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Rubix sides

The U, R, and F faces on the Rubik's Cube

The Rubik's Cube has six sides. Every side is labeled U, F, R, D, B, or L. When holding the cube with one corner pointing at you, the top side is called the U face. The side facing to the left is called the F face, and the side facing to the right is called the R face. Opposite to the R face is the L face, opposite to the U face is the D face, and opposite to the F face is the B face.

F stands for front.
U stands for up.
R stands for right.
B stands for back.
D stands for down.
L stands for left.

There are variations of the Beginner's Method, but the one taught here should be the easiest to learn.

Notation[]

Algorithms[]

Solving the Rubik's Cube requires the knowledge of algorithms. The algorithms look something like "R U' R' U L U L'". Algorithms are a set of moves of rotating faces in a specific order. The letters show which face needs to be turned (clockwise by default) and the apostrophe means to turn the face the opposite way, or counter-clockwise. If a letter has a "2" after it, it means "turn the face twice, or 180 degrees". If no number is attached to the letter, it means "turn the face a quarter turn, or 90 degrees".

Example: The algorithm "R U' R' U L U L' F2 D'" means to do the following in this specific order:

  • Rotate the R face clockwise.
  • Rotate the U face counter-clockwise.
  • Rotate the R face counter-clockwise.
  • Rotate the U face clockwise.
  • Rotate the L face clockwise.
  • Rotate the U face clockwise.
  • Rotate the L face counter-clockwise.



Individual Pieces[]

When referring to an individual piece on the Rubik's Cube, two or three letters are used. The URF piece means the piece that is located on the U face, R face, and F face. Examples are shown in the pictures below.

Pieces labeled with only two letters are called an "edge piece". Pieces labeled with three letters are called a "corner piece." All six sides of the Rubik's Cube have one center piece which never moves no matter what you do; white will always be opposite of yellow, red will always be opposite of orange, and blue will always be opposite of green.

Step 1: The Cross[]

Choose a side[]

The very first thing to do when solving the Rubik's Cube is to choose a side. Most people begin on the white side or the blue side because those two colors stand out the most. Another reason is that Rubik's Cube solvers are used to the adjacent colors. For this tutorial, we will begin on the white side.

Look for the Cross edge pieces[]

There are only four cross edge pieces, all of which have two colors: white and other. On a standard Rubik's Cube, the "other" color would be red, green, orange, or blue.
First, hold the cube so that the white center piece is on the U face. The yellow side should be on the bottom. The R, F, B, and L faces does not have to be any specific color.

Cases[]

While solving the cross, you may encounter any of the following cases. The following pictures below will help you deal with them.

First case[]
















Second case[]





















Third case[]






















Step 2: Solve three corners[]

Purpose[]

We only need to solve three of the four corners on the U face. The last unsolved corner will be used to substitute in and out pieces to solve the rest of the cube. This unsolved corner piece on the white face will be referred to as the empty piece throughout this tutorial.



Remember[]

Whenever trying to solve corners, if the corner piece is on the D face, rotate the D face until it is directly underneath where you want the corner piece to go on the U face.

First case[]






















Second case[]






















Third case[]




























Fourth case[]































Fifth case[]































Step 3: Middle Layer[]

Turn the cube[]

To solve the middle layer, you must turn the cube upside down so that the white face is now the D face, and the yellow face is the new U face. Middle layer pieces are edge pieces that should not have white or yellow on them. (The white should all already be solved from Step 1).



Note[]

In this tutorial, the empty piece is the white-blue-red corner piece.



First case[]






















Second case[]






















Third case[]



































Step 4: Upper Cross[]

Two parts in this step[]

In this step, there are two parts. The first part is the solve the UF, UL, and UB edge pieces (when holding the cube with the empty edge and corner pieces in the BR and BRD positions respectively). The second step is to solve the BR and the UR edge pieces all with one algorithm.









Part 1[]

First case[]
























Second case[]
























Third case[]










































Fourth case[]





























Fifth case[]


























Part 2[]

First case[]
























Second case[]







































Third case[]
























Step 5: Position Corner Pieces[]





How this step works[]







In this step, we only need to place the corner pieces in their correct locations, not necessarily solve them. The corner pieces in the ULF place (shown by the blue arrow) and the DRB place will be switched when you use the one algorithm need on this step: L D2 L'. After you use that algorithm, the cube will be messed up, but after you turn the U face the necessary amount of times to get another corner piece to the ULF position and apply the L D2 L' algorithm again, you will have switched three corner pieces and fixed the cube.







Example[]































































Step 6: Rotate Corner Pieces[]


After this step, you cube should be solved!



Your cube should look something like this[]

Your Rubik's Cube is near complete, although you may have more incorrectly rotated corner pieces than what this picture shows. Just use the two algorithms provided in this step to fix the errors, so all we have to do now in this step is to rotate the corner pieces to solve the whole cube.
The algorithms rotate the corner pieces by pairs, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise, or one counter-clockwise and the other clockwise.













First case[]








































Second case[]






































Third case[]







































Well now your cube should be solved. Congratulations!

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