# [WCA Regulations 2014] Clock Notation



## Kit Clement (Aug 3, 2013)

So Sarah told me that this was brought up as a concern to the WRC, so I thought I'd make a post to discuss the state of Clock notation. 

From what I understand, the new notation for 2013 was designed to be easier to learn for those who don't do clock. This is a great feature, as many competitions need non-clock solvers to be the scramblers. But after doing 4 different comps with clock this year, I have found it to be more detrimental than helpful. 

It takes about the same amount of time to teach new notation and old notation to those who don't know how to scramble it, and either way, they're still significantly slow/inaccurate at it. What ends up getting most of the comps through clock is pushing a fast clock solver through so he/she can scramble it. And then when that fast solver gets there, they sometimes don't know the new notation. And while it is quick to learn for them, the pin order is completely different and thus the scrambling is much slower. So I'd argue that while it may have some effect on helping those who don't know clock, it hurts the fast solvers who have to adjust to a new pin order, and they're the ones who are the driving force in scrambling clocks quickly.

The main problem here is that most clock timer/scramblers that are available for practicing still have some form of the old notation, and I don't see that changing. It's what most clock solvers are used to, and I don't see many switching to a timer/scrambler that has WCA notation even if one was available, as it's just not fast to scramble with a y2 in there. (It's likely that there may be a timing application with WCA notation out there, but I'm not aware of it) What was surprising to me was that even at my competition in July, a decent number of people there still didn't know there was new clock scrambling notation. Some of these people were pretty good clock solvers too.

Still, there is time for this notation to become more widespread and for people to gain more familiarity with it, but I just don't see scrambling notation with a y2 ever being used regularly in practicing clock. If it were my decision based on what I've seen, I'd like to go back to a notation with the Jaap pin order. I'm curious to see what others have seen with this new notation though. I'm sure that it may have worked better in other competitions, and I'm curious to hear what other thoughts people have.


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## TheNextFeliks (Aug 3, 2013)

Though I don't do clock, I agree. I was at this competition and only three people could actually scramble clock iirc. It greatly slowed down the clock round.


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## MirzaCubing (Aug 3, 2013)

At my CSP Spring 2013 competition, we weren't expecting the switch in Clock notation, and it threw us off; it took Evan, Dan, and Andrew a couple minutes to figure it out, but luckily we finished on time. I prefer Jaap


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## Pedro (Aug 3, 2013)

I didn't have trouble switching to the new notation. And now I practice using it for scrambling. Just donwload the wca scrambler and get the scrambles. Not a big deal.


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## qqwref (Aug 3, 2013)

Well, before I even think about clock notation, I think the way WCA handles scramblers is a problem. The situation right now is pretty much "just copy what TNoodle does". But that means a change to TNoodle will change the official method of scrambling, and as far as I can tell, when it does get changed, there is no official notice saying what exactly changed. If there is a bug in TNoodle, that means that that error is part of the official method of scrambling, at least until it's fixed. That means that this 5MB chunk of code is essentially, itself, the regulation on what official scrambles look like. I think the actual ideal scrambling method needs to be made very clear somewhere in the regulations/errata, so that other non-official WCA scramblers are possible - perhaps for situations where using Java is not possible, or where a program needs to be less than 5MB. Right now we just have the scrambler notation in the regulations, which is doubly bad - not only do the regulations refer to scrambles that can only be generated if you download a program and have several things installed on your computer, but the scrambler has notation that can only be understood by looking back to the regulations. Instead of all the information being in one place, the two parts of the puzzle are stored far away from each other.

Now I don't know if I'm the only one, but I can't even use TNoodle myself (when running the .jar file it just exits without opening a webpage like it's supposed to). I could use tnoodle.tk, sure, but that's not linked from the WCA page and I can't find anything on that site to confirm that it's indeed the newest version. I'm not saying this to ask for help getting it to run, but to point out how this way of doing things can easily cause problems. I can easily imagine someone who will get completely stuck trying to find some official-style scrambles to practice on. (Speaking of which, TNoodle is clearly not designed for generating scrambles one at a time as you solve.)


About the actual clock scrambles... I agree with the OP. Clock scrambles really can't be made all that much easier than the original version, all clock scrambling methods generate equally good scrambles, and all the fast people are used to it anyway. If we are really concerned about newbies we can switch to the version Jaap had with images, which was extremely clear. I've looked at the current version and it's pretty confusing to me. We have similar-looking notations that mean totally different things (DR versus DR+, U vs UR, the numbers in y2 versus U2, etc.). I don't really think either of the clock notations are great, but at least the old one was familiar and had a fixed pin pattern.

Here's yet another clock scrambling notation which we could use, btw. Label the corners as follows (we could put a little image of this on the scramble sheet):

```
A B
C D
```
Now an uppercase letter with a number (+X or -X) means to move that corner by that amount, and a lowercase letter (or series of letters) means to put those pins up and all other pins down (with a - meaning to put all pins down). A Jaap-type scramble could look like this:

```
ab B+2 D+1 bd A+3 B-5 cd B-5 D-1 ac A+6 B+6 bcd B-5 acd A+6 abc A+5 abd A+3 abcd A+6 - A+3 bc
```


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## Lucas Garron (Aug 4, 2013)

There's no reason we couldn't switch back, and this thread has some of the right kinds of arguments. Things like "I don't like it" and "we shouldn't be focusing on making it easy for new scramblers" are bad arguments.

But any information rooted in how useful/annoying the new notation is *for actual competitions that have been running* is very useful. Our goal isn't to make the best clock notation for all purposes (including scrambling at home, qq); it's to have the most useful standard for running competitions.
But if it's most useful to use the old notation in *and* out of competition, that's fine, too.

qq: This thread isn't really about TNoodle, but the main point of TNoodle is not to implement a standard, but to *be* the official scrambler (see Regulation 4f, which was meant to avoid issues with organizers using "better" or"equivalent" scramblers without oversight). Unofficial use is a secondary concern.
Anyone is welcome to take the use the TNoodle source to make other useful things for cubers. Jeremy has actually gotten things to work in Javascript, for one. 4x4x4 is still slow in JS, though (which was my main motivation for abandoning Mark 2 and switching to TNoodle-only in the first place).


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## Ranzha (Aug 4, 2013)

Here's kinda how it went at Berkeley yesterday:

When the clock round started, I saw the new notation for the first time. I tried reading the scramble intuitively on the first clock, checked the clock image on the pdf, then immediately checked the regs, saw that my intuition was correct, and put the clock in the cube cover. Soon after, Jeremy went to scramble with me, didn't know the new notation either, and so I briefed him. Later in the round, we asked if Ryan Jew or James Molloy could scramble clock, and both were happy to scramble until they saw the new notation. They quickly opted out, and I was left by the end of the round as the only clock scrambler, frantically scrambling the remaining clocks. Luckily, the other scrambler at the time (Ryan Lim?) was handling the much easier 2x2 scrambling.

What this says to me:
- *The new notation hasn't reached enough people.* This seems to be the biggest problem. To have scramblers be people unfamiliar with the new clock notation, even those fast at clock, hurts the efficiency of the competition. The issue of the notation being generally unknown can probably be fixed with widespread announcements that a new clock notation has been implemented, followed by better known at-home scrambling programs including the new notation.
- *The new notation is questionably intuitive.* The notation threw me a curveball. But after looking at it for a bit, I figured hey, might as well go for it and check afterwards. This is the only time where a notation has left me properly confused, but it wasn't difficult to figure out at all, but it could've gone wrong in many different places (whether notated pins go up/down, which gears to turn, pin placement at the end).

Another thing that happened a fair number of times yesterday was that judges were unclear as to the placement of the clock on the surface. This resulted in pins being misplaced, and so judges had to bring the clocks back to the scrambling table for pin readjustment. Luckily the competitors didn't see the scramble so that pins were the only readjustment =P

At the regulations meeting, I believe one issue raised was the ending pin state. While it is true that pins are essential to clock as a puzzle, clocks are *notorious* for causing problems between the scrambling table and the timer starting. Not to mention the ridiculous penalties for something like balance. It's not the competitor's fault for using puzzles which makes regulation less than ideal when it's the only kind of hardware for the puzzle that exists.


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## AvGalen (Aug 5, 2013)

[thread hijack]Just remove clock. The only reason we are doing it is because it is an official Rubik's puzzle and that shouldn't be enough reason[/thread hijack]
[back ontopic]I always scramble clock at competitions and I hate the rotation in the scramble. It is needless and slows things down. Since clockscrambling has been changed it is more difficult, slower and has caused delays at competitions. Stop making changes to the regulations that don't improve things[/back ontopic]


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## kinch2002 (Aug 5, 2013)

Please just use concise notation with an explanation at the top/bottom for people who don't understand it. Soon enough, all scramblers will understand concise notation and it will all be fast. My scramble times with concise notation are half that of the the current official scrambler, and I'm not exaggerating. I have also never found any non-clock people who can work out how to scramble with the new notation, so it's not serving it's purpose at all. I would be happy to try and provide the explanation required if we want to go down this route.


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## DrKorbin (Aug 5, 2013)

Ranzha V. Emodrach said:


> When the clock round started, I saw the new notation for the first time.
> ...
> The new notation hasn't reached enough people.



Sorry - this is your problem. Each competitor must be familiar with and understand the WCA Regulations before the competition. And regs contain scramble notation for clock.


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## ryanj92 (Aug 5, 2013)

Having used the new notation twice now, I don't prefer it - infact, I'd argue that the old scramblers were easier to understand, as I think having U's and d's in a square is as about as intuitive as it gets! 
The new scrambler never clarifies whether the written pins are to be pushed up or down, or the state of the pins that are not mentioned by each move (I remember a couple of people asking me if the second pin position just followed on the first). I feel the previous scrambles were more comprehensive, and simpler to explain - all you really have to do is explain what U and d mean, and what U=x and d=y mean. Everything follows on from that - all the moves are pretty much identical in nature.


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## Dene (Aug 5, 2013)

DrKorbin said:


> Sorry - this is your problem. Each competitor must be familiar with and understand the WCA Regulations before the competition. And regs contain scramble notation for clock.



Ok cool now come back to the real world plz.


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## Ranzha (Aug 5, 2013)

DrKorbin said:


> Sorry - this is your problem. Each competitor must be familiar with and understand the WCA Regulations before the competition. And regs contain scramble notation for clock.



I'm familiar with and understand the regs, just apparently not the most recent revision.

The problem is that I don't remember a change in clock notation being announced. I may have just missed it, I dunno, but if word of a new notation didn't reach multiple seasoned competitors, then something needs to be done about announcing revisions to the regs.


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## DrKorbin (Aug 5, 2013)

Ranzha V. Emodrach said:


> I'm familiar with and understand the regs, just apparently not the most recent revision.
> 
> The problem is that I don't remember a change in clock notation being announced. I may have just missed it, I dunno, but if word of a new notation didn't reach multiple seasoned competitors, then something needs to be done about announcing revisions to the regs.



There was a change in regs, including clock notation.


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## qqwref (Aug 5, 2013)

Lucas Garron said:


> Our goal isn't to make the best clock notation for all purposes (including scrambling at home, qq); it's to have the most useful standard for running competitions.


You don't have to call me out on this as if I'm the only one who uses computer scrambles at home. The vast majority of the solves done are at home, and there has been a long history of people using official scramblers at home - even if sometimes it was only to get used to doing them in case they want to be a scrambler. And I don't think there's much difference between what makes a good WCA scrambler and what makes a good home scrambler. They both need to be easy to understand/explain, unambiguous, and random.



Lucas Garron said:


> qq: This thread isn't really about TNoodle, but the main point of TNoodle is not to implement a standard, but to *be* the official scrambler (see Regulation 4f, which was meant to avoid issues with organizers using "better" or"equivalent" scramblers without oversight). Unofficial use is a secondary concern.
> Anyone is welcome to take the use the TNoodle source to make other useful things for cubers. Jeremy has actually gotten things to work in Javascript, for one. 4x4x4 is still slow in JS, though (which was my main motivation for abandoning Mark 2 and switching to TNoodle-only in the first place).


Read what I said - I know that's your decision, and I'm arguing that it's a bad one. You can easily add a regulation such as 4f to make organizers use the same scrambler, without running into the problems I mentioned. Specifically, making TNoodle the official scrambler doesn't mean we can't provide official documentation about what an official scramble *is*. 



DrKorbin said:


> Sorry - this is your problem. Each competitor must be familiar with and understand the WCA Regulations before the competition. And regs contain scramble notation for clock.


They also contain no easy-to-access scrambler, as I pointed out. So the regulations describe an abstract notation that you do not see in use. It's like asking people to learn LEGO instructions without getting to actually construct the building or even see the pieces.


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## Mollerz (Aug 5, 2013)

So at UK competitions, Daniel Sheppard, Ryan Jones and I usually end up scrambling most rounds because people who don't solve clock just can't scramble it at all, the new notation really doesn't help. The only thing it's done so far is hinder the faster scramblers even further. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case for pretty much all competitions.

I am going to say this, I would put a lot of money on pretty much ALL fast clock solvers practicing using concise notation. It really isn't that hard to use and it at least halves the time it takes experienced clock solvers to scramble. If concise was used I think it would help a lot since regardless of the type of shown, inexperienced clock scramblers are going to scramble slowly and probably incorrectly anyway.


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## Michael Womack (Aug 5, 2013)

For along time I have been scrambling the 3x3 with a generated scramble its good for me. When I was first doing generated scrambles for 3x3 I was slow and accurate. But now I can scramble a 3x3 in 10 sec very accurately. But for Clock I like the older scrambles that are like this UU u5 and most of the timers still use this. I just learned that scramble not to long ago still not that fast at scrambling. 
DD d-3

But if we sum up the scramble notion like this: U/D=pin position and the u/d= the corner clocks that needed to be turned. The u clocks are the ones that get turned and they are touching a pin that is in the U move.


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## DrKorbin (Aug 5, 2013)

qqwref said:


> They also contain no easy-to-access scrambler, as I pointed out. So the regulations describe an abstract notation that you do not see in use. It's like asking people to learn LEGO instructions without getting to actually construct the building or even see the pieces.



Well, probably we should ask some online timer's author to implement new clock scrambling notation along with the old one. Will it solve this problem?


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## AvGalen (Aug 5, 2013)

Ranzha V. Emodrach said:


> I'm familiar with and understand the regs, just apparently not the most recent revision.
> 
> The problem is that I don't remember a change in clock notation being announced. I may have just missed it, I dunno, but if word of a new notation didn't reach multiple seasoned competitors, then something needs to be done about announcing revisions to the regs.


Same here. I went to scramble clock, looked at the scrambles and thought ?????????
It took me a few minutes to understand it and then a few more tries to get it correctly every time but I honestly don't see any benefit. It is slower to scramble this way and certainly not easier.


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## qqwref (Aug 6, 2013)

DrKorbin said:


> Well, probably we should ask some online timer's author to implement new clock scrambling notation along with the old one. Will it solve this problem?


Sure, I'd like to, but there's no documentation - I can't be sure how it works, what the probabilities are, what moves are possible where, and so on. I wouldn't want to make a WCA scrambler that doesn't even work properly, after all.


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## DrKorbin (Aug 6, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Sure, I'd like to, but there's no documentation - I can't be sure how it works, what the probabilities are, what moves are possible where, and so on. I wouldn't want to make a WCA scrambler that doesn't even work properly, after all.



You are free to dive into sources. It appears from function "PuzzleStateAndGenerator" that they just do 14 moves: UR+random number, DR+random number, etc.

But I agree it would be nice to have a description how scrambles are generated, without reading source codes.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 6, 2013)

Since clock is just a vector space mod 12, random state will always be a random number generator from -5 to 6 for each part of the scramble. That is, assuming that the moves of the scramble form a basis for the clock, but it would be silly do try to make a random state from a non-basis set of vectors.

More on topic: it seems to me that the general consensus is that the new notation is more of a hindrance to those who know the Jaap pin order; and even if new WCA notation were used in timers, it wouldn't be widely used when practicing clock anyway. I'm actually kind of surprised there aren't really any people that are strongly in favor of the notation.


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## TMOY (Aug 6, 2013)

kippy33 said:


> Since clock is just a *free module over the ring Z/12Z*, random state will always be a random number generator from -5 to 6 for each part of the scramble. That is, assuming that the moves of the scramble form a basis for the clock, but it would be silly do try to make a random state from a non-basis set of vectors.



Just fixing your statement. A "vector space mod 12" makes no sense mathematically, but otherwise you're right.



> More on topic: it seems to me that the general consensus is that the new notation is more of a hindrance to those who know the Jaap pin order; and even if new WCA notation were used in timers, it wouldn't be widely used when practicing clock anyway. I'm actually kind of surprised there aren't really any people that are strongly in favor of the notation.



FWIW, now that I'm used to it I prefer the new notation over the old one. And about compact notation, it may be fine for people who do 500 solves a day but it just confuses the average scrambler who doesn't necessarily know the pin order by heart.


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## Laura O (Aug 6, 2013)

First of all: from my personal point of view I don't like the new notation either. I am used to the Jaap pin order for a long time and use them to practice at home, so scrambling a clock with the old notation is about 3 times faster than with the new one.

Nevertheless the new notation is far easier to teach, even to people who are not into clock solving by any means. I have done this in several competitions in the past months and I guess it took me 1 or 2 minutes each time to explain the symbols and graphics. Of course those people are not able to scamble as fast as someone who is used to it, but at least they can.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 6, 2013)

TMOY said:


> Just fixing your statement. A "vector space mod 12" makes no sense mathematically, but otherwise you're right.



Derp, yeah, it's been a while since my last algebra class.

Would it be possible though to display both scrambles? With clock it wouldn't be terribly difficult to come up with a transformation between the two types ofscrambles with matrix algebra.


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## TMOY (Aug 6, 2013)

It's even a trivial problem since both notations use the same basis, only in a different order.


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## ryanj92 (Aug 6, 2013)

I think the previous notation would be more useful than concise notation because someone who doesn't know the pin order would likely be flicking back and forth between two different parts of a page/two different sheets of paper, which probably wouldn't help scrambling accuracy... I can personally read a standard scramble like PPT's or qq Jaap order as fast as a concise scramble


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## Stefan (Aug 29, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> Would it be possible though to display both scrambles?



Damn, you thought about it before. Anyway... here's a mockup picture.


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## antoineccantin (Aug 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Damn, you thought about it before. Anyway... here's a mockup picture.



Why +x and -y instead of x and y'?


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## Sa967St (Aug 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Spoiler: image


Oh cool! Is it complicated to generate the same scramble using the two notations? Displaying both would be very useful, or maybe having separate documents for each notation. 

I am a bit worried that it would cause some confusion, though. Do you think it would help if it was indicated at the top that you only perform one of the two scrambles?


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## Yuxuibbs (Aug 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Damn, you thought about it before. Anyway... here's a mockup picture.



If this gets implemented, clock will go much smoother since people can just choose which notation they want to read. 
I think the bottom notation is fine. Might look better to just remove the +'s and only use - and have the + be implied but it doesn't really matter.


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## Stefan (Aug 29, 2013)

antoineccantin said:


> Why +x and -y instead of x and y'?



I don't know. Actually it was =x and =-y on the wiki (and then I just slightly changed that because the '-' wasn't very noticeable and to save space).



Sa967St said:


> Is it complicated to generate the same scramble using the two notations?



Not at all. And as TMOY said above: "It's even a trivial problem since both notations use the same basis, only in a different order." (I haven't checked it, but I trust him )



Sa967St said:


> maybe having separate documents for each notation.



I think together is sufficient and more economic/consistent/convenient (the latter two mostly for the organizer, I mean). Then again... whatever.



Sa967St said:


> Do you think it would help if it was indicated at the top that you only perform one of the two scrambles?



Not at the top, I think. Who looks there?

It's two very different notations, I'd say it's hard to accidentally do both. Which could also only be done by people who know both notations, and those should also be smart enough not to do it. Also, the "final pin positions" provide a nice stop. But yeah, maybe a dotted line between the notations would help it further. And I did use different fonts already, though mostly because I needed to find some that made the text fit nicely.


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## Sa967St (Aug 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Sa967St said:
> 
> 
> > Do you think it would help if it was indicated at the top that you only perform one of the two scrambles?
> ...


A dotted line would be very nice (I should have thought of that, lol).

I hope this gets implemented for 2014.


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## Mike Hughey (Aug 29, 2013)

Sa967St said:


> A dotted line would be very nice (I should have thought of that, lol).
> 
> I hope this gets implemented for 2014.



We've had updates in the scrambler in the middle of the year before; no reason why we couldn't do this before 2014.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 29, 2013)

Do you think it would be cleaner to use the short form for scrambling? I.e., (3, 4) / (-3, 2) / (1, 6) / (-3, -5) // (6) / (0) / (-1) / (2) // (-2) / (0)

I think it would make the page look far less cluttered, and most who would opt for this notation know the pin pattern by heart. It is possible that people would be less accurate because the pins aren't there, but I know that when I scramble using this notation, I'm not even looking at the pins.


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## Sa967St (Aug 29, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> Do you think it would be cleaner to use the short form for scrambling? I.e., (3, 4) / (-3, 2) / (1, 6) / (-3, -5) // (6) / (0) / (-1) / (2) // (-2) / (0)
> 
> I think it would make the page look far less cluttered, and most who would opt for this notation know the pin pattern by heart. It is possible that people would be less accurate because the pins aren't there, but I know that when I scramble using this notation, I'm not even looking at the pins.



I don't think there's a need for it to be cleaner. Besides, it's not beginner-friendly.


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## TheNextFeliks (Aug 29, 2013)

We need something barely cubers (noobs) can understand. So at comps they can scramble. It would have to be simple to learn.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 29, 2013)

Sa967St said:


> I don't think there's a need for it to be cleaner. Besides, it's not beginner-friendly.



But if we display two different notations, do we need both to be beginner friendly? Keep the current notation, and add the old notation in the short form for those who know the Jaap pin order. Maybe it won't be necessary if we believe the scrambles won't look too confusing cluttered, but I think it could lead to faster parsing for those who would use it (and most who would opt for it don't need the pins), and the current notation is there for ease of reading. 
Either way though, showing both notations is a significant improvement.


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## Sa967St (Aug 29, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> But if we display two different notations, do we need both to be beginner friendly? Keep the current notation, and add the old notation in the short form for those who know the Jaap pin order. Maybe it won't be necessary if we believe the scrambles won't look too confusing cluttered, but I think it could lead to faster parsing for those who would use it (and most who would opt for it don't need the pins), and the current notation is there for ease of reading.
> Either way though, showing both notations is a significant improvement.


I don't see the need to add the simplified Jaap notation if there's not much of a difference in how fast people parse it. It's more convenient for more people to use the full notation.


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## Dene (Aug 29, 2013)

Heh so I just decided to look at the new notation for the first time, and now I realise how easy it is. I much prefer it to the old notation (although I'd still be super slow scrambling either way).

I can't see both scrambles being used by the WCA... it's redundant, and goes against what the WRC seem to be trying to achieve.


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## TMOY (Aug 29, 2013)

Stefan said:


> Not at all. And as TMOY said above: "It's even a trivial problem since both notations use the same basis, only in a different order." (I haven't checked it, but I trust him )


Well, you shouldn't, because when comparing the different notations in your picture I just realised that I was wrong . Look at the four "1 pin different from the other 3" generators: with the old notation, you have to turn one of the three wheels corresponding to the three pins in the same state; in the new one, you have to turn the fourth one.

But the problem is still not very difficult, you only have to apply the appropriate transformation matrix to translate a given scramble from one notation to another.


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## kinch2002 (Aug 29, 2013)

I definitely like the idea of 2 notations. One for noobs, one for people who have actually scrambled clocks before.

For the latter, we don't need the UUdd stuff. Just concise notation (i.e. (-2,3) (0,4) etc) would be appropriate because if you've scrambled 100 clocks, you now know what the pin order is and it's pointless to write it down.

This will never result in both scrambles being applied because anyone who doesn't understand what's going on won't be able to read the concise notation anyway and will have to ask what it's there for, and then be told that they can ignore it.


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## Mollerz (Aug 29, 2013)

With the old notation, new clock solvers and inexperienced scramblers scrambled slowly, and fast clock solvers scrambled fast. With the new notation, new clock solvers and inexperienced scramblers scramble slowly, and fast clock solvers still scramble slowly.

If concise notation is implemented (Alongside the current notation, or even on its own), then it'll increase scrambling accuracy and also double the speed at which fast solvers scramble. I've done an Ao12 for scrambling each type of notation, for concise I get on average around 9-10, for WCA I get anywhere from 18-22.


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## AvGalen (Aug 29, 2013)

Poll?
1) Just get rid of Clock
2) Only use New
3) Only use Old
4) 2 scrambles: New and Old
5) 2 scrambles: New and Old-Short-Form
6) 2 scrambles: Old and Old-Short-Form
7) 3 scrambles: New, Old and Old-Short-Form

I would vote for 5: "2 scrambles: Beginner=New, Expert is Old-Short-Form

New pin-notation confuses me
Old pin-position slows me down
I would prefer old-short-form only for me personally, but I understand beginners might prefer New


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## Dene (Aug 29, 2013)

If we're voting, I pick 1


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## qqwref (Aug 29, 2013)

Sadly I can't read the new short-form notation and I hate the new notation :|

Honestly, I think we ought to just get rid of the new notation altogether. It's unnatural, uses capital letters for things that aren't even turns, and uses very similar "moves" to mean very different things. It wouldn't be very hard to think of a notation that is better but still different from the old notation. The old notation was fine (that is, I prefer AvG's option 3). If we really need to have two notations, we can use AvG's option 6.


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## Stefan (Aug 29, 2013)

I've done maybe 20-30 scrambles using the "UUdd..." notation at worlds, I've already forgotten the order (so concise wouldn't work for me), and now that I tried the new notation, I instantly like the new notation ("UR1+...") much better.


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## Pedro (Aug 29, 2013)

I don't understand how people don't understand (bleh) the new notation.

The old one used capital and non-capital letters for things that aren't turns, so that doesn't seem to be the problem.

I had no problem adapting to the new notation, but if people prefer to have both, that's fine for me.


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## Yuxuibbs (Aug 29, 2013)

AvGalen said:


> Poll?



If we're voting, I'm fine with any type of Jaap notation. I don't really care for the new notation so I would vote for all of 3-7. If we can only choose 1 option, I would vote for 4.
For weekly comps and stuff, it's fairly easy for me to just ignore the letters and only look at the numbers when I scramble with something that isn't concise notation. When I'm just practicing, I use concise notation.


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## Michael Womack (Aug 29, 2013)

This thread and issue would have never happened if we had stuck with the older Jaap scrambles.


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## AvGalen (Aug 29, 2013)

Michael Womack said:


> This thread and issue would have never happened if we had stuck with the older Jaap scrambles.


or would have gotten rid of Clock
or if speedsolving would be down more often.

2 out of 3 seem like a good idea


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## yockee (Aug 29, 2013)

Not that I ever get to go to competitions, since they never have them in Manchester, but I say remove clock and add Square 2.


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## Kit Clement (Aug 30, 2013)

I haven't spent the time to build the change of basis matrix yet, but I did create two matrices representing the 14 basis vectors corresponding to each scramble. I have to run, but if someone else would like to input this into some program (mathematica, matlab), and do the necessary row reductions, feel free. If not, I'll do it sometime soon. I also figured it would be worth it to post this now in case anyone detected an error that I did not catch.

The matrices: http://i.imgur.com/uFNwu0s.jpg

The key is hard to decipher, so here's what I used:

Corners (corresponding to front center): UL = 1, UR = 2, DL = 3, DR = 4
Front: U = 5, L = 6, C = 7, R = 8, D = 9
Back: U = 10, L = 11, C = 12, R = 13, D = 14

All numbers are indicating the direction they would go as if you faced that side (except for corners on the back, as they had to be oriented to one side). Also, the large 0s are block matrices of all 0s of the appropriate size.

EDIT: already noticed an error, the UUUU column should be all 1s, no -1s


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## Michael Womack (Aug 30, 2013)

Why would w Remove the Clock event?


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## Kit Clement (Aug 30, 2013)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c9vhwyv4qnst9fq/2Ki5IUiPVO

Here's my progress so far on the Clock Transformation matrix - I've used Maple 16 to do the calculations on this matrix. I don't have a clock on me currently, so I cannot check it, however, I will update these documents with a scramble of my own and the output scramble to test it. For those that want to try it out, take the numbers in a current-type scramble in the order they read, place them in a vector in that order, and then perform matrix multiplication. The resulting numbers should be the scramble numbers in order for the old-type notation. It's in mod 12 form right now, so for all numbers >= 7, subtract 12 to get the typical clock scrambling number.

EDIT: New proposition that Sarah and I have discussed: what if we could just build a separate tool that would take TNoodle output and transform it into the Jaap scrambling notation? That way we don't have to change anything regulations-wise. If possible, could we have a data dump of all the numbers used in scrambling at the bottom of the TNoodle output?

EDIT 2: The matrix was done for the inverse transformation, this is fixed. Those who have maple can try editing the scramble1 variable to match any scramble of your choice, it will output the same scramble with numbers for Jaap. One example is done already in the pdf in dropbox, which you can see for yourself is the same scramble.


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## TMOY (Aug 30, 2013)

I haven't checked your computations in detail, but a 14'x28 matrix, wtf ? Why isn't it just 14x14 ?


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## Kit Clement (Aug 30, 2013)

TMOY said:


> I haven't checked your computations in detail, but a 14'x28 matrix, wtf ? Why isn't it just 14x14 ?



Setting up for row reduction to create the 14x14 matrix. To find such a transformation matrix, you can take the two bases and put them into one matrix, where the first 14 columns are the basis of the range, and the second 14 columns are the basis of the domain. After row reduction, you'll have a matrix containing two block matrices, one being the identity and the other being the transformation matrix. I've probably updated my PDF since you looked - it will extract this 14x14 block in the line where T is declared.


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## AvGalen (Aug 30, 2013)

Michael Womack said:


> Why would w Remove the Clock event?


Because having Clock but not other events is pretty random. Clock is not a very interesting puzzle and the only reason we are doing it is because we have been doing it. The only reason we have been doing it is because it is an official Rubik's puzzle.


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## Kit Clement (Dec 12, 2013)

qqwref said:


> Sure, I'd like to, but there's no documentation - I can't be sure how it works, what the probabilities are, what moves are possible where, and so on. I wouldn't want to make a WCA scrambler that doesn't even work properly, after all.



Bumping this as Sebastien brought up this post in a regulations discussion here: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/60

Since the current notation acts as a "basis" for the "vector space" (technically free module over integers mod 12 as TMOY pointed out to me), each scramble (or element of the free module) has a 1:1 relationship with a vector that encodes the scramble information. Because of this, creating a random state generator for clock is as simple as generating random integers in [-5, 6] for each pin position. Each pin has probability 1/2 of being up.


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## DrKorbin (Dec 12, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> What I'm not sure of is how the pin position is generated: if each pin has probability 1/2 of being up, or if all possible pin states have equal probability.



That's the same thing.


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## Kit Clement (Dec 12, 2013)

DrKorbin said:


> That's the same thing.



*facepalm*

Well, that was stupid. Editing the post above now.


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## Sebastien (Dec 12, 2013)

Kit Clement said:


> Bumping this as Sebastian brought up this post in a regulations discussion here: https://github.com/cubing/wca-documents/issues/60



Yes Cid, that's what I did.

I think that this poll's surway needs to be resetted if it is supposed to be used to measure the community's feeling about this topic.


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## ryanj92 (Dec 13, 2013)

Sebastien said:


> I think that this poll's surway needs to be resetted if it is supposed to be used to measure the community's feeling about this topic.



Agreed. Also, the token 'just get rid of clock' option needs to be either removed or not considered, given that it diverges from the topic of the thread...


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## irontwig (Dec 13, 2013)

I would say that one third voting to remove clock is quite indicative of the community's feeling.


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## Michael Womack (Dec 13, 2013)

ryanj92 said:


> Agreed. Also, the token 'just get rid of clock' option needs to be either removed or not considered, given that it diverges from the topic of the thread...



Agree with that cause it's still a very popular event. Also I don't see any reason why it would be removed like how Magic got removed.


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## ryanj92 (Dec 13, 2013)

irontwig said:


> I would say that one third voting to remove clock is quite indicative of the community's feeling.



If by that you mean that two-thirds of the community are voting to not remove clock (or at least are more dignified than hijacking another thread to express that opinion), so the event has pretty good standing.


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## Tim Major (Dec 14, 2013)

irontwig said:


> I would say that one third voting to remove clock is quite indicative of the community's feeling.



Make a poll of remove feet vs clock and all of a sudden clock would seem very popular to keep 

Sorry to derail a thread completely unrelated to clock removal.


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