Sunday, April 22, 2007

1 - Solving the first layer

For this step, there is no magic trick. Just do your best to have one layer solved, with the correct colors on the top and on the side. Is the hardest part for the beginner, but once you played enough with the cube, this will be the easiest part. This step does not have an Algorithm to help solving, but some tricks that  may speed it up. Here they are:

1-choose_color1 - Select a face to be your top face, and keep it!
Many of the steps involve moving the cube, but never forget your top face/color (In the example, we start with the white face).

As we know, the central pieces (that never move) define the color of the face, so the top face is white and the other side faces are orange and yellow in the picture.



21-make_cross 2 - Make a cross.
Find the pieces you need, and move them one by one to the right position.

The cross is made with the central pieces (pieces with 2-sides only), and every piece should be correctly placed (for instance, the blue side aligned with the blue face, the white side aligned with the white face).




1-choose_color
3 - Place the edge pieces.
Now, find the edge piece (3-color piece) that has the 3 colors for the corresponding edge, and move it to his place. Repeat for each of the 4 edges and TA-DÁ, you have your top face (white) solved, plus the first layer (blue, orange) of the cube is done!

Here you can try a small trick, instead of placing the edge on top, move the piece you want to switch down to the last layer, and change it there, then moving it back to the top layer.


Here is a small video showing how to do the first layer with this last trick.

After succeeding, repeat this step exhaustively, till you learn it…
And Good Cubing!

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