Sunday, February 16, 2014

Squished Skewb Solve

I think the Squished Skewb is great! The shapes you can make with it are fun and interesting. The quality of the puzzle is very good (thank you LanLan). Here is a solve.


In this solve the corners only took a couple twists plus one EPS. None of the corners needed to twist after being placed. That scenario was covered in the Skewb Cube video and works the same with the Squished Cube.

Meier-Halpern Pyramid (Jing's Pyraminx)

In the previous post I showed a solve of the Skewb Cube. The Meier-Halpern Pyramid corners can be solved like the first 4 corners in the Skewb video, with just a few simple twists. If the centers are not solved they can be solved with one EPS. Or, if preferred, the centers can be solved later using a Triple-EPS.

Now the edges may be solved with the same algorithm as the Skewb center squares, but there are easier ways. For example, the EPS can be used to place them if centers are going to be solved last, or the Double-EPS can be used to place them if the centers are already solved. So it just depends on whether you like having the centers and corners all solved first, or not. Why can this simpler method be used here, but not with the Skewb Cube? Because it twists the centers of the Tetrahedron, which doesn't matter, unless orientation of the centers matters to you. It doesn't to me. I ignore the grain of the stickers. If it matters, the longer algorithm demonstrated in the Skewb Cube video works.

Finally, if a pair of edges need flipped, without disturbing the rest of the puzzle ,,,





How I Prefer Solving a Skewb


Now that I've watched it, I have one thing to say. When twisting two corners, they have to need to twist opposite directions. Don't try to use this method to twist two corners in the same direction. It won't work. But you probably knew that already.