30 before 30 - The Rubik's Cube, Part 2

Sorry to leave you hanging for such a long time... I'm sure you were all dying to know whether I figured out how to solve the puzzle (side note: do you see that symbol at the end of the last sentence? It's a sarcmark and it's a new punctuation made to indicate sarcasm... not sure if works on computers who don't have it installed... are you able to see it? )

For a refresher, click here for Part 1.

The answer is YES I DID!!!!!!  I am now a proud knower-of-how-to-solve-the-rubik's-cube!

So, the first thing I did was scramble the cube.

Because this was my first time attempting to solve it, I watched Pogobat's tutorials at the same time. It took me 40 minutes to complete finish... but I did it!!!!

It was actually pretty simple to do! Once you understand the architecture of the thing, it's just a matter or using the appropriate "algorithms" to get them to the right spot!

Of course, this does not count as "learning to solve the Rubik's cube" because I was merely following the youtube guy's instructions. A true test would be to rescramble the cube and solve it ON MY OWN without the assistance of the videos.

I had Matthew scramble the cube for me.

Using mnemonic devices to memorize the different algorithms Pogobat taught me, I finished the cube on my own in 8 minutes!!!!  I get that some of you might think that I'm just showing pictures of solved cubes and didn't actually solve it myself... So for you non-believers, here's a sped up video of me solving the cube... You can tell it's me because I have ugly wrinkly hands with chubby fingers and a scar on my right hand from when I was a curious 11-month old and attempted to pull myself up using the cord of an iron that my mom was currently using (needless to say, the iron fell on my hand leaving me with permanent scars and dreams of being a hand model out the window)!

The darn thing kept getting stuck, so I probably could have shaved a few seconds if I had the cube oiled!

I can finally cross something off of my 30 before 30 list! Woohoo!

It took me a total of 90 minutes to watch all the videos and memorize the algorithms. Currently, my fastest time is a little under 7 minutes! Who knows?!?! Maybe one day I can enter a "speed cubing" competition... :-D

That goal is probably for another list though...

30 before 30 - The Rubik's Cube, Part 1

sorry for the cheesy graphic

I have never owned a Rubik's Cube, but as I am a child of the 80s, I have played with a ton of them over the years.  Many of my cousins had one and every time there was a family party, I would spend a few minutes hours twisting and reconfiguring that darn cube to try to solve it, but could never figure it out.  The most I've probably completed was just one side of a cube and it was one of my proudest moments!

I love puzzles and word games.  When I discovered Minesweeper in 1997, I was determined to be the best at it.  I played that game every chance I had.  My all-time best scores were: Beginner - 3, Intermediate - 19, and Expert - 86 (can you beat that?).  I cried when my brother had to wipe out the hard drive because of a stupid virus before I had the chance to save a "print screen" of my accomplishment... so I don't have proof of this feat I achieved 13 years ago, but please believe me when I say those times are real!  Also, my favorite board game is Scrabble/Words with Friends and when PlayStation was the best gaming console, I was addicted to Roll Away (yes, I was a video game geek, but only played RPGs and puzzle games... like that's supposed to make me seem less geeky).  Anyway, somehow, I never really put in the effort to solve the Rubik's cube -- the ultimate puzzle.

Until now.

As part of my 30 before 30 list, I set out to solve the Rubik's cube.  Of course, I wouldn't be able to do it on my own.  I scoured the interwebs to find the best videos and articles that would teach me the proper techniques and was also easy to understand! I may have geeky tendencies but I am no genius. There are loads of resources out there, but my favorite tutorial is from this dude:

source - doesn't he seem nice?

I watched all of Pogobat's videos and became very excited to try the techniques out myself.... but, ummm... I didn't have a Rubik's cube!!!

D'oh.

I went to Target (my favorite store, zomg!) and tried to restrain myself from buying anything other than the Rubik's cube (who knew I'd get sucked into buying 'back to school' supplies when I've been out of college for over 5 years).  I wanted to find a cute one (like one with pink and teal colors - do they even make those?!), but could only find the original.

Here she is (I named her Biksy... couldn't name her Ruby, which would be a logical name.  I already named our first tree that, but that's another story):

Brand new, straight out of the package. 

Aww.. now she's all messed up

Did I finally learn how to solve the Rubik's cube?!? Or did I get ridiculously frustrated and ended up chucking that stupid thing at Pogobat's smiling face staring at me through the computer?! 

 Stay tuned...