Puzzled 2: 2x3x4 Camouflage Cuboid

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

2x3x4 Camouflage Cuboid

I bought the puzzle in 2014. Was mystified for a whole year. Finally solved it in August 2015. Played with it a short while then as far as I know I did not solve it again until yesterday. I just haven't been drawn to it since then. How did it attract me now? I put all my puzzles into Amazon boxes. Instead of all different sized boxes I decided to try more uniform sized boxes. The 2x3x4 Camouflage was not solved so it didn't sit flat in the box. I wanted to be able to store it in cuboid shape.

I tried and made some progress but finally decided to consult my notes. They are all in this blog. The notes jogged my memory and I solved it. I am not real comfortable with it at this point though. I think I solved it enough a couple years ago to get it down. I want to solve it enough to get good at it again.

So far I am totally not getting it!

I just reread something from a past post and I think I see what I am doing wrong. I think I get it now. It says, "Twisting Corner Blocks. Using 2x2x2 moves do things like ( R U Ri Ui ) x 2 or ( R Ui Ri U ) x 2 or the left-handed versions, to orient corner blocks. Only one corner on the bottom layer gets twisted, so the bottom is the working layer where pieces are paired up. Three pieces in the top layer get twisted, but since they are corner blocks, already reduced corners do not get unreduced."

June 7, 2017
With the info in the paragraph above and the center-solver in a past post I think I have it. Now if only I can keep at it long enough to really get it down.

June 8, 2017
Put a real good scramble on it last night then worked at solving it off and on (if you know what I mean) until I reached this point. Thought I'd take a picture and show Roark and Roriana before I finished the solve. (somewhere along the line I deleted pics from Flickr so the link was broken so I removed the link on 5/12/20)

June 9, 2017
It has been going well except for one thing. Sometimes the center pieces do not have to cycle from Bottom Back to Bottom Front to Top Back or Bottom Front to Bottom Back to Top Back, and I see no simple way around it. I thought I did have a way. Do Top to Top to Bottom, but I messed up and ended up scrambling edges including one of the yellow ones. I'm not sure I messed up. Maybe it just doesn't work. But why not? I think I messed up. Well, let's do some re-solving and see....

When I re-solved it the centers were solvable with one of the two algorithms I have in my arsenal. I fiddled around trying to figure out another one but didn't, so put a good scramble on it and then started solving it again.

June 10, 2017
Turns out that from the solved state if you do the Corners First 2 pair algorithm it makes steps! Cool!

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Rubik's Cube Books

I got my first Rubik's Cube in the early nineteen eighties. The only way I could solve it was to take it apart and put it back together solved. Until, that is, I got some little books that explained sequences of moves that could be used to put pieces where you want them without messing up what was already in place.

The Simple Solution To Rubik's Cube
by James G. Nourse
Notes on Rubik's Magic Cube
by David Singmaster
Solve That Crazy, Mixed-up Cube Puzzle
by Don Frederick.

I think I put together my own strategy using bits and pieces gleaned from all three books. Eventually I lost interest and forgot how to complete the cube, forgot I had those books, and lost track of the cubes.

Mark Jeays' Working Corner Method

http://jeays.net/rubiks.htm

In 2007 my interest in Rubik's Cube was rekindled when I watched the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. Marae found my 1980s cube for me and I tried to solve it. Huh-uh. I could do part of it, but not the last layer. Looking online I found various tutorials. Mark Jeays included YouTube videos with his Solution 2. This method worked for me and although I no longer use it in its entirety, nor could I, as I have forgotten the yellow edges sequences, I still find the basic working corner technique helpful, and use a slightly modified version of his corner twisting technique at times.

In the summer of 2014 we packed 30 or so puzzles and flew to visit Raymond and Fam in the Czech Republic. Breann, who had learned this method and no other, made some comment about bubururu or something like that, and it piqued my curiosity. What were those algorithms, and how similar are they to the EPS technique I use now when using a working corner? So I looked them up. Actually, the three algorithms were for dealing with the two last edges solved, which either needed to be swapped, or flipped, or swapped and flipped. The swapper is very similar to the one I have learned and used since, but I actually like it better in one sense, with a slight modification.

To swap UR and FR without flipping:

U' R U' R' U' R U' R' U'

To swap and flip UR and FR:

F' U' F U' F' U' F U2

To flip UR and FR:

F' U F U' R U' R' U

Will I actually learn and use these? Probably not. But I like them. :)

There is a slightly different implementation of the Working Corner Method. Arnaud van Galen calls it the Keyhole Method. I like his demonstration better than the one I originally learned. It just dawned on me why he is able to get away with doing it the way he does. He goes ahead and finishes the F2L before going to the last layer, unlike the way Jeays uses the working corner (keyhole) to also get the last layer. Since I no longer use the working corner to get the last layer, I should implement Arnaud's technique.

Jasmine's Scalable Method

http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/rubikscubesolution.html

This was the next method I learned. For awhile the idea of speed cubing appealed to me. This promised to be a good beginner's method for those that wanted to go on to faster method's later. Now that I know what I know, I wouldn't recommend this method if your goal is to be able to consistently solve the cube in less than 30 seconds. Rubik's Speedsolver Champion Leyan Lo presents a beginner's method that I like the looks of although I've never learned it. I have recently watched Arnaud van Galen's complete beginner's method video series and recommend them. Gilles Roux presents a beginners' method that is very close to one of my favorite ways of solving the cube. The simplicity and comprehensibility make this method a good place to start if you want to understand the Rubik's Cube. Also, if you are interested in speedcubing you should check out this YouTube video.

After trying for months to get under a minute with both Jasmine's Method and the Corner's First Method—and failing, I finally decided to quit trying and just enjoy cubing at a nice slow pace.

Don't get me wrong. Jasmine's Method has its merits. The sequences for orienting the last layer edges and corners, and permuting the last layer edges are still in my arsenal of useful algorithms.

Adam Cheyer's Corners First Method

Philip Marshall's Ultimate Solution

http://helm.lu/cube/MarshallPhilipp/
After learning to solve the cube corners first, what is next? An Edges First Method! This was a very difficult tutorial to follow, but once I got it, it was my favorite way to solve the cube for awhile. It uses only a few algorithms, and when you are finished solving the cube you feel like you've solved the puzzle, not just used memorized sequences to unscramble it.

Gilles Roux presents a beginners' method that could be used to solve the cube edges first. The simplicity and comprehensibility make this method a good place to start if you want to understand the Rubik's Cube. His technique is much easier to follow than Marshall's.