I wrote a feasibility study article in 2005
about how to use memory techniques on a cube. The intention of it was that I
would memorise the starting piece positions of a given cube, put on the
blindfold, and then think about how to solve it. However, a lot less mental
effort is required if I think about how I am going to solve it before I put on
the blindfold. So I developed a better technique where I memorise not just piece
positions but also thoughts about how to get off to a good start with the
solution. I took satisfaction from designing the solution but it is considered
inefficient and you will possibly find a technique with less mnemonics and more
simplicity online.
I use a pre-prepared
list of mental images and associate the fresh facts of a cube one-by-one by
imagining a visual story involving each item on the pre-prepared list. My
current system uses a pre-prepared list of 40 pieces of information.
I could reduce the number of items to memorise if I knew how to do more clever cycles which handle several pieces at the same time. However, the current solution is not too hard to learn and I think that I could teach it to people who have never touched a Rubik's cube. It is not presented in detail here - only in overview to demonstrate to a layman how someone could achieve this feat.
I see a cube as being a front green face, some edge pieces behind them (the middle tier) and then a blue back face behind that. I want to move pieces to their final position but they also need to be twisted correctly to show the correct colour / color . That twisting is known as 'orientation'. When I memorise the green face, I make sure that the red face is beyond it as I look ahead of me (a roof on the green face): white face on the left of the green face; and yellow face on the right of the green face. When I memorise the blue face, similarly, the red face is ahead of me (a roof on the blue face); the white face is on the right of the blue face; and the yellow face is on the left of the blue face.
The toughest part of the cube's solution should be the blue face which I attempt last of all. It should be toughest because I want to position and orient those pieces without upsetting the two other layers of the cube which are finished. For that, I use pre-learned techniques which handle several pieces at once.
When I look at a scrambled cube, I like to solve the green face first. A nice set-up before doing the edge green pieces is to temporarily move them to the middle tier of the cube. From there, it is not too tough to put them into the green face when the time comes.
I also want to put edge pieces (which should eventually finish in the middle tier) into the blue back face of the cube. Why put them there? Because it is a nice set up for moving them later to the middle tier. If I do not have a good chance to do that early then I make sure that I do it soon afterwards [after I am happy with my corner pieces strategy, in fact]: I want non-green-non-blue edge pieces at the blue layer temporarily, blue edges at the front green face temporarily, and green edges in the middle tier. It does not matter which way they are flipped – I am just saying that the physical pieces are placed in those different layers. Eg. At the middle tier, a white colour edge might show but it is green on the other side.
When I memorise pieces, it is essential for
me to consider the green face, the blue face, the red face and the orange face.
If a piece is on the white face then it is simultaneously on another face;
rather than memorise its appearance at the white face, I memorise its
simultaneous appearance from another face. Eg. If, at the white face middle
tier, there is a green edge, the other part of that piece might be at the red
face. So the green/orange edge looks green at the white face but it looks orange
when viewed from the red face. I memorise that it is an orange/green piece
therefore rather than a green/orange piece.
I also think about how I will move any green corners from the blue face over to the green face.
And there are other facts which I memorise too which will save me time later on: why work something out while wearing a blindfold if you can work it out before the blindfold goes on? Weak concentration is the enemy. So why assist it?
It is even possible to use a longer pre-prepared list and then to memorise many cubes before putting on a blind-fold; or to extend the principles and tackle a different type of puzzle blind-folded.
This is a link to the main points.
mick_curtis@yahoo.co.uk (subject heading: Rubiks Cube)