Twisty puzzles.

Soldato
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Without help I can get to white cross with corners. That's the white side complete with the correct middle pieces underneath. And now i'm working on second layer. I looked on ruwix.com but i'm trying to solve it without a turn by turn guide. Just the finished pictures of the steps.

Nice progress. Yes, you'll find you can solve the first two layers ("F2L") intuitively but the last layer is a bit trickier.

Have a cube on my desk that im always messing with. I was down to sub 60 seconds but that was awhile back. Id imagine im around 90-120 seconds now.

Cubers everywhere! Welcome to the fold. :)
 
Soldato
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So anyone watch the speed cubers on netflix? Best thing I've seen in a while and pretty sure the misses has bought me a cube for Christmas. Doubt its a Gan one though heheh.
 
Associate
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I used to buy/obtain puzzles from car boot sales to take to my friends in Kenya. I could solve the cube in about 2.5 minutes, the clock in about 4 minutes, Rubik’s magic somewhat longer.


I used to tell the seller I was taking them to Kenya and ask that if I completed it now, could I have it for free, nine out of ten times the seller would say yes.


I couldn’t see the point in the Rubik Snake
 
Commissario
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When the cube first came out and everyone had them, a poorly photocopied cheat sheet circulated at school, I learned it and could do it in about 45 seconds. I picked one up recently and could do one side and the next two rows but had no recollection of how to finish it off. I seem to remember getting a cross on the bottom and finally dropping the corners in but I have no idea what the sequence was.
 
Soldato
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Soldato
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I've have a few 3x3s, a 4x4, 5x5, 3x3 mirror cube, and an unusual shaped one which I've never tried.

I can do a 3x3 in around 2 mins using the beginners method, never really learnt anything beyond that. I taught my two boys how to do it, one was aged 6 when he learnt, the other learnt at age 5.

I did learn how to do the 4x4 although I'd need to check on occasions for certain steps as I don't practice it enough, it was fun learning and seeing the differences between that and the 3x3. I've never learnt the 5x5 yet.

My favourite is probably the 3x3 mirror cube. It's basically a 3x3, it follows all the same steps but you intuitively solve it by looking/feeling which piece should go where. Anyone who can do a 3x3, get the mirror cube!
 
Associate
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Was this the flat one?

Yes it is flat. The first one I bought from a car boot sale didn't have a box or instructions and I wasn't really sure what to do with it, the seller just saying that I'd have to arrange it so that the links intertwined, I automatically thought the result would still be two rows of four and as such couldn't solve it.

I then scanned both sides of the tiles, cut the scans into tiles and laid the scans out on a flat surface, only then did I realise what I was up against and learnt how to fold/unfold the puzzle into the shape required. I then had to work out how to arrange the tiles in the 2 x 4 shape which would allow me to unfold the puzzle to the correct solution. A pretty good puzzle all said and done. For just playing around the cube can't be beat IMO.
 
Soldato
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I got a Rubiks branded 3x3 for Xmas and can solve it in 4 mins using the beginners method now. Trying to learn F2L but its taking a while to go in. Also have a Gan 356m Cube on the way. Something to keep my mind busy anyway.
 
Soldato
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Any reputable UK stores to buy the gan 11 pro from?

Amazon have them, but seem more expensive than dedicated cube sites..
But I have no idea which ones are genuine UK stores...
 
Soldato
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Any reputable UK stores to buy the gan 11 pro from?

Amazon have them, but seem more expensive than dedicated cube sites..
But I have no idea which ones are genuine UK stores...

I bought an 11M Duo a couple of months ago (my first ever speed cube) from a seller on eBay - danev39. It arrived with no issues.

It came with a note saying that he runs one of the cube stores that I’d come across whilst searching (Think it might have been UK cube store but I don’t remember) but I bought through eBay for convenience and security (I prefer to pay by PayPal where possible rather than give my card details to random online stores)
 
Associate
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I only ever had a fake rubiks cube as a kid that was hard and grinding to turn, just pieces of plastic stuck to each other. I've seen a bunch of mega rubiks puzzles around, I'll try finding them and posting in a bit.

First of all, a digital only possible puzzle - 4D rubiks cubes:

https://superliminal.com/cube/cube.htm

And then here's a 33x33x33 cube:

https://youtu.be/NqJC3YxfcyM
 
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Soldato
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Got my 3x3 times down to sub 1 min with a best of around 45-50 secs. Still learning all the advanced f2l stuff. I have 4 look last layer down but don't think I'll be learning the 21+57 algs for some time whilst my f2l has so much room for improvement.
 
Soldato
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I’ve been mostly retraining myself since getting my Gan. I first learned to solve the cube about 25 years ago from a book that taught me a top down version of what I guess would be the beginner method. I’d evolved this into basically freestyling F2L then doing the last layer as position corners, orient corners, position edges, orient edges. My muscle memory was at the point where I had picked up a cube for the first time in what must have been 10 years and surprised myself by performing some of the the more complex algorithms without even knowing how I was doing it.

As most of the online information these days assumes you are solving bottom up CFOP I’ve pretty much started from scratch. Not even started timing myself yet as my F2L is painfully slow, spending way too long looking and thinking. 4 look last layer is going well though, I’m only aiming to be consistently under 1 minute so I’ll be sticking with 2 look OLL and will aim to gradually pick up as many of the PLL algorithms over time as I can however I’m finding it hard to learn the less commonly used algorithms due to lack of opportunity to practice them.
 
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