3x3x2 Trio

Before I talk about the puzzles, check out the cool plant. What a gift from our marvelous Creator! Our Creator Father God blessed me with this little plant this morning. Halellujah!

Now what about the puzzles? The black one with stickers is simply a 3x3x2 cuboid. It doesn't have any fancy moves. The 3x3 faces can twist in multiples of 90º and the 2x3 faces have to turn 180º.

The Crazy 3x3x2 has circles on both 3x3 faces. Wherever the red white blue corner is is the 1 face. The other face is the zero face. Years ago when Roark was my "master scrambler" he did a move on the Crazy 3x3x2 that we called "the freaky move." You turn an inner slice only 90º then turn a 3x3 face 180º then turn the inner slice 90º again so that it is back to 3x3x2 shape.

The Cubestyle 3x3x2 in the picture can also do the freaky move, but you have to hold the center just right so that it either doesn't spin with the other pieces or it spins all the way with them. If it goes part way it can cause problems.

Whereas the Crazy 3x3x2 that has a freaky move can not be solved without a freaky move, the Cubestyle 3x3x2 with a freaky move can be solved without another freaky move. You know how on a 3x3x3 M up U around M down U around, which by the way is The Move, does a 3-cycle of edges? The same algorithm works the same way on my Cubestyle 3x3x2!

Solving the Simple 3x3x2. I start with the edges then do the corners. The corner 3-cycle is (U L2 U' R2) x 2 to go from URF to DRB to DLB. If, when doing the corners I end up with 2 swapped, I hold the puzzle so neither of the two is on the bottom left and a 3x3 face is up and do (U R2) x 5. That leaves the edges intact and the corners solvable.

Solving the Cubestyle 3x3x2 should work the same way.

Solving the Crazy 3x3x2 is another matter. I remember that the corner 3-cycle is a little more complex and moves URF to somewhere else on top, I think, to somewhere on the bottom back I think. And it is the simple 3-cycle, then move the top, then do the simple 3-cycle the other direction. Or something like that. Oh, and I start the solve by solving the circles. If no freaky moves have been done then it is just like solving a simple Floppy Cube. Oh, and when doing the corners care must be taken where the Red White Blue corner is.

Time to look up the Solution Guide! I tried a solve and got the edges and some of the corners, but then I must have held the Red White Blue in the wrong place, or else messed up a setup move, because it ended up scrambled and I had to start over with the circle and then the edges. Before attempting the corners again let's look up the Guide. I obviously had a different color scheme puzzle when I made these notes. Now it should be Yellow Up and RWB @ UFR/DFR/DBR/DFL

It also says that if 2 corners need to swap at the end do the freaky move and start over at step 1. Two corners needed to swap. I tried the (U R2) x 5 thing, but that messed with the circle pieces. So I left off the last R2 but after solving corners again I still needed to swap 2 corners. So here comes the freaky move, but I am skeptical. Whoa! I did the freaky move with Red White Blue at DRF and Yellow up and it was super easy to solve the circle. Two edges were swapped and then after solving those a couple 3-cycles and the corners were solved. All right!