clockwise
F2 U R' L F2 L' R U F2
Counter Clockwise
F2 U' R' L F2 L' R U' F2
4x4 - Top Center Parity (get only two out of place)
r2 U2 r2 Uw2 r2 u2Now that is terse, right!? That is all the “magic” parts I need to do it.
One thing the Rubik’s Cube did for me was to cause me to recognize that there are things in the world that are “magic” and I can allow them to exist without needing to pull them apart to understand it in order to use it. Throughout much of my life previously, I have always needed to know “ALL” of it, and be the expert with everything, but now I am in my forties – I know that I can’t actually know “ALL” of it. I can have a general knowledge about a great many things, but I have to accept that there are things that I know how to use, but I don’t know how they work – and that is what I am calling “magic”. Isn’t truly “magic”, rather just following instructions (“spell book”) and having the something happen, while not knowing why those things go together in that order.
Have you ever made/had those “no bake” oatmeal/peanut butter cookies? I have made them and had mixed results. My wife took the recipe that was in my mom’s cook book and made them, but they didn’t quite turn out, so she asked why, and my mom said – oh, I changed this and that and this to make it have a better texture and firm up better. My mom had updated/improved the “spell” (recipe) because she understood how and why all the ingredients did what they did and it wasn’t magic to her. When I try to follow the spell, I must miss a keyword in the preparation phase and it caused it to never quite firm up – I love those cookies, but I have never mastered making them.
Back to the cube – those algorithms above are now the only “magic” parts left for me in the cube, and, maybe, I could pull them apart and watch what they do so I can completely master the cube, but I think I am just fine with conquering and not needing to master it.
So, lets break down the step a little in case I am actually going to help someone (maybe me in 20-30 years when I teach my Grandchildren and don’t remember how to do it any longer). First thing is first, solving the 4×4 Rubik’s Cube Revenge is almost exactly like the 3×3, with a few added steps and problems. We’ll start with the 4×4, because we have two steps (and one algorithm) to get us where the 3×3 starts. First we have to solve the centers and make sure they are on the right axis – on a standard 3×3, the yellow center will ALWAYS be opposite the white, blue vs green, and red vs orange, but on the 4×4, this isn’t true, but we have to make it true because there are only 8 corners and they dictate how the sides relate to one another. There is a white, blue, and orange corner, and it is tells us the orientation of those three side to one another.
Back to solving, start by solving the white, then solve the yellow completely opposite from the white, and then solve any one of the remaining colors. Solving the center is done by having the saving squares in a “r” shape (if you don’t have enough to make the “r”, keep them more left, but top – you’ll see). Then put the square you want to bring setup the same way, then move Rw up or down to it and rotate 90 to grab one and 180 to grab two and move Rw back (oh, algorithm notation – Rw = right wide next table). Now that we have three sides, we find/use a corner piece to line up the next two axes (had to look that up, not axiis, or axises) and the last will be solved by default.
R - Right
L - Left
U - Upper
F - Front
clockwise for that face unless '
The 4x4 adds a few
w - means both on that face (wide)
lower case - means the inner of the two on that side
x - whole cube rotates on the R axis
- could also be written as Lw' RwNow that we have the axes right, we do another part unique to the 4×4, we need the middle edge pair to be the same. It isn’t hard to do, but I think it is hard to explain. You get the pair to be on the same face, but diagonal across the axis, then wide turn to bring the together, rotate to pull the completed pair away, then rotate to put a mixed up pair in it’s place, bring it back, then wide turn back to fix the axes again. That is a difficult sentence to understand until you know what it means, maybe that is why I only found videos. Let’s try with an algorithm, lets say the pair is in front top middle left and bottom middle right – the algorithm for that could be Rw F R F’ Rw’ – I say “could” because the “R” in the middle could be R’ or R2, or if there are only match pairs on the right, the middle could be F’ (L or L’ or L2) F.
Those two parts became pretty easy to me, that is until the last two pairs, but I have an algorithm (magic) for that! Now if the pairs are diagonal, we gotta fix that first, and the algorithm for that is R U L’ F L (or that is how I do it; it isn’t magic to me; I can watch how that works, so it isn’t in my spell book above). LOL – as I am writing, I am also solving and this time around, I didn’t even need the straight across middle edge algorithm because I luckily solved the last one, accept the luck when it happens (again – just “magic”). But, when I normally need to use this and half the time have to flip it so the two pairs are across the axis and not diagonal.
Now, we are where the standard 3×3 cube starts and need to create the daisy. Yellow in the middle with four white petals. Next we are creating the white cross, but the key on it is to have the white and the other color on the middle match the axis on that side. So move the daisy around till the petal matches an axis and then flip that side 180, and keep doing that till all the petals are gone.
Now before we start level 1, which is having the white bottom and the color that match the axes in the bottom level of the cube, from here on out, the white axis should always be facing down before you perform an algorithm. There are two other “moves” I will call out that aren’t in my spell book – left trigger and right trigger. They are L’ U’ L and R U R’. Keep the cube still with the non “trigger hand” and with the “trigger hand” place your middle finger on that sides top and thumb on the bottom, rotate that side away, “pull” the upper face like a trigger with your index finger, then rotate your thumb back to the bottom. (yeah, yeah, videos – if you want one, find some one else’s – man I am stubborn.)
To solve level one, you want to get a white piece facing your trigger hand, and the side on the front matching the front axis, then trigger. After you do that once, you should be able to see exactly what that is doing.
To solve level two (yeah, that was all that was left for level one), you need to make all except the top level solved. (so on a 3×3, that is the white and the bottom two rows, but on the 4×4, it is the bottom 3 rows.) To do this, we need to move middle top’s to the middle middle. Find a middle top that does not have yellow and move that around till you find the axis that matches the color and make that side the front. Now we are going to spin the top, trigger, and fix. The trigger you do it based on the color on top of the middle. Right now I have Red as front, and blue one top, so I am going to do a left trigger. First, I “pull the trigger” (U’), rotate away (L’), “pull the trigger” again (U’), rotate back (L). Now to fix, I rotate the whole cube to make the Blue the front, and repeat the whole thing, but as a right side. (Blue front), U R U R’, and now the Red/Blue middle is in place. Once you do that a couple times, you should be able to follow what is happening and that is not magic – so no spell book entry for that either. If you can’t find a non-yellow on the upper face, then you are going to have to pull one out of the side by doing a trigger and putting the white piece back.
The top level is solved in four steps: yellow cross, yellow top, corners, and centers. The algorithm for the top is to progressively move the “time” forward with FURURF – a hairy dog? If there are no yellow hands on the clock, perform it from anywhere (remember to keep level 1 and 2 on the bottom). If there is only one hand, then that is 12 o’clock, then you’ll get 6, 9, and finally the yellow cross. If you end up with three clock hands you have a 4×4 and a parity mismatch. Rw U2 x Rw U2 Rw U2 Rw’ U2 Lw U2 Rw’ U2 Rw U2 Rw’ U2 Rw’ – notice this has wides – this should only happen with a 4×4, otherwise someone moved a sticker.
Now that we have the yellow cross we can move on to the yellow top; for this we use what my son and I call the double right trigger and the yellow fish that swims towards your left arm. The double right trigger is: R U R’ U R U2 R’, which is also the second half of the one to solve corners (you make a yellow fish when solving corners). Until you have the yellow fish (only one corner is yellow on top), when possible, you want the only yellow on the right side to be at the front – once you have the fish, you want the head of the fish (the one yellow on the top) to be front left (towards your left arm). You just keep repeating the double left trigger till the top goes yellow using that rule.
On to the corners, you may need to do this one zero, one or two times (in fact during this whole thing you might get lucky and skip a step). The algorithm from above is L’ U R U’ L U R’ R U R’ U R U2 R’. If/when you have a solved pair, you want that pair on the left face.
Last is the top centers, this algorithm (F2 U R’ L F2 L’ R U’ F2) will not solve if there are two top centers out of place (you have a 4×4, you need the other 4×4 parity algorithm for two out of place). If you have four out of place, do the algorithm with any face to the front. (if you still have four wrong, you have a 4×4, do the parity algorithm). You should see there are two algorithms for this, and the only difference is if you do U or U’ in the beginning and then the opposite are the end. The way I remember which to do is that you will move the right colored center piece to match the front axis when you do the correct one.
If you have a 4×4 and need to do the top center parity, r2 U2 r2 Uw2 r2 u2, it will flip the front top middle with the back top middle, so you may end up with needing to do the previous algorithm again if you don’t have a front/back swap.
I think I did pretty well with that if a photo can take the place of a thousand words, then this was very concise language to fit in this few of word instead of a video!