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Puzzle Haul

April 02, 2010

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The above is an image of all of the puzzles that I got in Hong Kong.

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IPP37

Here's my account of the IPP37, held this year in Paris, France. Buckle up, it's a long one! A quick primer, to start: The IPP is a "small" gathering of friends that happens once every year, and rotates between East Asia/Pacific Coast, Europe, and North America. Attendance is by invitation only, and you have to receive a personal invitation from one of two people. Usually, to be invited, you have to be well-known in the puzzle community, and ideally have contributed to the puzzle community at large in some way. The event usually consists of a mix of local non-puzzle events, a design competition, a 100-puzzle gift exchanging extravaganza, and a puzzle sales event.This year's IPP was held in Paris, France, and it was my fourth IPP (I also attended 32 in Washington, 34 in London, and 35 in Ottawa). Friday morning I arrived at the Airport, grabbed my suitcase, wrestled my enormous box of puzzles into a cart, and was promptly accosted by a fake taxi driv...

4x4x4 solution

Here is the solution to the 4x4x4 (Rubik's Revenge) puzzle. Please note that Tony Forbes provided a portion of the material seen here, and I am simply expanding on what I learned from him. Let's begin with notation. The inner left column will be henceforth named "l" and the inner right will be named "r". the outer left and right will be named "L" and "R" respectively. The trend of lowercase letters determining the inner slices continues throughout. You will also hear me use terms like "center block" and "working face". A center block is the area that is bordered by the edges and corners of the cube (in this case the center block is a 2x2 area). The working face is the face that you're building. The "desired" piece is the piece that you want to bring onto the working face. I will also refer to a carrier piece. This is simply a piece that, in the centers solution, is brough up onto another face and brings a...

"Big" cube solves (5x5, 6x6, 7x7, and larger)

After the 4x4, solving "big" cubes is a little but simpler. The method remains very closely related to the 4x4 method: Solve the centers, then the edges, then the cube as a 3x3. On cubes that have an even cubie length (4x4, 6x6) you will ned to solve one center, then the related corners, then use the corners for reference to solve the other centers. This is beacuse there is no fixed center piece. On cubes with an odd cubie length, there is a fixed center for reference so you can solve the centers directly. You should not find it hard to adapt your edge piece mover formula for larger cubes. In the 6x6 and 7x7, you'll want to solve groups of edge pieces, then solve them as larger piece groups. You will want to experiment with it but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out what to do. One thing that might be a little bit tricky is the solving of the center piece. I will give you the example of a 5x5You will want to arrange it so that you have the pieces on the leading ed...

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