Message #378

From: cuber86 <cuber27@hotmail.com>
Subject: Hello from New Hampshire!
Date: Thu, 31 May 2007 06:39:07 -0000

Hi all,

Thought I’d introduce myself, being apparently the 59th person to ever
solve the 4D cube.

My name’s Chris Gilsdorf, I’m 20 years old, and I’m a current
sophomore (soon-to-be junior) at Dartmouth College in NH. I’m a
pre-med and neuroscience major, and love reading for pleasure, hiking,
biking and using the website www.WheresGeorge.com in my spare time
(haha, what’s that!?). I play horn (and was selected as first chair in
the New England Intercollegiate Band, though that ended up being
cancelled), and work part-time on campus. My family’s moved from Ohio
to Arizona, a move that I largely support.

I learned the 3D cube back in freshman year of high school; though
I’ve worked on it on and off through the years since, I’ve bottomed
out at about 22 seconds for a speedsolve. I’ve also solved cubes up
to, I believe, 25x25x25. I ran into this program several years back,
but only began seriously trying to solve it a year or two ago.

Once I figured out the trick (using the middle hyperface as a 3x3x3
and figuring out viable ways to make algorithms that didn’t disturb
the other two layers), I knew it was possible to solve, but I never
had the spare time nor patience to give it a shot. I did manage to
solve the 2x2x2x2 in about 26 minutes a year ago. However, considering
I decided to write a paper on the problem-solving strategies I used to
solve the 4D cube, I figured actually going ahead and solving the
3x3x3x3 might be a good idea! I used macros; I could have eschewed
them, but the solve would have taken even longer. Well, here I am…

If there’s anything you want to know, just ask (though I can’t
guarantee either an answer or a quick response). Happy (hyper)cubing!

-Chris