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From: Wei-Hwa Huang <whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu>
Subject: Re: (none)
Date: 6 Jun 1997 14:01:26 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
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Josh D Weaver <shaggy34@juno.com> writes:
>Does anyone know more about the following method?

My main method is a variant of this.

I'll switch your top and bottom because I like looking at the top:

>1. do bottom corners. I always start with white. (intuitive)
>2. do top corners.
>    2a. bring top corner color onto top face (one of 2 patterns)

I only use one pattern:
  RUR'URU2R'
It's very easy to remember.  (I only use easy-to-remember patterns.)
This pattern rotates three corners.  Technically, I also use the
inverse, which may count as another pattern:
  RU2R'U'RU'R'
Step 2a can be done with at most two applications of the pattern.

>    2b. orient top corners with each other (one of 2 patterns)
I only need one pattern:
  F2DF2D2R2DR2
This switches two adjacent pairs of corners on both top and bottom.
Step 2b can be done with at most two applications.

I sometimes use this pattern as a short cut:
  F2R2F2

(Technically, these patterns actually involve moving 
slices as well when I generalize them to 4x4x4 and up.)

>3. fill in all but one edge on top and bottom (intuitive)
>4. fill in last edge (pattern)

Actually, I fill in all but one edge on the top AND all
but one edge on the bottom.  Filling in the two
remaining ones at once is more intuitive than pattern.

>5. solve middle ring of edges (usually 2 patterns)

I used to do this with a pattern that permuted three edge pieces
while flipping two of them.  Now I do something more elegant, IMHO.

Let A denote shifting the middle "ring" slice to the right.
Then my first pattern is:
  F2AF2A'
which permutes three edge pieces.  Eventually they're
all positioned correctly, and I use this pattern to flip
two edge cubies:
  RF'UR'FA*F'RU'FR'A*
(* means to repeat as many times as is appropriate).

Sometimes in step 3  I don't bother with the orientation of
the last two edges.  This is because I can use this pattern:
  RARARARA
that is *really* easy to do and flips four edge pieces, three
on the middle slice and one not.

--
Wei-Hwa Huang, whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu, http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~whuang/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question everything.  Learn something.  Answer nothing.  -- Engineer's Motto