Introduction...

This blog has been created to log my progress for a school project dubbed the "Passion Project." Essentially we, the students pick our own semester long project, something we are "passionate" about. We create our own guidelines and goals in order to create a product or achieve a goal.

My project is to improve my average of 12 on a 3x3 Rubik's cube to 15.xx seconds, to become completely colour neutral, and to memorize all of my OLL and PLL algorithms.

An average of 12 is doing 12 consecutive solves, then averaging out the solves for a final mean, your "average of 12."

When i say colour neutral, that mean being able to start solving the cube from any of the 6 sticker colours (white, yellow, green, blue, red, orange) and not have your times effected in a negative way from this. A majority of cubers start solving the cube from the same colour every time they do a solve and as a result of this, if they were to start with a different colour their time would be much worse because they are not used to it. This is much harder than it sounds and is also a very valuable skill. It is valuable because if you can start your solve from any colour, your chances of getting an easier beginning to your solve is much higher and you should more consistently be able to see into your first F2L pair, assuming you solve with CFOP like myself.

An algorithm when talking about a cube is basically a series of movements that you perform on the cube which gives a consistent, predetermined result.

The method for solving the cube i use is the Fridrich method, created by Jessica Fridrich. It is also commonly referred to as "CFOP" which is an acronym for all of the steps of the Fridrich method, Cross, F2L, OLL, and PLL. I will explain the first two steps in the future but ill quickly cover OLL and PLL now, as they are a part of my project.

OLL stands for orientation of the last layer, which basicly means getting the top colour of the cube all facing up. There are 57 different cases of OLL, therefore 57 different algorithms to be memorized for OLL.
  Performing an OLL algorithm turns the cube from something like the first picture, to something like the second picture.

PLL is the last step of CFOP and is done immediately after you are done your OLL. PLL stands for permutation of the last layer, and what it is is an algorithm that moves the oriented  pieces of the top layer around into their solved position. It turns the second picture into a solved cube.

Now that you understand what my goals are and what they mean somewhat, it is important to know where i am coming from, what my background in cubing is, etc. So about 2 years ago cubing was my main hobby, it was how i passed most of my free time... you might even call it a passion. At my peak i was at about a high 17 second average of 12. I however became busy and a bit tired of cubing so I began cubing much less, increasing my average to about 20 or 21 seconds. And for you non-cubers out there, a second or two on an average 20 or below is very significant. I am now much worse than i was a long time ago. However I really want to get back into cubing and i saw this project as a perfect opportunity to do so. It's something I'm passionate about and also something in which i will continually challenge myself to improve upon, while enjoying it. I will keep this blog updated with my discoveries as i re-learn old knowledge and come across new knowledge. I have A LOT to learn, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to get to do so in a classroom environment.

If this is so far a jumble of meaningless words don't worry, as this blog progresses I will do my best to explain these terms and help you understand fundemental principles about the steps to solve the cube. There is a lot of general knowledge about cubing that you may need to know if you are new to the hobby. I will do my best to explain these things. Hang in there.