Monday, August 28, 2017

Tangram Cube Solution Quandary

Before getting to the Tangram Cube a note about Eyes Closed Solving. I tried today and the first attempt I was a little off but thought I knew the problem, so I tried again on another cube that had the same scramble. Ended up even worse. Well, I put the same scramble on the two cubes so I could try again. Only one problem. The same scramble had different results. In other words, today I couldn't even scramble a cube accurately! (August 29, 2017. First thing this morning I got up, reviewed the puzzle a minute, closed my eyes, and solved it successfully. Yes!)

Now to the Tangram Cube! So in trying to do the solve again without notes today I discovered some new algorithms. For example, Step 5. Orient the 3 little edges. (J A J' R) x 2 A L A L flips K1 and YP. This is a simpler algorithm than the first one I came up with. I have replaced the former one in my solution post of a couple days ago. (August 30, 2017. Found an even better way today to flip K1 and YP! L R L R L A L A.)

Then I was just experimenting a little and found another better way to cycle 3 centers. I say better because it just uses The Move x 3 then another The Move x 3. So it only uses 24 moves instead of 28. But I'm not sure I quite have it figured out. And if I want to cycle backwards do I want to use 48 moves or do I want to learn the backwards cycle? Neither! I found a setup move that let's me cycle backwards. So here is what I have ended up with. I will revise the Solution post accordingly.

(J A J' A) x 3 (W L W' L) x 3 cycles Bottom > Back > Right
The setup move W' R W swaps the centers on the right and back so the cycle is reversed.