Elvis Blogs - Elvis McNeely

Like most geeks we all had or have a Rubik's Cube. I never played with one growing up but over the years it seems my mind needs these kind of problems to solve. A few weeks back I got the cube out to show my three year old, just to see how she would respond. She loves puzzles and will definitely be a logic person. She can solve a 50 piece puzzle, that amazes me.

Two weeks ago I begin playing with this cube and a week later I solved it. I did have a little help with some common algorithms. Some might say it is cheating to use algorithms, but I disagree. In the process of doing the algos you learn more about the cube and what is going on; how to move a particular square to a particular spot. You can learn more quickly using cheat sheets.

The cube is addictive. Before going to bed I would pick it up and begin testing my understanding of it, trying to solve it without the need of a cheat sheet. I would end up staying up for a couple more hours, intensely engaged. This caused me to rethink how I saw the cube, not so much three dimensional but flat, 2d, just shifting squares around in groups of 1,2, or three. I then realized the cube seems to have solving attributes you find when solving matrices. Very interesting.

Now that I feel more comfortable with the cube, I am beginning to find more algorithms and strategies to solving it. That is neat! Just two weeks ago I was attempting to solve it all wrong. The next challenge I want to try is the Rubik's Flat Cube.