Rubik cube - did you own one and could you solve it ?

[WildRosie]

For me, no and no. My brothers got them the Christmas they really took off but I didn't. I had, and still have, one or two other spatial awareness/geometric reasoning puzzles which weren't complicated at all. More of a pastime rather than brain exercise.

I remember later on a spherical version of the cube and Rubik's Revenge, same as the original cube but in a 4-pattern rather than 3. I couldn't solve those either.

Yes, in the 80s I could do it in about a minute thanks to a set of instructions carefully copied out from those of a friend. Weirdly, I still have those instructions and the DCs have a cube but I can't get it to work to save my life. Can't do it with the instructions that cane with their cube either .

My son got a rubiks perplexus one for Christmas. He is avoiding it and I am watching endless YouTube videos in the hope of solving it

Yes and no. Bought a book about it but couldn’t make any sense of it.

I never got the hang of the final layer of the cube. But I just got a Pyramorphix (Pyramid Rubik thing) from husband for Christmas. And I can do this (following a little bit of youtube help learning algorithms for the final bit)! I will learn the cube now too.

This is one of my NY resolutions (I like to put something a bit weird/fun on there as well as the boring usuals).

I bought one today and has great fun ‘mucking it up’. They don’t have stickers anymore, the cube colours are painted on, so I’m really going to have to learn to solve it this year🤣

Yes and yes.
@DGRossetti - that's exactly what I did - bought his book for £1 and memorised the moves.

DS has had one for about 6 years. Over that period he's tried (half heartedly) to solve it but I never really bothered. Dnephew (8) came for Xmas and did it within 2 minutes. DS says nobody is allowed to touch it now!

Yes, owned one. No, didn't solve it.

Yes and yes, and very quickly.

Couldn’t do it now though!

No but dc learnt to do it really quickly

I have one and I can solve it.

By googling. Frequently.

I once got one side right!

Yes I had one as a child and no I never solved it. My DD has one now and none of us can solve it. My bil can do it, he watches videos on it and can solve it in less than a minute

Yes and no. Got really frustrated with it, peeled and re-stuck all the stickers so it was "solved", thereby ruining it forever.

I have crap mathematical ability and very poor spatial awareness / visualisation so it's basically never gonna happen for me!

Yes and yes. You just need to learn the algorithms. I've done it in sub 90 seconds before! May have gotten a little obsessed...

Had one, not a chance of solving it, even if I still tried every day.

No and no.

DS has loads of them and can solve them all. Standard 3x3 in 30ish seconds. Which is slow compared to the world record of 3.6seconds (ish)

I had one and could never solve it. DS got one 2 years ago and learned the tricks to solve it quickly and ended up being able to solve one in a few minutes.

Had one when I was younger but couldn’t solve it then. I can now- it was my lockdown project- I learnt from a YouTube tutorial! I’m v slow and just memorised the algorithm I learnt so there is nothing mathematical or problem solving about my approach at all. I’m still proud of myself though!

Remarkable that the cube and its descendants is still so popular. I hope Professor Rubik has prospered as a result.

Yes and no. I'm hopeless at puzzles including the crappy ones you get in Christmas crackers. As for jigsaws.

I still have my copy of Patrick Bossert’s You Can Do The Cube.
I can still do it with his book, not a hope without.

My husband can, he's got a speed cube and I can hear it clicking away while he's on calls at home!

Have you watched the speedcube documentary on Netflix? (I think that's what it's called) I enjoyed it as did my 7yo!

Yes and yes. And I have my own method! I used to solve my friends cubes when they got stuck.

I had one. O could not do it. Then I found a book on how to solve. Then I could do it.