Message #415

From: Remigiusz Durka <thesamer@interia.pl>
Subject: Few thoughts about new methods of solving hypercubes, shortest solutions, etc…
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:12:50 +0200

Hello all!

On Polish RubikChampionships I’ve met some people who were really enthusiastic with solving hypercubes and after few days The Hall of Fame and Insanity were attacked by these people:)

Mateusz Burnicki, Kamil Gorski, Kamil Pawlak joined 3^4 society but it’s not all. Konrad Przetacznik and Mateusz Burnicki managed to solve 3^5. I’ve decided to do something too and I’ve needed some relax so… I’ve started playing with hypercubes and I’ve chosen the worst thing anybody could imagine -> Shortest solutions!

First I’ve tried 4x4x4x4. Soon I got my record back. The last record (made by Noel) was 1712. Now it is 1130 (And I have some hopes that I can do this under 1000). I was using standard method (the Best Method - also known as the Roice Method:). Nothing new. Just very careful puting pieces together. I’ve nedded exactly 500 twists to do all centres and 2C pieces on exact places. I’m not happy with the 3C phase because I’ve used the 8 twist serie instead of 4 twist serie (which I’ve learnt from Roice’s post on 4D_Cubing afer his marvelous record 334 on 3^4).
I hope someday I will find some time to play with 3C pieces and try this way.

After championships I had a dream. I was solving hypercube 3^4 starting from 3C pieces :) I’ve tried this because 8 twists for puting 3C pieces it’s too much.

I realised this when I was trying shortest solution and I was puting TWO 3C pieces in correct place using single 8 twist serie:

(4-5 twists for preliminary moves) + (II Roice Serie)+ (4-5 twist for going back with preliminary moves) = around 18 twists but sometimes it was even 26.

Using I,II 3C Serie + I 4C Serie I’ve done my BEST (really!) and… I got 512 twists.

It was relly depressing because I was really doing whatever I could but still I was miles away from the best result.

I started to think about different methods:

Solving 3C pieces first by intuition (without series) just like we do with 2C pieces. I’ve manadged to do half 3C pieces still not crossing 70 twists. (Of course I haven’t thought what to do next :P) It wasn’t method good for shortest solutions because you need many twists to operate only on 2C not disturbing 3C and 4C… Of course if you have macros you can use this for hyperspeedsolving. In clasiscal methed given by Roice 3C pieces take you the huge amount of time… You know: pre-moves + SERIE+back pre-moves. It sometimes make trouble. You have to remember how you prepared sittuation, etc. Maybe I will explore this method in hyperspeedsolving…

I stopped this solvie then I realised that I’m able to do at the same time also 4C pieces. So I’ve steped to the next level:

LBL (Layer by layer) method.

I manadged to do blue cube (blue "face") in about 120 twists. It wasn’t bad at all, it was 3/8 the whole hypercube. You must remeber that it was 8x 4C pieces and 12 x 3C on good places, with perfect oreintation, etc. So that’s a lot of savings of your precious twists!

But I wasn’t sure what to do next. Luckily I’ve got an e-mail form Ecseki who send his log with solution.It turned out that one can use 3D algorithms for 4D cube :) (exept 4C pieces). (Thanx man).

I’ve decided to finish my Layer by layer solution. I’ve tried to solve all 2C pieces left and next all 3C. But it costed me too much twists.

I even discovered somekind of 4D F2L :-). One slot contained with one 2C and two 3C pieces. I also decided to destroy one "edge" of the blue "face" so I could use somethink similiar to the "Working Corner Method" :). Unfortunatelly the rest of blue "face" was blocking me really hard. Almost every preliminary move was moving blue stickers into "working area" and destroying everything (The problem was with blue 4C pieces…)-> so maybe I will give a next try in the future -> blue "face" witout 4C pieces … that should work…

That was the moment I started using 4 twist Serie proposed by Roice. But still: Blue face was hurting my mind terribly everytime I was trying to set pieces and AVOID puting blue sticer wherever 4C serie was acting. (I could say fist the all I was avoiding and next I was trying to set up some pieces :-)

You must realise that 4C serie consider mixing 7 x 3C pieces and 6 x 4C. Sometimes is immpossible to hide all good pieces in not disturbed area. It was real madness. Finally I’ve found myself in the 4C phase, but I was too tired to remeber anything from that to tell you anything now. I got 390 twist result and I was really proud but still it was 2:0 for the Roice :P

To be continue…