TwistLab

Anyone can solve a Rubik's cube. You don't need to memorize dozens of algorithms or have a good memory: with the beginner method you build it layer by layer and only use 7 short sequences, almost all of them repeated.

This guide is the whole map: what you do in each of the 7 steps and what each case looks like. Every step links to the Academia, where you practice it with diagrams, 3D animations and a quiz.

What you need

• A 3x3 cube. A speed cube turns more smoothly, but any cube works.
• 20 to 30 minutes a day. Your first solved cube usually arrives in 1 or 2 weeks.
• Knowing how to read the turns: R, U, R'… It's explained below and takes five minutes.

The cube has three kinds of pieces:

• Centers: one per face, with a single color. They don't move relative to each other: the center tells you the color of its face. With white on the bottom, yellow is on top.
• Edges: 12 two-colored pieces, between two centers.
• Corners: 8 three-colored pieces.

That's why you don't solve "one face" but piece by piece: each one goes between the centers of its colors.

How to read the turns

• Each letter is a face: R right, L left, U up, D down, F front and B back.
• The letter alone is a quarter turn clockwise, looking at that face head-on. With an apostrophe, counterclockwise (R'). With a 2, a half turn (U2).
• So R U R' U' is: right side up, top to the left, right side down, top to the right.

How to hold the cube: throughout this guide, white cross on the bottom, yellow on top and green in front.

The 4 white edges around the white center, each one next to the center of its other color: white-green under green, white-red under red…

It's the only step without algorithms: you solve it by thinking, one edge at a time. If it's on top with white facing up, turn U until it is above its center and bring it down with a half turn (F2, R2, B2 or L2). U never touches the cross: it's the free turn to position it.

If the white face looks complete but the side colors don't match their centers, the cross is wrong.

With the 4 white corners in place, the first layer is complete.

Find a corner with white on top, turn U until it is above its spot and rotate the cube to have it at the front right. Repeat R U R' U' until it drops in with white on the bottom: 1 time if white faces right, 3 if it faces up and 5 if it faces front.

The 4 middle edges, the ones without yellow. Find one on top, turn U until its side color matches its center and look at its top color: it tells you which side it goes to.

• To the right: U R U' R' U' F' U F.
• To the left: U' L' U L U F U' F' (the mirror of the first).

If one is in the middle but flipped, take it out with either of the two and insert it again.

Now only the yellow edges on top count. One algorithm, F R U R' U' F', depending on the shape you see:

• Line: horizontal, 1 time.
• L: at the back and on the left, 2 times.
• Dot: 1 time, then continue as with the L.

Each yellow edge next to the center of its color. Turn U until at least 2 match. If they are adjacent, put them at the back and on the right and do R U R' U R U2 R' U once. If they are opposite, do it once and they become adjacent.

Each corner in its spot, even if twisted: its 3 colors are those of the 3 centers around it. Put one that is already right at the front right and do U R U' L' U R' U' L (1 or 2 times): it moves the other three without touching the edges.

Yellow on top on all 4 corners. With a twisted corner at the front right, repeat R' D' R D until its yellow is on top (2 or 4 times). Then turn only U to bring the next one and repeat.

Don't panic: halfway through, the first two layers look broken. They fix themselves with the last corner. One last U turn and the cube is solved.

Once you can solve it without looking at the guide, time yourself with official scrambles to see yourself improve. The next method is reduced CFOP: the same steps, merged into fewer algorithms, to get under 1 minute.