M2M Day 67: Colorblindness
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For January, my goal is to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under 20 seconds.
When I first explained how I solve a Rubik’s Cube, I noted that I always start by creating a cross on the white side. This consistency helps with speedy pattern recognition, but may not be the most efficient method.
So, to address this potential inefficiency, I experimented today with Color Neutrality.
What is Color Neutrality?
Under color neutrality, rather than always starting a solve with the white side of the cube, I must assess each unique scramble and identify which color seems easiest to start with (where easiest is some combination of fewest number of moves and ease of execution). The easiest color could be white, but it could also be yellow, blue, green, red, or orange.
Thus, to be a color neutral cuber, I must be able to 1) Quickly identify the easiest starting color for a particular scramble, and 2) Execute my solve with equal competency and pattern recognition from any starting color.
To determine if Color Neutrality is something worth pursuing, I needed to answer a couple of questions…
How much time would Color Neutrality save me?
To answer this question, I timed myself solving 20 crosses on the white side of the cube. I wanted to see how much time I was saving between an easy cross and a hard cross.
I found that my cross time was between 2 and 4 seconds, meaning perfect Color Neutrality, at best, will save me only two seconds per solve. Of course, two seconds is significant if I want to beat the world record (or if I’m consistently stuck at 22-second solves), but it’s only a tiny boost in absolute efficiency.
How much effort would it take?
Since I’d only be gaining two-ish seconds from Color Neutral solving, I needed to assess the investment level.
To do so, I completed ten solves starting on a color other than white.
Surprisingly, I’ve never actually tried this, so I didn’t know what to expect. The result was worse than I expected: On average, my Color Neutral solves were about 30% slower than my solves starting with white.
This is a big hill to climb.
Of course, with practice, I can overcome this difference, but I’m just not sure it’s worth my attention during this month’s challenge. Especially since I’ll only be shaving 1–2 seconds off my time for doing so.
I’m glad I went through the exploration, but I feel my efforts are better spent elsewhere.
What should YOU do?
If you are just learning to solve the Rubik’s Cube now, or if you ever plan to learn in the future, I would encourage you to start practicing Color Neutral solves as early as possible (assuming you care about speed).
It seems that the better and better you get with one color, the harder it is to justify going backwards to gain Color Neutrality.
In fact, if I was just learning how to solve the cube now, I would probably force myself to start each new solve with a different color than the previous solve. This is an easy mechanism to understand and follow, and will reap nice Color Neutral rewards.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
