Yo guys, I just solved my very first fully scrambled Rubik’s cube!

I got into the hobby a few weeks ago, when I saw Rik doing it. He got into the hobby in Princeton when he saw some guy there doing it. That guy got into the hobby because he had nothing better to do.

Rik is phenomenal at it. Of course, he is nothing compared to the guys on display on Youtube, with obscene records like 10.56 seconds and even faster. But my god, when you look at Rik maneuvering the cube, it looks impressive.

I have been learning these algorithms for the solution for weeks, trying to make sense of them, asking why they were not otherwise. One thing I was sure of even then was that I would never try to be fast. That was not in my interest. My interest was to understand the object, the cube, and the solution. Once I understood it, practising to get faster is just mechanical. I would already consider myself as having conquered the cube, and wouldn’t go into that.

This morning, I finished learning the very last step, solving the Dedmore H and Fish patterns. I haven’t fully understood all the cube algorithms, but I can use all of them now.

Then I scrambled the cube, set the timer on my phone, and started to solve.

I screwed up with that last step, and everything got messed up.

I scrambled the cube again, and set the timer.

I solved the thing from scratch again, up to the last step…

…which I screwed up again, and messed the whole thing up.

I solved it again up to the last step. Then I looked up the algorithm again, followed it to solve the cube, and spotted my mistake.

THEN I scrambled the cube, and set the timer.

I solved it, finally, in 9 minutes and 17 seconds, approximately.

I solved the first layer in 3 minutes and 8 seconds, the second layer in an additional 1 minute and 38 seconds, and the last in an additional 4 and a half minutes.

This is a miserable time in the arena of cubers, but hey, it’s my first solution, and the solved cube looks so pretty and I’m so proud.

I am, in fact, starting to have an inkling of a thought…

…Can’t I try to be faster?

Anyway, that’s for later.

Here’s my solved cube sitting pretty:

See you around next time.

Oh hey, this is a later update. I solved it again some time later, and this time I came up with 5 minutes and 30 seconds.

The first layer took 2 minutes and 43 seconds, the second, 1 minute and 7 seconds, and the third, 1 minute and 40 seconds. I was lucky with the third this time.

1Life.