Message #3405

From: tytheguy246@gmail.com
Subject: My introduction
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2016 14:55:22 -0700

Hello, everyone!

My name is Ty Spicer, and I am 16 years old. I live in Oklahoma and I work at Chick-Fil-A. A few days ago, I solved the 3^4 puzzle after watching Mathologer’s video about it.

A couple of years ago, I watched a video on YouTube about how to solve the Rubik’s Cube, and had this hobby of solving and collecting different kinds of twisty puzzles. I had this hobby for about a year. Now, I only pick up my Rubik’s Cube every now and then. At my best, I could solve the Rubik’s Cube in about 20-25 seconds, and my record was about 15 seconds. Currently, my average is about 30 seconds.

Right now, I have three main things that I do for fun. The least prominent in my life is video games. The second hobby I have is making things in a 3-d rendering software called Blender. Most of what I use it for is modeling, but I have also made a few animations and even a couple games. The third thing I do is play guitar. Music is my passion. The main genre that I play is rock, and my favorite band is Extreme, but I also like Van Halen, Queen, and (of course) The Beatles.

I also happen to be interested in quantum-type physics and higher-level dimensions. I’ve known about hypercubes for quite a while now, and gave a speech about it this last school year in my speech class. When I heard that there was a four-dimensional Rubik’s Cube, I, of course, had to learn how it worked. It took a while to even understand it, but I eventually (kind of) figured out how it worked. Although, I was nowhere near solving it. I didn’t even know that the stickers and faces were now cubes. I read about it on the MagicCube4d website, and it cleared it up a little bit, but I was still nowhere near solving it.

A few days ago, I watched Mathologer’s video on YouTube about solving the puzzle. This shed so much light on it. I had no idea I only needed four algorithms to solve it. The method I am used to using on the 3x3 is the advanced Fridrich method, which has so much more than four algorithms. I set out to solve the 2^4, and was successful! I remember the feeling I had when I applied that last algorithm. I was pretty sure it would work, but not completely sure. When it started to play the horns of success, I jumped up! I knew it was only a matter of time before I solved the 3^4. Two days later, I did it! There was one time in the middle where I thought I had a parity error. One of the edge cubies was misoriented. Only one edge. I had seen in Mathologer’s video that this parity existed and I really didn’t want to hit it. Luckily, I figured it out, though. This puzzle has been a super fun experience for me! I have really enjoyed it!

I hope you enjoyed this! Thanks for reading!