Message #3026

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Magic 120-cell solved, yay
Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 17:05:02 -0700

Hurray Ray!!! That shows some serious dedication! Any idea of how many
hours it took this time?

So you’ll be starting university at age 17? That’s young too. Given how
well you battled and beat this beast, my guess is that you’ll find
university to be a piece of cake though that may depend upon your choice
of major.

I don’t think that scrambling or rotation moves should affect twist
counts, so clearly you’ve cracked the 20K twist barrier, which is also
extremely impressive, and possibly even a first. You may even be the
first person to solve this puzzle more than once which is something I
never expected to see.

Good luck with the other 4D puzzles. Since you are clearly not easily
frightened by big challenges, I also suggest that you consider the 24-cell.

Congratulations on your very impressive achievement, Ray!
-Melinda

On 9/4/2014 3:03 PM, Ray Zhao thermostatico@gmail.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I got pretty bored one day so I decided to retry solving the 120-cell
> for the heck of it. My previous attempts got me to layer 4, but I
> decided to start from scratch again because my 4D CFOP, 120-cell
> edition, improved a little since then (2011). =P Method’s here (for
> 3^4), though I might edit it in the next few days or weeks.
> http://wiki.superliminal.com/wiki/3%5E4#Sheerin-Zhao_Method_.28Hybrid.29_V1
>
>
> It was finally solved on Aug 30, 2014. Started Aug 13, 2014. Including
> the 1k move scramble, it’s just over 20k moves.
>
> Of course, the fact that I didn’t solve it a long time ago meant that
> I couldn’t break the age record of 15 since I’m 16 now, but at least I
> got to beat the shortest. I also beat myself; by the time I was on
> layer 4, the solution seemed to have become almost 40% more efficient
> than the 2011 attempt though I probably have to check that number.
> Half of the reason for the efficiency was the use of RKT, or limiting
> moves to only two cells, pretending one of them is a megaminx (a bit
> hard to explain. the wiki link mentions it as <RK, A->). The other
> half would be because I strived to learn how the 3c and 4c turns work,
> and pressed undo many times just to find the smoothest insert of an
> f2l pair.
>
> Because CFOP uses pretty intuitive F2L, what’s macros? Roice’s program
> works nicely, and I have to admit it probably has the easiest and most
> comfortable controls, but that’s probably because I used it for weeks
> straight. Its similar colours have got me into trouble multiple times,
> though, but how do you pick an arrangement with 120 contrasting
> colours so that you don’t get a case with a 3c grey-grey-grey piece?
> (I hated that) Perhaps even a variation of 4-colour rule would work
> here. ^_~
>
> As for dur ing the solve, the beginning was pretty frustrating since
> pieces would seem to be everywhere; most of the time was spent finding
> the piece since I’d rotate the puzzle, turn on the layer, and forget
> the exact position that the piece was in.
>
> By the time layer 4 was half-solved, things felt extremely restricting
> since some turns would have the same effect as exposing a solved slot
> on the 3^3. In fact, I screwed up multiple times and had to refix
> multiple pairs because I had taken them out by accident. That by
> itself probably added around 2k moves.
>
> The worst part was the very end, when there seemed to be only one
> flipped edge; the other one was actually wedged between two greys in
> layer 5. @_@ At the same time, it was kind of exciting to be able to
> find a solution to that case; filled up a little piece of scrap paper
> with the steps and all. =P
>
> So that’s pretty much all about the solve. .-. Roice encouraged me to
> post so yeah. Not sure what puzzles I’ll go for next (aka improve on),
> considering that Uni registration is this year (w00t) though duoprisms
> and penteracts sound nice. :)