Message #1894

From: schuma <mananself@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: yet more new puzzles and a prize
Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:39:43 -0000

Hi Roice,

I’ve never realized this way to "cheat" to get the global orientation. Also, if the piece finding function is added, getting the global orientation is trivial.

Between piece-finding and macros, I think the macros help me more in terms of solving. But even with none of them, I think I will attempt to solve the ET {3,7}.

Just now I wanted to propose a "rotation" function in addition to panning. But then I realized that for hyperbolic puzzles, rotation can actually be done by dragging circularly. That is, if you drag (= pan) the hyperbolic plane in a circle clockwise, the net effect is that the puzzle is rotating clockwise. The larger the circle, the faster it rotates. It’s a enjoyable way to do rotation and I’m very happy with it. It’s a (noncommutative) property of panning, just like if you roll a ball on the floor on a small circle for a while, the net effect is rotation along the vertical axis.

Nan

— In 4D_Cubing@yahoogroups.com, Roice Nelson <roice3@…> wrote:
>
> About hidden global orientation of the ET {3,7} and other puzzles, the
> "reset view" feature of the program allows the user to cheat on this.
> First note the unscrambled colors with a reset view - white triangle is in
> the center, blue to the left of it, etc. Then if you begin your solve with
> a reset view as well, you can safely start solving the white to the center,
> blue to the left, and so on. This cheat helps a little in that you can
> observe the pattern of colors rather than having to deduce it.
>
> Thank you for the observations on these puzzles. I thought they’d be
> difficult, but I must say I didn’t realize how difficult when I made the
> challenge! I will start thinking some about how to do macros and piece
> finding. Macros should be interesting, in particular figuring out how the
> user will specify the relative position/orientation to apply them
> arbitrarily in the hyperbolic plane.
>
> Cheers,
> Roice