Ivy Cube Tutorial

The Ivy Cube is another corner-turning specimen in the vast Rubik's Cube family of 3D puzzle games, roughly akin to the Dino Cube and the Redi Cube. But instead of the Dino Cube's structure, being made up entirely of edge pieces, or the Redi Cube having corners and edges, each of the Ivy Cube's six sides has one center – in the abstract, I suppose, shaped like a leaf, but certainly not an ivy leaf – and two, um, corner-edge pieces that each wrap around two edges of the side. The centers are single-color pieces; the edge-corners are three-colored pieces.

This raises the interesting fact that not all corners of the Ivy Cube have the same turning ability. There are four vertices around which you can pivot a combination of three centers and one corner piece while holding the rest of the cube in place; and then there are four vertices where three of those moving sections intersect and overlap, but that only "move" in and of themselves in the sense of holding the opposite vertex in place and turning around it. The moving sections (each one vertex plus three centers) add up to one-eighth of a sphere – what would be a sphere embedded inside a larger cube made of eight Ivy Cubes, with a diameter the length of one Ivy Cube edge. And the puzzle is ingeniously designed so that four such one-eighth spheres overlap each other from alternating vertices of the Ivy Cube.

It's a strangely beautiful, thought-provoking design – but it also limits the number of ways you can scramble it and the difficulty of unscrambling it. It makes you think about ways it could be improved, such as having those hemi-semi-demispheres dialing around all eight vertices, as in the Super Ivy Cube:

Here are a few more variants, just as a small sample of how many ways Cubedom branches out from the Ivy Cube's curvy-cut concept. First, the Evil Eyes Ivy Cube, with pupil-like dimples inside the admittedly eye-shaped centers, and the Maple Ivy Cube, whose indents don't make the centers look any more like maple leaves than ivy leaves:

Then, the Fisher Ivy Cube, on which the eye shapes wrap around the edges in a larger-scale symmetry:

Which leads us to the Raptor Cube, shown here in a pillowy configuration ...

... and finally, some Raptor variants whose connection to the Ivy Cube is less apparent – namely, the Circle Raptor Cube, the Mastor Raptor Cube, the Raptor Skewb and the Mastor Raptor Skewb.

Of all of these, the only one that makes my mouse-button finger itch to visit Speed Cube Shop is the Super Ivy Cube. Maybe after Christmas, when my finances settle down! Back, addiction, back!

According to Ruwix, the Ivy Cube, also known (duh) as the Eye Cube, was invented by Eitan Cher. The Ruwix wiki also describes the Ivy Cube as a Skewb missing half of its corners, or a cube Pyraminx, and calculates that it can be scrambled into 29,160 different configurations. In searching for fastest-solve records, I found some evidence that a certain Gunner Jeppson solved the Ivy Cube in just under 13 seconds; however, another source (albeit AI) claims a Malaysian cuber solved it blindfolded in under 6 seconds. I give up. It doesn't take me seconds to solve it; it only takes me minutes. And I didn't need algorithms or a solution guide or a tutorial; again, like the Dino and the Redi, I picked it up, scrambled it and messed around with it for a bit, before solving it almost by accident.

There isn't a sanctioned speed-cubing event for the Ivy Cube, and so there also isn't an online scramble generator for it, or anything close enough to it (because of that limitation on the vertices that you can turn) to be able to apply a different puzzle's scrambler. So, what I do is just fiddle around until it's about as scrambled as I can get it, more or less aiming to have three different colors on each side, or close to that. Vexingly, it seems to start trying to solve itself the longer you continue trying to scramble it. So it really doesn't pay to overwork this thing. Here's the result of my best effort:

The step-by-step procedure really only has one step: You solve one side at a time. Here I took an opportunity (above) to match the green center with its edge on the adjacent side.

Then I dialed the other green edge around until it came into position to complete the green side.

In this next series of photos, try to follow along as I do a similar procedure on the yellow side.

Taking stock of the remaining pieces of the puzzle, I find the blue side easy to complete.

Now let's work on white for a bit.

But wait a minute! Hold that thought! With the orange center over here ...

... I'm only two moves away from solving orange, green and yellow!

Which puts me within one counterclockwise twist of completing the solve:

Basically, the only trick to this is figuring out how those one-eighth-sphere sections move and what it takes to dial a center in with its desired edge. And because those corner pieces are also edge pieces wrapping around three sides of the cube, once you've brought one center in line with its corner-edge, you've gone a good way toward solving even more of the puzzle. You'll be wondering how to bring this bit over to that side when, all of a sudden, you'll realize you're two moves away from solving the whole cube.

So, why is this even fun? Well, besides the fact that having a cube you can solve in just a few turns without mastering algorithms or strategies – which may be just the boost that a reluctant cuber needs – and those old chestnuts, the interesting feel in the hands and satisfying clicking-sound – the ivy Cube is just an opportunity to admire a beautiful, functional, geometrically sexy design. And also, as I've shown, it's a gateway to even more interesting puzzles. Also, look into its eye. Let its eye look into you. You will acquire the Ivy Cube. And on the count of three, you will wake up and remember nothing. One. Two ...

Redi Cube Tutorial

You've already been introduced the Redi Cube, whose scramble generator we used for the Dino Cube. Here it is again: a Rubik's Cube variant where each side has four edges, four corners but no center, and where turns pivot around the vertices, taking one corner piece together with the three adjacent edges.

The Redi Cube was invented in 2009 by Oskar van Deventer. It's pretty easy to solve, despite being capable of over 1.5 trillion different configurations. According to Grubiks (which suggests a different approach to solving it, though not following it hasn't particularly hampered me), the unofficial record for fastest solve of this unsanctioned puzzle cube is 3.95 seconds.

Like the Dino Cube, the Redi Cube has its share of spinoffs and adjacent puzzles, such as (below) the Barrel Redi Cube, the Phoenix Cube (which is more edge-turning than vertex-turning), the Tins Cube (which seems to have more layers going one way than another), and the Windmill Cube (also kinda edge-turning, for what it's worth). Finally, there's the Fadi Cube, a.k.a. the Mosaic Cube, a 4x4x4 version of the Redi Cube that also shares the same inventor.

Obviously, if you can use the Redi Cube's scrambler on the Dino Cube, the two puzzles must be somewhat similar. Sure, it's another three-layered puzzle (just see the photo below) whose moves rotate around four axes that cut through diagonally opposite vertices.

Move notation, which I tend to forget about as soon as I'm done scrambling the Redi Cube, is once again best thought of while facing the cube edge-on, starting with white up, green to the left of front and red to the right. So here (clockwise moves only; imagine the "prime" moves for yourself) are examples of ...

F:

D:

L:

R (believe it or not, that's yellow coming up from the bottom):

UL:

UR:

U:

And B (looking down from above):

Now let's get started, after following the scramble pattern below:

STEP 1: Solve the white side. The new wrinkle with the Redi Cube, compared to the Dino Cube, is that in addition to two-colored edge pieces, you also have to contend with three-colored corner pieces. So let's move this red-white edge (at top left) next to the red-white (and green) corner at right:

Now it would be nice to put a white-green edge below this white-red-green corner.

I found it somewhere and maneuvered it into position to dial into that slot.

The blue-white edge and blue-red-white corner are hanging out together below the white-green-red corner.

Though I broke the red-green edge out of its slot to do so, I dialed both those corners (blue-red first, then green-red) onto the same side.

This wasn't just the best option to put those to corners together on the same side; it was the only option. Something you might notice by the time you've gotten this far in solving the Redi Cube is that you can't really make the corners go anywhere. You can change their orientation, but not their position relative to each other. The puzzle, it turns out, is all about swapping edges in and out of the lots between those corners, to line up the right colors in the right orientation. So, confronted with this case – where both the green-white and the orange-white edges are next to the orange-green-white corner – you have to do some critical thinking about which piece needs to be taken out of position and put back on on a different side of the vertex.

Yes, class, that would be the green-white edge. First, let's rotate that corner to put the green-white edge out of danger of messing up the neighboring bit of solved puzzle. Then dial it out of that corner entirely; rotate the corner into position to take green-white back in its correct orientation; dial green-white back in; and restore the corner to show your progress on solving the white side.

Here, the blue-orange-white corner seems to be twisted out of true with relation to the orange-white and blue-white edges. But again, for all practical purposes, The Corner Is Always Right. It's the edges that have to be taken out and put back in facing the right way.

I didn't talk you through those moves; hopefully the photos sufficiently illustrated what I did. And frankly, it isn't about dictating specific formulas or carrying out exact algorithms; it's about thinking which edges need to be swapped out and swapped back in. Oh, look! I found that green-red edge again, and when I dial it back into place, it brings the green-red-yellow edge with it, and we're already started on STEP 2: Solving the yellow side, opposite to white.

Here are a couple of corners (yellow-orange-green and red-blue-yellow) that have drawn some edges meant for each other into their orbit:

A single twist brings the yellow-green edge home.

Then we pivot that corner to match up with the yellow side and reassess:

Oh, look! That orange-yellow edge can dial right into place.

Let's pull that yellow-blue edge off the top and put it next to the yellow-blue-orange corner; then pivot around that same corner to put the orange-green edge where it belongs.

Upon reassessing the situation again, we find there are only three edges out of place – red-blue, yellow-orange and (around the next corner) blue-orange.

Now, let's think about this. The yellow-orange edge in the first picture is where the blue-orange edge in the second picture belongs. Meanwhile, the red-blue edge in the first picture goes where the blue-orange piece is, and the yellow-orange piece goes where the red-blue edge is. Hmm. Let's try to get that red-blue edge out of there. First, I pivot around the yellow-orange-blue corner to bring the red-blue edge closer to the side it belongs on.

Then I dial blue-orange up (from the right) into its correct slot:

Then I pivot the blue-orange-yellow corner again to bring red-blue into place to swap with orange-yellow:

And then I'm just one twist away from a complete solve:

Once again, the Redi Cube is very much like the Dino Cube, in that you're only really moving edge pieces around. The main difference is that you also have to worry about their orientation with respect to the corner pieces. But if you think through what needs to go where, and how, you'll get there with maybe a little trial and error. Or maybe, when you think you're half a dozen moves from the end, you'll make two quick moves and discover with surprise that the puzzle is solved. Yeah, it's one of those. I didn't need a tutorial to learn how to solve this one, either. But I share because I love. And there are times when I find this puzzle particularly satisfying to turn in my hands, to look at, to feel, to scramble and unscramble. For some reason, there's just an endorphin hit when the right piece goes into the right slot. And those corners make it that little bit more interesting than the Dino Cube.