What I learned teaching a 5-year-old how to solve a Rubik’s Cube

My son was kindly given a Rubik’s Cube as a gift for his birthday and quickly handed it over to me asking, “How do you solve it dad?”. Much to his surprise I had absolutely no idea and up to this point in my life thought Rubik’s Cubes could only be solved by people much smarter than I — so the quest began and I learned quite a bit more than I anticipated…

1. There are loads of ways to solve a Rubik’s Cube!

There are precisely 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different configurations in which a standard 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube can reside — that’s about 43 quintillion! So I guess it should come as no surprise that there are many different ways to solve a Rubik’s Cube. Each method boils down to using the right algorithms for the right cases or configurations in which you might find the cube. The methods vary in complexity, number of stages and the amount of cube knowledge required.

Rest assured there are a subset of simpler methods which most people can learn, although there is a surprising amount of variation in the ways these are explained — more on that below. Sufficed to say, you can easily get lost and wind-up doing things the hard way, or indeed quit in frustration before you reach your goal!

Fun fact — the next time you’re holding a scrambled cube, it’s likely you’ll never see the same combination of pieces ever again

2. Apps aren’t great, videos are better

Upon Googling “How to solve a Rubik’s Cube” you’ll be presented with a range of how-to videos and apps.

The apps — Looking on Google’s Play Store, there are a lot of apps! I tried about 10 of them and though there were some exceptions, I found that most of them were quite bad and often riddled with ads. There were quite a few that let you use your camera to scan the cube before the app comes up with a solution for you, but that isn’t going to teach you or your kid anything except how to become even more reliant on technology.

The videos — On the whole, the how-to videos on YouTube were much better. Most of the top-rated videos were put together by some really clever folks. If you’re starting out, you’ll want to look for videos that step through the “Basic” or “Beginner” method which generally breaks the solve into 7 or 8 stages. However, despite some good methods and clear explanations, it can be a lot to get your head around, especially for kids.

3. Algorithms are hard enough without using a bunch of letters as instructions!

“L-prime, U-prime, L, wait… which way is clockwise again? The prime or the other one?”

At the beginning, this was a constant fuddle in my head and I knew pretty early on that trying to teach my son the algorithms using the standard letter notation was going to be frustrating for him and for me. I’ve heard it said that two-thirds of the population are visual learners, so it makes sense that diagrams that illustrate which part of the cube needs to be turned and in what direction are much easier to understand.

I used simplified sketches to illustrate the steps in each of the algorithms

4. Nickname the algorithms and name the stages

The beginner method for solving a Rubik’s Cube has 7 or 8 stages, with most stages requiring the use of one or more algorithms. Trying to remember which algorithm is which and at what stage it should be used is difficult at first without constantly referring to the help. I found that nicknaming the algorithms and naming the stages helped immensely with this and I could assist my son when he got stuck by simply referring to the naming conventions I made up:

“Dad, I’m stuck.”

“What stage are you up to?”

“Middle-row”

“You need to do your Righty-Lefties and Lefty-Righties.”

“Oh, now I remember!”

The best thing you can do is make it fun!

5. Other tips to make things kid-friendly

Some stages of the solve are harder than others and you’ll find you need to have a few goes before something clicks in your brain and it all makes sense. That’s fine for you, now you need to figure out a way to explain things to give your child the best chance of reaching that same understanding.

For me that meant a few things:

1. Finding a set of algorithms that had a minimal number of move types: I managed to use a set that only required left, right and top row movements with the occasional front face turn.
2. Keeping the number of algorithms to a minimum, even if this meant more moves to solve the cube.
3. Coming up with simple ways to help learn the algorithms and cube movements: letter notation and clock rotation directions are hard to visualise on a 3-D cube, stick with finger movements and simple directions like up, down, left, right.
4. Using visual prompts on the cube: after the first couple of stages, there are some visual clues that help you remember which algorithms to do and how to perform them.

No, this isn’t one of my tips 😆

6. Children will continue to amaze us

As the days passed, my son slowly made it from one stage to the next, and each time I felt immense pride and amazement in equal amounts more so at the sheer persistence, patience and determination of this little boy. When he finally solved it for the first time, he was so proud of himself, and I could tell he’d learned much more than how to solve a puzzle.

For me, I learned we should constantly re-evaluate what we think our kids are capable of — whether they fail or succeed, they will continue to amaze us.

If you’re learning how to solve the Rubik’s Cube, try Cube Buddy

There’s a lot to navigate in the world of cubing, that’s why I made Cube Buddy — a free, web-based Rubik’s Cube learning aide for beginners that embodies everything I learned so that more can experience the joy of cubing. No sign-up required and no ads, just head to cubebuddy.net.

Learning to cube? Teaching someone else? I’d love to hear about your experience — drop some comments below.