Progress Update

Although I have been keeping you all informed of what I'm learning through my practice, I haven't really shared my progress. So in this post I will try and inform you of what I have accomplished thus far.

What I have been doing to for my project is available on my goals page. I have come close to or accomplished these goals which is good because the project is just about over.

I now can get about a 16.xx colour neutral average of 12 which isn't too far off of my original goal of 15.xx seconds.

I have also memorized nearly all of the 57 OLL algorithms which was a lot of work as well as all 21 of the PLL algorithms. I should be able to finish memorizing all of the OLLs very soon.

So overall I feel as though my work thus far has payed off and I have made a lot of progress in speed cubing. I have learned a ton through my practice sessions and through this I have really come to realize that you can't expect to get good at something without a LOT of practice. Practice is so important!

The main obstacle I had to overcome during this project was time restraints as I had been very busy with school and sports. I overcame this obstacle by setting aside a chunk of time before bed as my practice time which seemed to work very well. I also had a problem were sometimes I would forget an algorithm I had memorized because there are so many. I overcame this by memorizing the algorithm during the day and then before bed repeating it several more times. This seemed to make the algorithms I memorized very concrete in my mind.

Dw or d moves in F2L

While in practice, I realized the importance of "Dw" or "d" moves in F2L. Dw and d are the same move, but have different names. Note, a "D" move is different from the moves previously mentioned. The difference can be found on the notation page. Anyways, while in practice I often found my self needing to make a Y rotation and then do a U turn to be able to insert an F2L pair. Well as a speed solver you want to try and make as few Y rotations as possible during a solve. Then I realized that within a d or Dw turn, there is a hidden Y rotation because the middle layer is rotated as well changing the position of the centre pieces. And because the top layer is not rotated along with the middle and bottom, there is also a U rotation made relative to the centre pieces. So basically, a d or Dw turn is basically a Y rotation plus a U rotation. This can be used to substitute for an actual Y and U rotation. This has become incredibly useful during F2L. It allows me to insert pairs that would normally require a slow cumbersome Y rotation very quickly. Here is an example. Normally to solve this case, I would have done a Y rotation, and then a U turn when yellow is in the front.




















Then after i had done the Y rotation and U turn I could insert the red yellow pair with an R U R'. However, as I said before Y rotations should be avoided as they are very slow so the Y rotation and U turn can be replaced by a Dw move. This is a lot quicker and allows you to move into the insertion of the pair much quicker.

This tip won't drop your times drastically, but it does come up often enough to make it a useful thing to know.

F2L

F2L is the second step of CFOP and arguably the most important. F2L stands for "First 2 Layers" and comes right after solving your cross. There are two different ways of solving F2L when dealing with CFOP, one is intuitive F2L and the other is algorithm F2L. Just about no one solves exclusivity with either of these, but with an amalgamation of the two. Intuitive F2L basically means you use no algorithms and everything is solved with your common sense and pre-existing understanding of the cube and how it works. Algorithm F2L focuses on specific cases and scenarios. It is a lot of work to memorize all of these algorithms for these specific cases but it pays off. When a case that you have memorized an algorithm for, it can be solved much faster and in a more fingertrickable way than it would be solved intuitively. Because of this I have been recently memorizing algorithms for specific cases which I have had trouble solving quickly in the past. This is a great video made by Daniel Sheppard  that shows some very good algorithms for cases I have had trouble with in the past.


 
My F2L favourite algorithm I have learned so far is this case. 

The algorithm to place the corner in while the edge is already solved is R' D' R U' R' D R. Normally this case would require a time consuming Y rotation but this algorithm utilizes D turns and it can be executed very quickly. This is also a great algorithm because it can be used to force an OLL skip. An OLL skip is where the OLL stage is completed already after F2L and does not require an algorithm. When the case appears like this you can execute the algorithm and it won't un-orient any of the other pieces leaving you with an OLL skip allowing you to move straight into PLL. When done intuitively, this would not be the case. This is what the cube looks like when you are able to utilize this algorithm to force an OLL skip.