Message #1708

From: Nan Ma <mananself@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Re: 24-cell FT solved!
Date: Sun, 15 May 2011 00:28:24 -0700

Hi Matt,

My move count was 54199. I know there’s a big room to improve. My way of
separating permutations from orientations does incur large move counts. So,
good luck on a shortest move solve!

Nan

On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Matthew Galla <mgalla@trinity.edu> wrote:

>
>
> Congrats Nan,
>
> I knew I wasn’t gonna be fast enough to be the first one done, but I do
> have about 50% done and all algorithms ready. Having just got out of a
> particularly difficult year of college (junior math/engineer double), I’ve
> been having trouble dedicating enough time to sitting here nd solving it ;)
>
> Perhaps I can beat you in moves? ;) How many was yours?
>
>
> As for the 120Cell, as I mentioned before, I believe it took me roughly 150
> hours, based on some random samples of how quickly I was solving pieces on
> average. I only used 2 permutation algorithms, very similar to eachother,
> and of only 8 and 12 moves and after doing them a couple of times, they
> easily become memorized. The actual process of clicking through the moves of
> these algorithms only took me about 16 seconds for the short one and about
> 30 seconds for the second. Although I never memorized setup moves, it was
> simple enough to abuse the undo feature to see exactly what setup moves I
> used and remember them for the 10 seconds it took to redo back to the end of
> the current solve. So my point here is that having the macros isn’t as big
> of a handicap as you may think. In fact, I’ve barely used any macros so far
> in my 24Cell solve. Especially in the beginning, they actually really hurt
> your flexibility in move count and setups.
>
> Congratulations again on the solve. You have too much free time and
> dedicaton!!! :D
> Hopefully I’ll be able to finish my solve and provide some great
> competition for lowest move count ;)
>
> -Matt Galla
>
> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 1:07 AM, schuma <mananself@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Let me tell the story of solving the 24-cell. Everybody knows that 24-cell
>> is much sexier than 16-cell. So after solving the 16-cell, I looked at the
>> 24-cell. There are only five types of pieces to solve in the 24-cell,
>> compared with eight types for the 16-cell. The 3-cycle algorithms are
>> similar to the counterparts for the 16-cell. So it didn’t take long to find
>> them. Unlike the 16-cell, I prepared many different rotation algorithms to
>> fix the orientations of corners and edges, so that whenever I need any of
>> them, I can directly pull it off the shelf without thinking. I don’t want to
>> go into details because that would spoil the fun to those who wanna analyze
>> it by themselves.
>>
>> After I prepared all the algorithms, I still don’t know if I can face the
>> main difficulty of the 24-cell. The main difficulty is, of course, there are
>> too many colors. This time I use shift+left, shift+right a lot. Basically
>> I’m using them to find pieces. I never trust my color identification ability
>> because there are too many close colors. I only claim two pieces have the
>> same color when they are highlighted at the same time when I use
>> shift+right. In the beginning I wasn’t sure if I could really handle 24
>> colors. So I used the first step, the face centers, as a test for me. The
>> face centers don’t need complicated algorithms. Finding pieces of certain
>> color is everything. I started the solve on Friday afternoon, when I
>> finished the work I had to do for the week. I solved all the face centers
>> intuitively. It meant that I could handle the colors.
>>
>> After dinner I resumed the solve from about 9pm. By 2am, I solved all the
>> pieces except for the side-face pieces. I thought I should go on to finish
>> it, if the side-face pieces could be solved quickly. Then I used a stopwatch
>> to time myself on solving one such piece. In that trial I was nervous and it
>> took me 40 seconds to spot the colors, find the place it should go (using
>> shift+right), setup, call the macro and reverse setup. A simple calculation
>> told me that I needed three more hours for all the pieces. So I gave up and
>> went to bed. On Saturday I got up earlier than in weekdays and indeed spent
>> three more hours to finish it.
>>
>> This one is my longest solve to date. There are six hundred pieces or so
>> and I can use macros. I really don’t know how someone can solve the 120-cell
>> without macros.
>>
>> Nan
>>
>>
>> — In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Melinda Green <melinda@…> wrote:
>> >
>> > Congratulations, Nan!
>> > The 24 Cell is a very unique object. I’m sure we will all enjoy hearing
>> > your story.
>> > -Melinda
>> >
>> > On 5/14/2011 12:13 PM, schuma wrote:
>> > > Hi guys,
>> > >
>> > > I just solved the cell-turning 24-cell. The log file can be found
>> here:
>> > >
>> > > <http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/files/Nan%20Ma/>
>> > >
>> > > This is probably my longest solve ever. It took me 9 hrs and 25 min.
>> I’ll probably write about my experience later today.
>> > >
>> > > Nan
>> >
>>
>>
>
>