3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube Solution

Welcome to the 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube tutorial page! I sincerely thank you for coming and I hope that after this tutorial, you will finally be able to solve your own Rubik’s Cube. If you do not already own a Rubik’s cube, I strongly encourage you to get one, for they are very fun indeed and virtual ones are not the same. I would recommend the Rubik’s website at www.rubiks.com to purchase your own. If you do want a nice virtual cube however, please go to www.gabbasoft.com. This can act as an aid while you are learning how to do this.

Now before we start, there is a little terminology that we must learn before we solve the cube. Below is a picture of a cube with each face labeled. Each face has been assigned a letter that is easily remembered. There is the Up or “U” Face, the Front or “F” Face, the Right or “R” face, the Left or “L” face, and the Down or “D” Face. The 6^th face is the nothing face and it will never be used in this part of the tutorial.

Notation

Now that you know what each face is called, we must now begin to turn them and talk about the moves on the cube that you are going to have to make. This is fairly simple. If there is a move like: F 2R U*. We know exactly which face to turn. To turn them in the proper direction, you must look directly at the face center (whose color never changes), and decide which way is clockwise and which way is counterclockwise. A clockwise turn is indicated with nothing other than the letter, and a counterclockwise turn is indicated by a * after the letter. A “2” before the face means that you turn the face twice, in either direction. So for this move you would look at the “F” face and turn it 90 degrees clockwise, then you would turn the “R” face twice, and look at the “U” face and turn it 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Step 1: Top Layer Edges

The first step in solving a 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube by the layer method is to make a cross that lines up with all the centers on one face. To do this, we must first select our “U” side. For the sake of the tutorial, I am going to use the white face as the “U” face. To figure out which face is which color from a scrambled cube, simply look at the center piece. The center piece can never change color. Once you have selected your color (I recommend white but it doesn’t really matter), You must now try on your own to put the edge pieces into place. There are 12 different edge pieces on every Rubik’s cube, each one containing two different colors. 4 of those twelve have individual squares of color that are the same as your selected side. Your first job is to find each one of these, and line them up. I would recommend first looking at the other square of color on one of the four pieces that you found. If it is blue and white, and white is your selected face, then you must first line up the blue part with the blue center, and then rotate it to fit into the top face. An example is illustrated below:

Step 1 Example

On the first part, you rotate the edg piece to the bottom. You then rotate the edge piece to line up with the correct center which is blue in this case. Then in the third part, you rotate the center piece that has already been matched twice to line it up with the top center piece. This should give you one of the completed parts of the cross.

Repeat this 4 times, and you should have a cube that looks like the one below. This is the only step in this tutorial that is purely up to you, but I believe that you will be able to figure it out.

Step 1

(The grey colors represent items that do not matter.)

Step 2: The Top Layer Corners

The next step in the layer-by-layer method is to complete the top face, and by doing this the top layer. To do this if you look on your cube, you only need to put 4 of the 8 corners into the proper place, facing the proper direction. There are 3 different moves that you are going to have to learn for this step, All of which are illustrated below. It is very important that you put the proper piece in the right spot, so please pay attention to the pictures. If your cube does not fit any of the pictures, then just mess with it for a while until it does.

Instance 1:

Part 2 Instance 1

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: R* D* R

Instance 2:

Part 2 Instance 2

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: R* D R

Instance 3 :

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: R* 2D R D R* D* R

Step 2

This is the end of step 2. Your cube should now look like the one above after completing these series of moves with all of corner pieces.

Step 3: The 2nd Layer

Now, if you look at your cube you can see that there are only four edge pieces that might be out of place to complete the entire second layer. These pieces have two places that they could be, somewhere in the bottom layer, or already inserted but not in the right place. There are two instances when they are in the bottom alyer with moves on how to get them into 2nd layer. When you insert a piece into the 2nd layer, you of course move one into the bottom layer, so if the piece that you need in the bottom layer is in the 2nd layer, simply use the moves listed below to put another piece into that location so you can insert the correct piece.

Instance 1:

Step 3 Instance 1

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: D* R* D R D F D* F*

Instance 2:

Step 3 Instance 2

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: 2D F D* F* D* R* D R

Step 3

At the end of step three, your cube should look like the one above. Now the real fun begins….

Step 4: The Last Layer Cross

For the next 3 steps, we will be working on the bottom so at this tim, please turn your cube over. Your cube should now look like one of the instances below, remember that the gray areas represent unimportant colors. If it does not which is entirely possible, just perform one of the moves and after one or two tries, you should be able to see one.

Instance 1:

Step 4 Instance 1

With Green as the”F”, Yellow as the “U”, Orange as the “R”, and White as the “D”: F U R U* R* F*

Instance 2:

Step 4 Instance 2

With Green as the”F”, Yellow as the “U”, Orange as the “R”, and White as the “D”: F R U R* U* F*

Step 4

Your cube should now look like the one above, now we move on to step 5.

Step 5: The Last Layer Corner Locations

The next step in the layer by layer method involves putting the remaining four corner pieces into the right location, not into the proper position (facing up). This will ensure that the bottom face will be completed in the next step. You first need to rotate the bottom face until you get the most pieces into the right spot. Once you have as many as you can get, you may need to use the corner swap method if two of them have been switched. This move will switch the two corner piece locations of the two corners on the “R” Face.

Step 5

The move is (With the two corners to be swapped on the Top “R” Face as illustrated above): L U* R* U L* U* R

You may need to continue using this step many times to get all the corners in the right spot, bot once they are, you can mve to the next step.

Step 6: The Last Layer Bottom Face (FISH STEP)

Now when you look at your cube you might see something that looks like a fish if you look at it right. If it does not look like a fish, than do either move until it does. Once it looks like one of the possible two fishes, carefully look at the yellow colors that are not on the face. Match the location of these colors to the pictures and complete the moves.

Fish 1:

Fish 1

With Green as the”F”, Yellow as the “U”, Orange as the “R”, and White as the “D”: R* U* R U* R* 2U R 2U

Fish 2:

Fish 2

With Green as the”F”, Yellow as the “U”, Orange as the “R”, and White as the “D”: R U R* U R 2U R* 2U

Step 6

At the end of this step you should have a cube that looks like the one above. If not please go back to step 5, for it is most likely the location of your mistake.

Step 7: The Last Layer Edge Pieces (LAST STEP)

Welcome to the last step. At this point, you may turn your cube back over so that we can asses what we have so far. You should in theory have a cube with three completed sides, the top, the bottom, and one other side. If you don’t, do not worry just do one of the moves below and you should end up with three complete faces. To complete the other 3 faces, you will notice that you only need to move three different edge pieces. The moves are listed below but first determine if you need to move them in a clockwise direction (from the U face) or a counterclockwise direction, both are illustrated below.

Instance 1: Clockwise Rotation

Step 7 Instance 1

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: 2F D* R L* 2F R* L D* 2F

Instance 2: Counterclockwise Rotation

Step 7 Instance 2

With Red as the “F”, White as the “U”, Blue as the “R”, and Yellow as the “D”: 2F D R L* 2F R* L D 2F

Congratulations You should now have a cube that looks like the one below! Good Job! If you want some cool designs you can make with the cube, scroll down, you can also leave a comment if you have any suggestions or concerns, but if you want to go back to the select a cube screen, click on the cube below.

Cool patterns:

With any face: 2R 2L 2F 2x 2U 2D (Remember the x face?)

With any face: R* L F X* U* D L R*

-Conderoga

Rubik’s Cube Solutions