# Edge flipping itself in mid solve? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! :D



## Derrick Eide17 (Oct 27, 2008)

Yes it actually happened to me tonight during this weekly comp. this is all what happened and what i posted for the weekly comp below.

OH BOY do i got a cubing story for the ages here! okay so, Technically the 2nd solve was a DNF because one edge was flipped but it would be solved otherwise, plus its not my best so who cares. anyway... on the first solve after I popped trust me i made SURE i put them back in then solved it all right and i assembled it the right way so everything was good. Then when i started the 2nd solve i did NOT pop while scrambling either. but then during the solve i felt something weird. it felt like a piece popped out or something but i didnt feel anything in my hand or nothing flew out of the cube so i was just like hmm and kept solving and it felt weird like a peice came out or was gonna come out but i kept going. then after i took the BLD off i checked and saw that there was only ONE FRIGGING EDGE FLIPPED on the cube. which since i fixed the pop and assembled correct and then didnt pop while scrambling could only mean ONE THING. THE EDGE FLIPPED ITSELF RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SOLVE!! XD XD XD XD XD XD XD
History right there folks.. history in the making xD what are the chances of this? xD


Crazy? I believe so


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## Fobo911 (Oct 27, 2008)

lol, nice. =D

And what are the chances of you totally screwing Chloe Skye's results this week? She might try to regain her last place rank.


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## Vulosity (Oct 27, 2008)

This happened to me last week. I forced a turn on my type A and somehow an edge flipped by itself.


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## Derrick Eide17 (Oct 27, 2008)

Fobo911 said:


> lol, nice. =D
> 
> And what are the chances of you totally screwing Chloe Skye's results this week? She might try to regain her last place rank.



aww damn i forgot 
plus its too late now anyway i have to do at LEAST 10, 15 minute solves to take her last place spot


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## Fobo911 (Oct 27, 2008)

Derrick Eide17 said:


> Fobo911 said:
> 
> 
> > lol, nice. =D
> ...



lol, Chloe probably already turned her results in. Who knows what she's doing during her solves. Maybe from reading her random comments, she might be making out with her boyfriend in the middle of solves, for all we know.


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## siva.shanmukh (Oct 27, 2008)

My edge never flipped that way, but corner did get twisted a few times.


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## Gunnar (Oct 27, 2008)

That's wierd! 

I've had corners flipped a few times on loose cubes, but never heard of a flipped edge.


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## AvGalen (Oct 27, 2008)

If edges can flip themselves, will the whole puzzle solve itself if I just wait a while?

Seriously, there used to be something in the rules about pieces not being allowed to twist in place on a puzzle. I think that rule was removed because it wasn't enforcable. A corner twist is possible on most cubes (especially DIY and OH-prepared ones), but an edge twist means it is time for:
a) Screwdriver
b) New Cube
c) Better technique / finger tricks


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## Escher (Oct 27, 2008)

that reminds me...

in OH, you are not allowed to use the other hand to touch the cube.

what happens in this case if you get a POP, or you twist one of the corners? do you have to put the cube on the table and put it back one handed or what?
in the case of twisted corner, do you just complete the solve and get a +2 for it?

:confused:


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## AvGalen (Oct 27, 2008)

With OH (and even worse with feet) you are indeed only allowed to solve the pop/twist with that one hand (or even worse, with your feet)

If you end up with 1 edge or 1 corner misoriented the result is DNF (not +2) because it is not clear if you would have solved the cube or not


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## Littlegupper (Oct 27, 2008)

Haha, I do believe you! My corner had flipped twice for me but never an edge


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## Kian (Oct 27, 2008)

yeah, i've never had an edge flip, that's amazing. my corners do misorient themselves sometimes with my very loose type a cube.


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## Sa967St (Oct 27, 2008)

Escher said:


> that reminds me...
> 
> in OH, you are not allowed to use the other hand to touch the cube.
> 
> ...


I had a major pop on an official OH solve and had to put it back together with one hand. I had bad luck and put 1 corner rotated and 1 edge flipped


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## fanwuq (Oct 28, 2008)

Derrick Eide17 said:


> Fobo911 said:
> 
> 
> > lol, nice. =D
> ...



Crap! You forgot to go over 9000!

Just scramble one cube, start timer on a stopwatch, then just leave it there for 3 hours (best done before you go to bed) .


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## Derrick Eide17 (Oct 28, 2008)

fanwuq said:


> Derrick Eide17 said:
> 
> 
> > Fobo911 said:
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yepp i know. just wait to this weeks SC and you'll see


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## Neroflux (Oct 28, 2008)

so sunday contests become 'who can beat derrick's before bed timings'?


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## Howardw (Mar 29, 2009)

Once I was solving a type a thrid model diy from cube4you, then throughout the solve I didn't notice anything. But when I got to OLL, 2 of my corners were flipped...


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## Tortin (Mar 29, 2009)

What happens if an edge pops out during the last turn and you stop the timer? The whole cube is solved, but an edge piece is out. Does that count as a +2? The rules said something about centrecaps coming off, but I don't think it said anything about pieces poping.


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## Sa967St (Mar 29, 2009)

Tortin said:


> What happens if an edge pops out during the last turn and you stop the timer? The *whole cube is solved, but an edge piece is out*. Does that count as a +2? The rules said something about centrecaps coming off, but I don't think it said anything about pieces poping.


'twould be a DNF, the cube is not solved if a piece pops out of it


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## Bryan (Mar 29, 2009)

WCA Regulations said:


> 10d)	All pieces of a puzzle must be fully attached to the puzzle, and in their required positions. Exceptions: see Article 5 Puzzle defects.
> 
> 5b5) If, after the solve, non functional parts of the puzzle are still defect (like a centre cap of a cube) or not fully rotated (like a 5x5x5 centre piece twisted in its spot), but the puzzle is otherwise unambiguously solved, the puzzle is considered solved. (discretion of the main judge)
> 
> 5b)	If a puzzle defect occurs, the competitor may choose to repair the puzzle and continue the solve or choose to stop the solve.



So 10d says that the puzzle must be completely together, except for some Article 5 things. 5b5 would be the center cap, as long as the puzzle is still unambiguously solved. Now, if you have 4 centers come off, but they're not all in the same slice (so the remaining two caps are opposite), then that's ambiguous, because you can't tell where the caps would go. But if you have 4 caps fall off where the remaining two are adjacent, from that, you can unambiguously determine the color scheme.

The other thing to note is that in 5b, you have two choices. 1) Repaid and continue or 2) Stop. There is no option to keep going and repair later. I had someone try this one time, and I was going to DNF them at the end, but they DNF's anyway, so I just warned them.


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## not_kevin (Mar 29, 2009)

Bryan said:


> WCA Regulations said:
> 
> 
> > 10d)	All pieces of a puzzle must be fully attached to the puzzle, and in their required positions. Exceptions: see Article 5 Puzzle defects.
> ...



Actually, you can rebuild during the solve:



WCA Regulations said:


> 5b3) If after repairing the puzzle, but still during the solve, the competitor notices that the puzzle is unsolvable, he may disassemble and assemble max. 4 pieces to make the puzzle solvable again.


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## Bryan (Mar 29, 2009)

not_kevin said:


> Bryan said:
> 
> 
> > The other thing to note is that in 5b, you have two choices. 1) Repaid and continue or 2) Stop. There is no option to keep going and repair later. I had someone try this one time, and I was going to DNF them at the end, but they DNF's anyway, so I just warned them.
> ...



Correct, but that's after you've already chosen #1 and have to do a second repair. The situation I was referring to was someone who was solving a pyraminx that popped and they simply left the edge piece out and continued the solve. They just continued the solve, they didn't perform a repair right then and there.


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## not_kevin (Mar 29, 2009)

Bryan said:


> not_kevin said:
> 
> 
> > Bryan said:
> ...



Ah, sorry; I misread your post.


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## Deleted member 2864 (Mar 29, 2009)

happens to my type A a lot... the last time my edge flipped was like 2 weeks ago and my corners flip like every other day...


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## darkzelkova (Mar 30, 2009)

I thought I'd seen this before - then I looked at the date of the original post.


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 2, 2009)

Bryan said:


> The other thing to note is that in 5b, you have two choices. 1) Repaid and continue or 2) Stop. There is no option to keep going and repair later. I had someone try this one time, and I was going to DNF them at the end, but they DNF's anyway, so I just warned them.



It occurs to me that this sort of problem could happen a lot in 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 solving. At home I'll often have an oblique piece pop out in the middle of an algorithm. When it does, I always try to stop at that exact spot and put the piece back in, but sometimes I'm moving through the algorithm so fast that I wind up finishing the algorithm before stopping to put the piece back in. I would presume that if you do this, it should in fact be a DNF? It's a tricky issue, since in order to be perfect at judging it, you'd have to decide what constitutes making an additional move after the piece comes out. If you're halfway through a move when the piece flies out, does finishing that move cause a DNF (so do you have to leave the slice at a 45 degree angle to pop the piece in)? I would assume that if you're in the middle of a single move, you would be allowed to make that move and no more, and I would probably judge it that way if I had to make a call. But I wonder what other people think? It really doesn't seem like a big deal to allow finishing the algorithm, since the piece will wind up in the same place either way, but it looks to me like the rules as written don't allow it.

I was glad at Ohio that I didn't have any pops, so I didn't have to worry about it.


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## AvGalen (Apr 2, 2009)

I don't believe in an edge that flips itself
I don't believe 2 corners flipping (I assume that means that 2 corners switch position, otherwise how could you know it isn't just 1 flipped corner?)
I do believe in 1 twisted corner

And when you have a mega-pop you can assemble it in any state you want. If that is allowed, I don't care about people finishing an alg before putting 1 popped edge back in


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## holypasta (Apr 3, 2009)

this is not off-topic discussion
that happens to me with corners (not edges) all the time


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## Bryan (Apr 3, 2009)

AvGalen said:


> And when you have a mega-pop you can assemble it in any state you want.



No you can't.



WCA Regulations said:


> 5b2) During the repairing of the puzzle, the competitor must not intentionally make the position easier to solve than before the defect. Penalty: disqualification of the solve.


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## AvGalen (Apr 3, 2009)

Bryan said:


> AvGalen said:
> 
> 
> > And when you have a mega-pop you can assemble it in any state you want.
> ...


Ok, I will clarify what I meant:
If I have a big pop (a dozen or more pieces) on 6x6x6 I just grab a piece and jam it back in. I don't pay attention to the "before" or "after" state at all. That means that the puzzle I am solving after the fix isn't really related to the scramble I was supposed to solve.

As long as that is allowed I don't care about people that stick their finger in the location of a popped edge piece, complete their alg and then put the edge back in


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## qqwref (Apr 3, 2009)

Bryan said:


> WCA Regulations said:
> 
> 
> > 5b)	If a puzzle defect occurs, the competitor may choose to repair the puzzle and continue the solve or choose to stop the solve.
> ...



I need clarification on this. My interpretation of "repair the puzzle and continue the solve" is that you must do both, but it is not necessary to repair the puzzle BEFORE doing more turns. (It says "and", not "and then".) I don't think it would be acceptable to DNF someone for continuing the solve and repairing the piece later, because it's ambiguous: the regulation does not explicitly say that continuing without fixing the puzzle defect (then fixing it later) is wrong, or provide any penalty for doing that, so in my view it should be allowed.

As for a "spirit of the law" thing, I think it would be better that this practice be allowed, because in many cases it is natural to wait for a bit before putting the piece back in. If I am in the middle of something on 6x6 or 7x7 I will often finish what I'm doing before I go find the oblique and put it back in, and similarly if I have an edge pop on Pyraminx (or 3x3, if F2L is almost solved) I'd probably put my finger in and keep solving until I get to a point where I can tell which orientation is correct before putting the edge in - that way I don't run the risk of having to re-pop the piece and flip it (the few seconds that that takes can be pretty important on such short puzzles). As I perceive it the goal is to return the puzzle to a solved state by turning it, so whether the pop is corrected now or later is irrelevant, as long as the puzzle was not disassembled and reassembled to the point where the competitor skipped actual solving steps. Waiting to put an edge in isn't cheating in my eyes because even without a single piece the puzzle still only has one possible solvable position.


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## Mike Hughey (Apr 3, 2009)

I agree with your reasoning completely, Michael. I especially agree that the "spirit of the law" should allow making turns before putting the pieces back in. I guess I'd just feel better if it were more explicitly in the rules. As is, it just seems too unclear.


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## Bryan (Apr 4, 2009)

qqwref said:


> I need clarification on this. My interpretation of "repair the puzzle and continue the solve" is that you must do both, but it is not necessary to repair the puzzle BEFORE doing more turns. (It says "and", not "and then".)



Yeah, I can see your interpretation too. 



qqwref said:


> As I perceive it the goal is to return the puzzle to a solved state by turning it, so whether the pop is corrected now or later is irrelevant, as long as the puzzle was not disassembled and reassembled to the point where the competitor skipped actual solving steps. Waiting to put an edge in isn't cheating in my eyes because even without a single piece the puzzle still only has one possible solvable position.



For 3x3x3 and the case of a single edge, yeah. But in the case 4x4 and two edges, or a 4x4x4 and a single center, or a Square-1, waiting to fix it can have an advantage. You can't expect the judge to determine if the competitor is getting an advantage without seeing all the pieces and determining the "validity" of waiting, so the rules should be clear about when it can be done.

Moving discussion to WCA site: http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=577


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