Beginner's Guide to Solving Rubik's Cube

Table of Contents

Introduction
Movement Notation
Making the Cross
Getting the Corner Pieces
Solving the Second Layer
Getting the Blue Cross
Permuting the Remaining Corners
Summary of Algorithms Used

Introduction

Pretty much all of us are familiar with Rubik's Cube. From pop culture to our childhoods, just about everyone has encountered one at some point during the course of their life. What most people haven't done, however, is solved one. This guide aims to teach you how to solve one without being too complicated about it.

This guide will use a very simple, algorithm based method to solving the cube; nothing too fancy (such as Fridrich's method or the ZB method). Let's get started.

Movement Notation

Before we get in to the meat of this article, I have to explain the movement notation or you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. What I mean by "move notation" is how to read the moves I'll be teaching you and to apply them to your cube as you solve it.

Let's begin by defining the "Front Face." It's the face that's facing you when you look at the cube dead on, and in "movement notation," we call this F.

The "Up Face" is the face that's facing towards the ceiling when you're looking at the front face. In movement notation, we call this U.

The "Right Face" is the face that's facing the right when viewing the front face (imagine that). In movement notation we call this R.

The "Left Face" is the face that's facing the left when viewing the front face. In movement notation we call this L.

The "Down Face" is the face that's facing the floor when viewing the front face. In movement notation we call this D.

Knowing this, we can apply it to directions to move rotate the various faces of the cube. If I were to tell you to execute R U D U, you'd rotate the right face clockwise (imagine it as if you were facing it), the up face clockwise, the down face clockwise, and finally the up face clockwise once more. It gets a little more complicated than that, however. A common "algorithm" (explained later) you'll encounter is is Ri Di R D. The 'i' signifies that you should rotate the specified face counter-clockwise. So for Ri Di R D, you'd rotate the right face counter-clockwise, the down face counter-clockwise, the right face clockwise, and finally the down face clockwise again. The 'i' actually stands for "inverted," so if you were to tell someone an algorithm out loud, such as Ri Di R D, you'd say "Right inverted, down inverted, right, down."

Oh. Algorithms. An algorithm is simply a set of moves that you execute on your cube. Ri Di R D is such an algorithm. So when I say "algorithm" I simply mean a set of moves for you to execute.

Making the Cross

The first step to solving your cube is making a "cross" on one face. Since you're just starting out, we'll use the green face. Normally you'd choose the face that is easiest to solve first, but since you're just starting out, you'd have no idea how to identify that. Identifying which face is which is pretty simple. Look at the center piece of any face and that's the color of that face. The center pieces can never be moved around; no matter how you rotate the cube, the middle pieces will always be in the middle. So when I say the "green face," I mean the face with the green square in the center.

On the standard, brand name 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube, the opposite face from the green face is the blue face. What you want to do is surround that blue piece with 4 green side pieces. A side piece is one of the pieces that isn't a corner nor a center piece. This requires no algorithms and is simply intuitive; keep playing around with it until the blue face looks like this:
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Where G stands for "green" and B stands for "blue." Once you have this arrangement, tilt the cube so that the blue face is facing the ceiling. What you want to do is rotate the top face (which should be the blue face) until the color you're facing matches up with the side piece color of the up face (blue face). For example, let's say when you tilted it so that the blue face was the up face, you were facing the yellow face. You'd want to rotate the up face until the side piece that has green and yellow matches up with the yellow face, so that the yellow face looks like this:
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Then do the following: F2. Do that for each of the faces, then flip the cube over so that the green face is the up face (facing the ceiling). The cube should look something like below (though this view is a flattened cube so you can see all the faces):
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Hopefully you can make sense of that. Basically, all the green side pieces should be in the right places.

Getting the Corner Pieces

The next step is getting all of the corner pieces in the right positions. Basically, there are 8 corner pieces on the standard Rubik's Cube: a red, white, and blue one; a yellow, red, and blue one; an orange, yellow, and blue one; an orange, white, and blue one; a red, white, and green one; a red, yellow, and green one; an orange, white, and green one; and an orange, yellow, and green one. Since we're working with only the green face, only the corners with green in them concern us.

What you want to do here is get the corner piece you need in the right column under the place where it needs to be. For example, let's say we're working with the green/orange/yellow corner piece. You want to get it in the right column of the orange face. It doesn't matter if it's on the top corner or the bottom, just get it there. Then you do the algorithm Ri Di R D until it's both in the right position and oriented (facing) the right directions. It's really as simple as that. Repeat that for each corner until you have all the corners of the green face in the correct places, and, subsequently, the green face completed.

Basically, get the corner piece under or at the places it's supposed to be, then Ri Di R D until it's right. Play around with it and you'll get the hang of it.

Now that you have the green face completed, your cube should look something like this (looking at the green face):
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If you notice, the green face is done, as well as the ring of colors touching it directly. We call this the "first layer." Our next step is solving the "second layer," which is, you guessed it, the middle "ring" of colors.

Solving the Second Layer

Flip the cube over so that the green face is the down face (facing the floor). Look for any pieces on the up face (blue face) that aren't corner pieces and don't have any blue on them. For example...
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What you would want to do in this situation is rotate the up face until the yellow/red piece presented here lines its yellow part up with the yellow face, like so:
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So that it's in the right position. Now, on the standard Rubik's Cube, this would be a simple matter of rotating the up face once to the right. Then you'll notice that the yellow/red piece really should go where I placed the X in the example above. Meaning we need to shift the yellow/red piece to the left. We do this using the algorithm Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi. After doing so, the yellow and red faces should look like so:
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Now let's say instead of that piece being yellow/red it was yellow/orange and needed to be shifted to the right. Well, basically, we do the same algorithm, but reversed: U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F.

Continue shifting the pieces around like this until you have the second layer solved, and your cube should look something like this (facing the green face):
CODE :

Getting the Blue Cross

After solving the second layer, you should have one of four possible combinations on the up face (blue face):
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If you have case 1, or a case that isn't any of the other 3, use the algorithm F R U Ri Ui Fi until you get one of the cases. Our goal is case 4, the cross. If you get case 2, make sure it is just as it is pictured above (making the reverse L in the top left corner) before using the algorithm. Same with case 3.

After you've gotten the blue cross on top, look at the other color on the side pieces. There should be 4: blue/orange, blue/white, blue/yellow, and blue/red. If the color that isn't blue isn't on the right face, rotate the up face (blue) until they are. If they don't all line up, line at least two of them up. There are two possible cases for if only two of them line up. One is that the two faces that do have colors that match up are on opposite sides of the cube from one another. If so, hold the cube so that one of them is the front face and do the following: R U Ri U R U U Ri. The other case is that the two faces whose colors do line up are adjacent to one another. If this is the case, hold the cube so that one of the faces is the right face and the other is in the back (the back face) and execute the same algorithm.

After you get those lined up, your cube should look like this (once again facing the green side):
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The next step is getting all the corners in the right places.

Permuting the Remaining Corners

This step is pretty easy. Basically we want to get all of the corner pieces (which should be the only pieces not in place right now) in their correct positions. To do this, find a corner piece that's already where it's supposed to be (but not necessarily facing the right directions) and make sure it's in the bottom right corner of the up (blue) face in relativity to the front face, then do the following: U, R, Ui, Li, U, Ri, Ui, L. If there isn't a corner that's already where it's supposed to be, just do that algorithm until there is.

Once all the corners are in their respective places, but not facing the right directions (one or two of them may be), simply execute Ri Di R D until one is oriented the right way, then rotate ONLY THE UP FACE and repeat as necessary. As you're doing this, you may feel like you're undoing your progress up to this point. Trust me, it only looks that way. It all magically comes back together when all of the corners are in their right places and facing the right way. Once you're doing with that, you should just have to rotate the up face one or two times, and bam! That's it. You're done.

Summary of Algorithms Used

In case you're going back through this guide but don't need to read a lot of crap, I'll list the algorithms here for reference purpose.

1.) Ri Di R D
2.) Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi
3.) U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F
4.) F R U Ri Ui Fi
5.) R U Ri U R U U Ri
6.) U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L
7.) Ri Di R D