Sub-2
(Warning: another personal post with absolutely no value other than to pump me up)
On a daily basis at work, everyone needs a break. My break consists of grabbing my Rubik's Cube and heading over to the desk of the lower cased one. I had a Rubik's Cube when I was younger, but never took the time to learn how to solve it. That was about 24 years ago. I just picked up two cubes at the local Toys 'R Us in late June (on 6/26/2005 according to my blog posts about Steganography).
I decided that this time, I should probably learn how to solve this thing. My inspiration was actually Dr. Jessica Fridrich and her speed cubing page. Some time ago I wrote about working with Steganography and Dr. Fridrich is a Steganographer. She is also a world class Rubik's Cuber. While I'm not up on all of the terminology, I have started with the basic seven steps to solving the cube included with the recent cubes. Also of note is the fact that older cubes have different face color orientations than those sold today. While there are only two configurations that I'm aware of, I only have the recent ones.
My first goal was to just memorize and learn the seven steps. I then focused on my time and wanted an average time of under three minutes to solve the cube. I was able to do that by the fourth week of use. I chose to use the white side as the primary side for this timing, i.e. I would always start by solving layers with the white face first.
My next major goal was to be able to solve in under three minutes (on average) with any starting face color. This requires looking at the cube and being able to transform the color combinations for the seven step solution. While this is not difficult, it takes practice to be able to do this AND achieve a reasonable time. I recognized that my brain needed to learn to do the transforms regardless of starting color and application of colors to each of the seven steps. I was able to do that as of last week.
My next major goal was to solve the cube in under two minutes. My choice at this point was to do this starting with the white face again. Over the last two weeks, I had been improving significantly and then hit my plateau of 2:13 (actually starting with the orange side).
Well, I clobbered my best time today with a 1:55 that was timed and confirmed by the lower cased one. I promised him that I would post up an entry here when I hit a sub-two minute time. Sub-two minutes in about 8 weeks was something that I didn't think that I was capable of until today. What was even funnier about this 1:55 time is that my first "solve" previous to the 1:55, I had declared to him that I would likely take a break from timings to focus on other cube skills. Here are some details:
- My cube at home is much more loose, but I don't practice with that very often. I just tried graphite to "grease" it for speed cubing. The graphite improved the motion by requiring as much as 50% less force to perform moves.
- My time of 1:55 contained no lucky steps, i.e. I executed every algorithm in my standard solving routine. No lucky shortcuts of any type were used to acquire this time. I earned this time with good hand movement, good execution of algorithms and good recognition of the cube's state.
- My 1:55 was with a standard cube that is noticeably tight. Even the lower cased one with all of his strength (his brawn part of brains-n-brawn) using the greased cube yesterday, said that this cube was much harder to mix up (his brains part of the brains-n-brawn) today. Wimp. You need to pump up girlie-man. 315 as your workout weight on bench is for flabby men. Perhaps I should come to your gym and show you how to pump up with 315 cubes on bench.
- the lower cased one has noticed, and rightly so, that I've just started going to the gym. He thinks I must be pumped up to be able to solve the cube like this. After only two days in the gym, I believe him.
To be honest, I had thought that a sub-two minute time with the seven steps was not really possible or would be lucky. I thought that I would have to improve my time by better algorithms rather than better hand movement.
My next goal is to study another 20-25 algorithms and learn the basics of those thoroughly. Simultaneously, I'll be working on my hand movements to learn the basics of some of the speed moves. I'll be buying another 10-15 cubes to try different greasing methods and to get comfortable with different physical cubes attributes. From foosball and video gaming, I've learned that I adapt when given a larger number of instances with different physical (or virtual) properties of the same game. My proficiency improves dramatically as this is also consistent with my perspectives in work in Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming, Emergent Computation, Exparative work and other cognitive/learning stuff.
I ultimately believe that I can achieve sub-one minute times (on average). I'm actually going to pursue a sub-20 second time once I reach that point. If at that time, if I don't feel that either I can do sub-20 or achieving sub-20 requires significantly more work than I'm willing to expend, then I'll just likely enjoy the cube as a hobby and not pursue further improvements.
One other thing that I feel I have in my favor is my ability to perceive and recognize things in wide fields of vision. When I play many different video games that require significant thinking, I'm able to reduce most of the visual cues to my "internal cognitive state", recognize (and pattern match) the situation and apply the appropriate rules all in very short intervals. Jokingly, I used to play preset boards (by game number) of Standard Windows Freecell with a lot of other people. As this is a simple "Tower of Hanoi" problem with measurable computational complexity, somehow my brain must just "get it". Anyways, I have yet to play anyone in this type of tournament Freecell and not win by a margin of at least 50% of my opponent's time. The Cube is a similar problem, so I'm curious if the old noggin' can do the same. Time will tell . . .
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Comments are always welcome here, unless of course, you are a cuber with a better time than I.