I developed my own weird method back in the '80s, which goes: bottom layer, top corners, top sides, middle layer.
I suspect it may not be as efficient as the ‘official’ method, because I could never get it done in much under 45 seconds, and I practised A LOT. But I’m never going to look up the official method because - geek pride.
Once you can do a 3x3 and a 4x4, you can do anything. My current only cube is a 5x5 which drives my children to tears. I kinda lust after a 13x13, which is the biggest I can find commercially available, but not enough to pay three hundred dollars for one (faints)
I think I was 10 (maybe 9) when I got my first cube. Even though I was a pretty smart kid, there was no way I would have figured out a solution by myself. (I solved Rubik’s Clock without help in high school, but that’s a lot easier.) I had the Simple Solution book by Nourse as well. I memorized the solution and eventually taught most of it to the class bully before school ended and I moved out of state. Almost 35 years later, I still remember its moves a lot better than the Petrus method I learned about a year ago. Not coincidentally, I don’t think I’ve ever had a sub-four minute solve.
Sure I did. The irony of it all is that it was the wee brother who bought one with his pocket money during the heyday of them when we were teenagers, but then never solved it, while my twin brother finally got reasonably proficient by following one of the books. Meanwhile I’d gotten there first by figuring it out from scratch with no help.
Though I’ve never understood it in a deep Group Theory fashion. But, back in the day, I could solve it in about a minute or so. These days, I only have a mini, key-chain, version and still occasionally enjoy rattling through it. Perhaps every few years. But evidently not enough to fork out for a proper version that might optimise my speed again.
I’ve never really tried. I’ve never really seen them around anywhere. I may have at one time seen one and futzed with it a bit, but not with any plan to actually complete it.
I did once read some algorithms for the heck of it, but it didn’t seem like anything I could pick up quickly, so I just ignored it.
Now that I’ve worked out how to do any slider puzzle, I guess I might give it a go in the future.
I basically used Lumpy’s method but instead of putting each edge in the proper place individually, I’d put each in its proper “axis” until all I had left were opposite face swaps, which are pretty easy.
I got one not long after they first came out. It took awhile to learn how to do it, but I eventually did and was able to do it in a short amount of time over and over again. Been a long long time since I messed with one, but could probably get one done in around a half hour maybe a little longer.
I used to be able to do it. Used the one of the books mentioned upthread and learned how, and then I was able to do it on my own for a while until I lost interest. Haven’t touched one in probably 30 years.
Modified cubes are allowed by the standards body. You can read the rules here. The relevant subrule seems to be:
*Modified versions of puzzles are permitted only if the modification does not make any additional information available to the competitor (e.g. orientation or identity of pieces), compared to an unmodified version of the same puzzle.
*
Small, identical, and symmetrical holes would seem to be allowed.
I bought that book during the original craze in the early 80s, and used it to learn the solution (I was in high school). At that time, I was able to solve a Cube in under a minute.
I remember, on several occasions, friends would give me a Cube to solve…and, after several unsuccessful tries, I’d hand it back to them. “Did you take some of the stickers off and try to solve it that way?” “Ummm, yeah, why?” “That changes the cube, and makes it unsolvable (which the book had pointed out).”
