Very late to the party, I've just solved my first Rubik's cube at the age of 61! They passed me by back in the day, as they seemed a. impossible and b. pointless. Â
How times change. As I am temporarily housebound following surgery and bored out of my mind, my son bought me one for something to do. It was a lovely thought, but I eyed it with suspicion. Surely I'm not that dull and nerdy? Shouldn't they be filed with clackers, slinky springs and other 70s/80s tat?
Eventually bored of books, telly and doom scrolling I idly picked it up and found a youtube tutorial. In 10 minutes I was hooked! Not being the sharpest tool in the box, it's taken me since yesterday (on and off) to crack it for the first time. I'm way more pleased with myself than I've any right to be 😊 Simple pleasures!Â
Behold the plastic key stone of Antioch, whose secrets yielded to a bloke from Ludlow, as foretold in prophecy....
I learned to do the layer by layer method a few years ago, and am proud of my very modest 75 seconds solve.
My kids got me a GAN 356 Air, very light, which is great and a vast improvement on the original Rubiks Cubes.
Also got a mirror cube, which is frustrating, but a lot of fun.
Similar age here, but I did have an original one, very smooth operation, no internet in those days so had to solve it on my own, which I managed, not so sure I could solve it now! Good work, now get your times down to a few seconds and challenge family and friends at Christmas for a beer;)Â
Similar age here, but I did have an original one, very smooth operation, no internet in those days so had to solve it on my own, which I managed, not so sure I could solve it now! Good work, now get your times down to a few seconds and challenge family and friends at Christmas for a beer;)Â
It did occur to me that learning how to do it pre youtube must have been way, way harder! Respect 👍Â
You swapped the stickers, didn't you?
congratulations!
a bit older than you. but never managed to do it.
Congrats!Â
I 'solved' one in the 80s by popping the corner out and rebuilding it!
The craze hit my kids school a couple of years back so together we learnt to do it. He could solve it in around 30 seconds and kids were bringing them up him up solve and paying with sweets!
I am yet to beat 2 minutes but do pick it up fairly regularly and solve it a few times. I like fiddling with things and it's quite relaxing and satisfying.
There was a book by a 10 ish year old .... the first famous cube solver. It was relatively easy to learn his method. A side, the other 4 corners, the remaining 8 edges, and to learn just 2 or 3 sequences that did nothing except swap 2 corner or edges, or rotate one.  Learning more sequences made solves faster but I got bored after I found i could solve repeatedly in under 2 mins.Â
No chance now though.Â
You can do the cube by Patrick Bossert, that was it.Â
So doing it consistently without prompts now and down to sub 5 minutes. It's quite addictive! I'm going to put it down for a while now before I get repetitive strain injury!
It did occur to me that learning how to do it pre youtube must have been way, way harder! Respect 👍Â
Do yourself a favour and get yourself a speed cube, it's a game changer. Forget speed itself, speed cubes tend to be Not Shit. This is a quid for heaven's sake: https://www.speedcubestore.co.uk/product/mfjs-meilong-3c-3x3/
@drac - that book is how I originally learned, I still have it (and it's in about the same state as that photo!)Â There was a sequel "... to cubic puzzles" which I also have.
Yeah I think we had both too.Â
I actually competed BITD. Never actually won an event though so knocked it on the head fairly quick. A few months ago I found my old cube so had a go at solving it but got stuck as I couldn't remember some of the tricks, and it was proper rattly and loose so quite delicate to use.
Still took me about a year to "get it". Solved it once and then never touched it again. That must have been 84 or 85. My kids have a selection of cubes and pyramids (and other shapes) my lad gets most of them sussed in about half an hour, then can bang them out in a couple of minutes.It did occur to me that learning how to do it pre youtube must have been way, way harder! Respect 👍Â
Only one i can consistently solve is the 2x2x2 and the 1x1x1, which is probably cheating.
Could never do it back in the day (other than either taking apart or moving stickers!).
After this thread have an urge to buy one and learn.
OP - which video did you use?
I never managed it BITD. But, it became a craze at my daughter's school a couple of years ago when she was eight. I figured we'd learn it together. I can solve one pretty consistently in about 2 minutes using the layer method but I've not bothered to learn the more advanced techniques that let you do it a lot faster.
OP - which video did you use?
I looked at a few, but this one made the most sense to me. There seem to be quite a few different methods, so you kind of need to pick one and stick with it. It's not perfect, he mostly explains things quite clearly, but at times he goes a bit quick and glosses over things a little (the very final stage particularly). At those times I found it useful to slow the playback speed down to .5 x or even .25 x to see everything. It took me less than an hour to sus out how to do the first two layers, then "several" hours to sus the final one! Good luck!
I think it was this video that I found helpful
Just be careful or you'll end up on sites like this, talking about MagLev and looking at lube!
https://kewbz.co.uk/collections/3x3-cubes