Fundamental techniques
Before we even begin to solve Rubik's cube, it is important to become familiar with some basic techniques and strategies that we will be using later. Most of these techniques have to do with joining pieces together.
First "align", and then join
One of the biggest frustrations for a beginner is figuring out which way two pieces are supposed to go together. After first identifying two pieces that are supposed to go together, a beginner will soon find that there are many incorrect ways!
For a corner and edge pair that are supposed to go together, there are in fact 5 incorrect ways they can be joined, and only 1 correct way:
. . . INCORRECT . . . |
CORRECT |
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In the correct configuration, both the top (orange) and front (yellow) sides of the two pieces match in colour.
In figuring out how to get the two pieces to join together this way, it is useful to see how the two pieces would look, one move away from solved:
Notice that when the two pieces are one move away from being joined, they are perfectly aligned: the yellow sticker comes before the orange sticker. It is important that you see this. Click and drag each cube above to look at the hidden sides of the cube, and see that the yellow/orange stickers are aligned.
What does this mean? It means that all you need to do to join two pieces is to first get them into this position where you can see that they are aligned, and then you will be able to easily join them in one move.
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Example We can see that these two pieces should be joined by yellow and orange, but they are currently not aligned. In the edge piece, yellow comes before orange, but in the corner piece, green comes before yellow. If we were to join them now, we would see yellow beside green, and orange beside yellow. However, if we rotate the front face 90 degrees anti-clockwise, the two pieces will be aligned. Click play, or step, to watch through the solution. |
Treat blocks as single units
Once we have some pieces joined together, we treat those blocks as single units. We move them around like they are one piece, and we try not to break them up.
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Treating these blocks as single units, we can once again use the align/join technique to join them. If we rotate the front face 90 degrees anti-clockwise, the two blocks will be aligned and in a perfect position to be joined. Click play to watch the solution. |
Move things out of the way
As more and more pieces are joined together, we need to be increasingly careful not to break apart blocks that we have already formed.
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In the cube to the left, the two red/white pieces are perfectly aligned and can be joined in one move. However, by doing so we will destroy the two connected white pieces on top. Click play to see what would happen. Notice that although the two red/white pieces were successfully joined, the two white pieces that were on top have now been split up, and the block that they once formed has now been destroyed. |
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The strategy to use in this situation is to first move the two white pieces out of the way so that they will not be destroyed by our planned move. Click play to see this in action. Notice that this time the two white pieces that were on the top are still connected together and have not been destroyed. They were merely relocated to a safer place while joining the two red/white pieces. |
Destroy and restore
As even more of the cube is built up, we will eventually find that we can no longer affect the pieces we want without destroying blocks that we have already formed. In these cases, we need to go ahead and destroy, but remember what we did so that we can restore it afterwards.
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Using the step button to step through each move individually:
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