Spoiler alert

 

If you’re working on solving a Rubik’s cube, I don’t want to give anything away, so you should change the channel right now.  If you know how to do it, I don’t want any help either.  I’m just stumbling my way through it; trying to figure out the patterns.  I could look it up on the internet; find the answer and move one, but I want to know if I can get there on my own.  (I don’t think I’m very close.)  I don’t mind if it takes a while.

 

Progress?

I don’t know.

 

I got one side entirely done; I figured out the pattern for that. 

 

The keys for me were to realize that the center of each side is fixed; that will determine what colors go on which sides.  There are corner pieces and side pieces.  They will never intermingle; they will each solve separately.  Is any of this relevant to solving the puzzle in 3D?  Maybe, but it gets a lot harder from here.  Working on one layer without worrying about the two layers below it, that’s manageable.  Solving the middle and bottom layers while not screwing up the top one, that’s a problem I haven’t overcome yet.

 

I’m thinking maybe rather than solve the puzzle layer by layer, I might need to solve all the corner pieces first, then follow with all the side pieces after that.  My first forays that direction haven’t worked out so well yet though.  Each time I fix a bottom corner, I screw up a top corner.  Maybe I need to solve the middle row first, then work out the top or bottom.  Or maybe my attempts to find a pattern are totally misdirected.  Maybe all that is required is to be able to look several moves ahead; to be able to see what you’re screwing up as you’re solving each piece.

 

I’ll keep putting the cube down, then picking it up from time to time, waiting for inspiration to strike.  (..and no, I’m not going to ask Grandson Tony how to do it, then try to understand the answer.)

 

Maybe I can refer back to the directions for the pyramid.  “Make the red edge block in the plane, this is very easy, try to understand.”