Message #3148

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] 120Cell Solved!!!
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 19:04:27 -0700

Wow, congratulations, Alvin!

Gosh, I love reading these stories. They’ve got all the elements you
would want from a great adventure saga. I once heard a great definition
of "Adventure" which is a story of some horrible thing happening to some
poor sap a very long way away. If it were happening to us or to someone
closer, we could call it a disaster! Of course when it turns out well,
it’s easy to celebrate, but when I’m in the middle of something like
that, it’s simply too intense for me to enjoy. And of course if it
fails, then it’s a tragedy. Mentions of early, unnoticed mistakes, and
sudden, appearances of parity or other unexpected “obstacles” make my
blood run cold! It’s a good thing that you’re so young because you don’t
yet have enough sense to avoid such risky things! If anyone else reading
this has already begun this puzzle or also lacks enough good sense, this
would be the time to do it while there’s still a chance to join the
ranks of the first 10. It’s not as special as being the first person
ever, but it is a meaningful record that can never be taken away and
that will only get more special over time.

I really like your video record too. It’s not clear at first what’s
going on because the view is so restricted that it makes it look like a
much smaller puzzle. But that’s all fine because it creates a real
mystery about just what we’re watching. The interstitial text is very
helpful and funny. The music is great, and the lack of voice adds to the
mystery.

This is a really special puzzle, and I’m amazed by your skill and
fearless attitude. Congratulations again and best of luck with the next
monster you get within your sights!

-Melinda

On 7/21/2015 5:43 PM, alvin5553@gmail.com [4D_Cubing] wrote:
>
>
> About a year ago, Ray solved the 120Cell. It’s about a year and now I
> have solved it. I started a few weeks after Ray did, and it took a
> year for me to complete this puzzle. So back then, I solved the cross,
> and then I had no idea how to do F2L or S2L, since on the 3^4 I always
> did it with the bottom cell invisible. I was thinking to solve do F2L
> (literally, the 3D way, how you do it on a Megaminx) and it doesn’t
> work, I wasn’t thinking "4D" enough. I figured out how to do F2L and
> S2L and got going. The first cell took very long, the first few cells
> took like half a year, which is like no progress. About this time, I
> took a pretty long break from the 120Cell, and then one day decided to
> continue going. As I started to do more F2L pairs, I got better and
> get to complete a cell. In the beginning I had always messed up solved
> cells while doing others, so I always pair pieces up in the "safe
> zone" (when doing layer 2, layer 3 and layer 4 cells are affected, but
> layer 5 is not, so I do my buildings there etc.), I can’t make as much
> progress as Ray does, but I make myself do 2 cells per day, and then
> progress was definitely noticeable. Originally I’ve calculated that,
> if I do 2 cells per day, I should be able to complete it in August,
> which means I still get to break the age record since by birthday was
> October 20th. But things didn’t go as planned, it went better than
> planned! After layer 5, the rest of the layers just went really quickly.
>
>
> There were tons of “obstacles” when solving. During layer 5, I started
> to pay attention to the pieces and checked if I solved it
> incorrectly(this issue almost caused me to just give up, since I
> couldn’t find where I was doing wrong, luckily someone found the
> issue), as there were more pieces like the gray-gray-gray. I remember
> on one of the F2L pairs, I struggled to see if I inserted the pair
> correctly or not (with maxed sticker settings), and I ended up solving
> an S2L pair first to check. On layer 6, I noticed there was not much
> building space so I had to bring in layer 9. When solving layer 7, I
> started to do all RKT moves to pair and insert, I noticed I didn’t
> need to do layer 8 since when layer 7 is done, the rest of layer 8
> pieces belong to layer 9. Something happened when I started layer 9,
> so I finished layer 7/8 and then I saved the puzzle, reset it to test
> some algorithms, and then accidentally saved it. That means the loss
> of all progress done. Fortunately, I had a backup, however it was not
> the most updated so I had to redo layer 7, since then I saved a backup
> copy whenever I complete a significant portion of the puzzle.
>
>
> I did layer 9, up do the LLOLL stage (for more info, check the SZ
> method: http://wiki.superliminal.com/wiki/3%5E4#Notation ), at first
> it all went well, the OLL. But then I found an unoriented edge on the
> LLF2L. But if there was an incorrect edge when OLL was normal, you
> know what happens when I solve that incorrect edge in LLF2L, right?
> Yep, the OLL becomes "corrupted", with a 4 edges oriented case. So
> that must means somewhere in the lower layers, I have solved a piece
> incorrectly. I tryed to avoid this issue but it still occured. I
> emailed Ray for help, and he found the incorrectly oriented edge in
> layer 4, which was before I started to pay attention to the unoriented
> edge problem. He told me I solve it like usual and deal with the
> problem later. I solved Layer 9 leaving the two unoriented edges. The
> wrong edge wasn’t a normal three cycle(which can be solved with the
> 3rd Three Color Series), it was a case where you would normally use
> the (Special Three Color Series). But the two pieces being so far
> away, I find that too hard, so I made a different approach: ELL (w/
> RKT). I use the algorithm: R U R’ U’ Rw’ U2 R U R U’ R2 U2 L. Of
> course I changed up the alg so it would work with Megaminx RKT (for
> example: Rw’ into L’). That alg flips two stickers of a 3-color piece.
> So I use that and finally solved this puzzle.
>
>
> I have a video recorded to show what had happened:
> http://youtu.be/dP61mI0d5TM
>
>
> Can’t believe I can do it in this year, this puzzle gave me a hard
> time, the first few cells took half a year, and before I know, I’m
> already on my last few turns (I originally intended to solve this
> while I was age 13, but that didn’t happen). A coincidence is that Ray
> also had a similar "error" in the end of this solve and also another
> person (out of the other 8) also had a similar 2c problem. . I was
> also worried that, since Windows 10 came out on July 29^th and I
> reserved a copy, if Magic120Cell wasn’t compatible with Win10, that
> was basically game over for me. After I solved the puzzle, I was
> seriously expecting the “congratulations” window to not pop out which
> meant another issue to fix.
>
>
> This is first attempt btw, and my name is currently not on the Hall of
> Insanity yet, but it should update pretty soon.
>
>
>
>
>