When shopping for my newest cube purchase, I had a few things in mind. The first was the Rex Flower Cube, but upon inspection, it really just looked like a pretty Skewb. I like the colors and the patterns but the solution looked just like a Skewb and I never solve that puzzle. It’s pretty boring and not very challenging.
So, while I am also looking to get a 3x3x5 and start going down that path, I decided to forego those desires and grab the Curvy Copter. I checked out RedKB’s non-jumbling tutorial (jumbling here) and placed my order. Today it arrived and it’s a rather solid, fun puzzle. Like some other puzzles before it, this one took me a little bit to wrap my head around. It was hard to conceptualize what I wanted to do initially. However, once I started understanding it, the puzzle became quite fun, albeit somewhat easy.
Now, I need to graduate to jumbling to really start challenging myself. However, for now it’s a pretty cool new addition to the collection and I look forward to getting better. Some algorithms to help…
Edge switcher for weird cases: R L JR F R L
Easy edge 3 cycle: F R F R
Permute Corners CCW (FL=correct) R L B L B R B L B L
Permute Corners CW (FR=correct) L R B R B L B R B R
Orient Corners CCW (FL) F R B L x6
Orient Corners CW (FL) L B R F x6
I’ve been consistently getting good times with the stickerless Zhanchi. My regular stickered Zhanchi isn’t tensioned well enough, it’s just not nearly as good as the stickerless. As for today’s solves, one 45-second run marred a pretty sweet run of five, a run that featured two sub-40s. This gave me my first sub-41 average of five, impressive considering I’m still using beginner’s method. (I still suck at F2L).
