This is my megaminx solution
Megaminx is my favorite puzzle by far. My goal is to be the best in the world, for most of 2005 I held 2nd unnofficially but dropped to 3rd on new years day 2007. Lately I have been improving some of my skills and will be back in contention soon. For the meantime enjoy my solution and I hope everyone the best.
My records as of 1/07/07 are single solve 1:23.89 and best average of 1:55.25
Change in notation coming soon.
This is the notation that i use for the megaminx
I don't know if there is a real color scheme for the megaminx but by what i've seen the meffert's 12 color tiled cube is the most common, which is what I use.
Here are my colors compared to notation
A= yellow
B= red
C= orange
D= lime
E= pink
F= dark blue
a= white
b= brown
c= teal
d= green
e= purple
f= light blue
INTRODUCTION TO MY SOLUTION
If you know how to solve a rubik's 3x3x3 cube I believe you can solve the megaminx. The same concept used for solving the F2l of a 3x3 is the basis of my megaminx solution.
SOLVE THE FIRST FACE
Solve the "a" face star as you would solve the cross on a 3x3x3
Next look for an "a" face corner and put the "a" face color in the "A" face
Next find the edge piece and match up that edge piece such as an F2L pair keeping the "a" color in the "A" face
Once your pair is matched up put the paired pieces into the "A" face by turning the matched pair clockwise.
The top color of that pair is where you want to align it above
Turn the color of the face of the top color of your pair twice clockwise, then the pair itself twice counter clockwise, to end the sequence turn the original face twice counter clockwise, that will place that pair.
Do this same thing for all of the 5 "a" pairs. Then it will be time to move onto the next face.
SOLVE THE SECOND FACE
Our next step is to choose our next face (of course my next face is purple).
Solving this face is exactly like solving the first fast.
First put in the two edge pieces to complete the star on that color.
Notice that there are only 3 pairs here that need to be solved.When solving this face i put it in the "e" position.
The reason that i put that color in the "e" position is because there are four moveable faces that won't mess up what is already solved and makes everything easier to see because the moveable faces are up front.
Match the edges with corners the same way they were matched for the "a" face by matching them in the "A" face
Once these three pairs are matched and placed it's time to move onto the third face.
SOLVE THE THIRD FACE
For our third face we should pick a face that is adjacent to the second solved face.
My third face is Green of course.
There is one edge piece that needs to be solved and two pairs.
Solving this face only uses 3 moveable faces and i solve it still with face 2 in the "e" position.
SOLVE THE FOURTH FACE
This is a little break from the actual solution to explain how i turn the cube to solve my fourth face and explain a few things.
Right now there are three faces that aren't solved.
So far I have kept the purple face in the "e" position.
For the forth face I rotate the cube so that lime is in "B" position, yellow is in "A" position,(which should never change during solution), and pink is in "C" position
On this forth face you only solve one edge and 2 pairs leaving the "A" and "C" faces unsolved
SOLVING NEXT TO LAST FACE
To solve the A face, the first thing you need to do is solve the ABC corner piece with it's two adjacent edges.
I do this in two steps.
The first step is to make sure the two edges to be solved are oriented and match the corner piece to it.
It's not hard to do but takes a little practice
When I look at this step I look to see if one, two, or neither of the two edges are oriented
- If both of the edges are oriented, nothing needs to be done
- If one is oriented I put the oriented piece into the AD slot, and the unoriented piece into the BC slot and do the alg B A' B'
- If niether of the pieces are oriented I put one of them into the AD slot as if it were oriented and the other into the BC slot same as if one was oriented, and do the alg B A2' B'
Once you have the two edges oreinted you should be able to place the corner piece to finish the three piece corner together without a problem.
To finish off this face just place the two pairs that go into the slots next to your 3 piece corner as you have been doing all along, of course you are working with limited space now (as not to mess up anything that is already solved), but you will find it easy and fast to do with practice.
WELCOME TO THE LAST LAYER MWUHAHAHA
The last layer isn't as bad as it may seem I use a 4 look to solve it and pretty much all home-made algs (although I have borrowed a few from Grant and Daniel)
I will give some elemetary algs for the last layer for the fact that i don't have graphics written yet for them and I'm going to change my notation over so i don't want to waste time on writing them all down now... so here are the basic algs (I suggest that you play around with these and you can find your own way) :)
1st look Orient edges:
orient 2 adjacent edges: D A C A' C' D'
orient2 non-adjacent edges: D C A C' A' D'
2nd look permute edges:
2 adjacent edges C' A' C A' C' A2 C
2 non-adjacent edges: C' A' C A2 C' A2 C
one more alg to use is only one edge is permuted B' A' B A' B' A B A2' B' A2' B
3rd look orient corners:
There are 13 total algs to do this step at once but i'll give a few to try out.
C' A E A' C A E'
D C B' C' D' C B C'
4th look Permute corners:
this step is nothing but intuition, to solve this step find a corner that isn't in place and put it in DAC spot and do alg (C' f C), now look at what piece is in CDf spot, put the slot where that piece goes into the DAC spot and do (C' f' C) this whole step is a cycle of pieces that with practice is very easy to figure out..
this is the end of my tutorial for now even though it needs many updates but that is to come very soon..
I had a few requests to finish this page and i wish everyone the best...