Crazy Jupiter Bandaged

 rline is back! Back into puzzling. Yesterday I sent him a box of puzzle pieces. A bunch of pieces from the kit Burgo sent me years ago that I have never done anything with. rline will get much more use out of them than I will. Also sent were a bunch of Crazy Tetrahedron pieces. Enough to build every Crazy Tetrahedron Planet and then some. 

He encouraged me to keep the pink pieces of the B4 kit so I could make some Crazy Bandaged Puzzles. His first challenge was based on Jupiter. The white face is a 0-face. All others are 1-faces. Plus there is a B4 Pink bandaged piece.

It was quite frustrating at first, and just about did me in. I was ready to take it apart, put the pinks away, and go back to something easier. Like a simple circle cube. That is all 0-faces. But I'm glad I persevered. I finally solved it, but every solve took hours to do. Then rline told me he can solve it in 20 minutes. What?!? After he posted a video I watched the master at work. Very methodical. Very nice. Very inspiring. I've been able to work out a strategy myself now that I can execute in under an hour. The only time I timed it it was 29 minutes, and since I was hurrying I messed up a few times which cost me some minutes. Here is my strategy—

1. Pink Block (white down)

3 pink edges on bottom.

Get pink corners just like white corners on a 3x3x3.

2. Reduce Edges (white up; start with pink down

Move 4 edges to the top so that a 90° twist reduces 3 of them. Twist. Repeat.

3. Reduce Corners (white & pink down; pink in back)

Unreduced corners in front with the inner of one matching the outer of the other. To get them there, twist the top and use one of the following moves (these are just the same moves that are used to solve the white corners of a normal 3x3x3)—

• Up Forward Down
• Up Replace Down
• (Up Forward Down Goback) (Up Forward Down)
• (Up Around Down Goback) (Up Forward Down)
• If the pink is blocking a move twist it up to the back of the side you want to twist up.

Turn the bottom to reduce a corner. Replace the corner with an inner that matches the outer than will come forward when you turn the bottom back.

If an outer and inner that belong together are on two sides of the same corner, get that color on the other side of the cube. Turn the bottom, twist the corner, turn the bottom back.

4. 2x2x3 Block (white down)

The goal is to solve the pink, blue/red edge, blue/orange edge, red/white edge, and orange/white edge. It doesn't matter what order they are done in.

Use turns of the yellow, blue and orange faces to solve the orange/white. Yellow, blue and red faces to solve the red/white. 

To solve the red/blue edge—

1. Turn the blue then red to move the pink under the red center.
2. Turn the top to put the blue of the blue/red edge over the blue center.
3. Turn red then blue to move the pink back under the blue center.

5. Orient Edges 

Count the bad edges. Bad edges are edges that need to flip. An edge needs to flip if, holding the 2x2x3 block on the bottom left, you could not solve the edge using only turns of the top and right layers. 

If there are an odd number of bad edges, the pink edge needs to flip. With white down and blue on the right, and a bad edge at the top front do R2 U2 L F U2 Fi U R2. Doing this sequence maintains the 2x2x3 block and flips one of the bad edges.

If there are still bad edges to flip put blue down and yellow in front. Bad edges at the top/back and left/front can be flipped with Di (Up Forward Down) D.

6. Solve (blue down)

1. Finish the bottom two layers.
2. Permute edges. up forward down forward up around down. 
3. Permute corners if necessary by double swapping with setup moves and (Up Forward Down Goback) x 3. 
4. Orient corners. Right then Left up forward down forward up around down.

Using this strategy I solved it in under 20 minutes. It was a nice smooth solve with no mess-ups. 

Crazy Tetrahedrons

I ran across the following unpublished page today. Notice what I said at the bottom. It has been more than a couple years but I have no interest in starting fresh or messing with them at all! 😏

Standard

Solve the Crazy Tetrahedron just like a Skewb Pyraminx. The "inner corners" are really part of the outer edges, so when you solve the outer edges the "inner corners" solve too. The "inner edges" are really part of the centers. For example, the blue, yellow, and white "inner edges" that are adjacent to the orange side all move with the orange center. So in this puzzle the orientation of the centers matters.

Mercury

Mercury has one 1 face and 3 0 faces. Standard has 4 0 faces. I made my Mercury by converting my Standard. I flipped the inner center piece on the white face, since the white face had alignment issues that made it not so enjoyable to play with. The normal store bought Mercury has orange as its 1 face. Unlike its Skewbish puzzle cousins, I no of only one way to solve Mercury. Here are the steps.

Orient the White Center—at most 1 twist.

Outer Corners must be solved relative to one another, or in a double swap—at most 2 twists.

Inner Edges—hold white on the bottom and use The Move.

Outer Edges—hold white on the back and use setup moves and The Move.

Inner Corners—hold white on the bottom and an edge forward, and use the algorithms below which are all commutators built using The Move.

Outer Corners—hold white on either front or back and use variations of The Move x 3 to permute and orient the corners.

Inner Corner Algorithms

The R' Move = R' L R L'
The L Move = L R' L' R
The R' D' Commutator = (R' Move) D' (L Move) D = (R' L R L') D' (L R' L' R) D
The L D Commutator = (L Move) D (R' Move) D'
The R' D Commutator = (R' Move) D (L Move) D'
The L D' Commutator = (L Move) D' (R' Move) D

Pieces are named with 2 letters, the first indicating the face, and the second the position on the face. For example DL = the Down face, piece on the Left.

To move DF > DR > DL > LU > BU do The R' D' Commutator.
To move DF > DL > DR > RU > BU do The L D Commutator.

To move DR > DF > RU do the L D' Commutator followed by the L D Commutator.
To move DL > DF > LU do the R' D Commutator followed by the R' D' Commutator.

Mars and Saturn

Early May 2013 I tried working through Mars but couldn't get into it. It has been about a year since I last solved them. I would sort of like to just forget them for a couple years then start from scratch without notes.