# Square-1 Beginner Tutorial



## blade740 (Aug 15, 2010)

I've been working on a square-1 tutorial lately. There are 6 stages, the first of which is an absolute beginner's guide. The stages will progress in difficulty and logical order: each one building on all the previous, until by the end of the 6th stage, I will have explained my entire method (for now ;D )

It's not done yet, all I have is the introduction and the first stage: beginner's solution. 

Thanks for this guide include, but are not limited to:
First and foremost, Lars Vandenbergh. Lars' guide (http://www.cubezone.be) was my number one source of knowledge, and this method is largely built off of his.
The square-1 solvers of #. Namely, Dan, Tomas, David, and Dene. 
Team # in general
Takao for always beating me and pushing me to get better
Jaap Scherphuis, for his brilliant sq1optim program.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you:

http://andrewknelson.com/square-1-tutorial/


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## Dene (Aug 15, 2010)

Woo! Special mention


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## Escher (Aug 15, 2010)

Andrew <3
Ima get sub 20


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## Weston (Aug 15, 2010)

> Parity – The parity of the puzzle is the odd/even overall permutation of the pieces. For the purpose of this tutorial, *tutorial* only exists within the puzzle in cube shape.


Typo?

Looks great though! I need to start practicing square-1 a lot more. I'm sure this will help me get faster.


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## DavidWoner (Aug 15, 2010)

You have mushroom-mushroom (I thought we changed it to muffin?) images in the place of shield shield.

And I think the cubeshape images would be easier to see if the edges were a different color than the corners, the all-gray kind of blends.


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## blade740 (Aug 15, 2010)

Oops. I'll change the image and the name. I already fixed the brainfart Weston mentioned.

I've written most of stage two, I'm just trying to find where I left the notebook that I wrote one step in like a year ago. The goal is to have the entire page up within the next week or so.


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## MTGjumper (Aug 15, 2010)

Escher said:


> Andrew <3
> Ima get sub 20



Ima get sub 13, k?


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## Daniel Wu (Aug 15, 2010)

Very, very helpful with the cubeshape section. 

and


> To solve it, just hold it like it is now, one horizontal, one vertical, and twist. If you did it right you should end up with kite/kite. If you can’t solve that I’ve failed you.


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## PeterV (Sep 5, 2010)

Thanks for the great tutorial. It's been a great help.

One thing I caught as I worked through the tutorial: I noticed that in the EP section, the adjacent/adjacent image shows the bottom layer wrong. It shows UF-UL & DF-*DR* being swapped instead of UF-UL & DF-*DL*.


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## blade740 (Sep 5, 2010)

PeterV said:


> Thanks for the great tutorial. It's been a great help.
> 
> One thing I caught as I worked through the tutorial: I noticed that in the EP section, the adjacent/adjacent image shows the bottom layer wrong. It shows UF-UL & DF-*DR* being swapped instead of UF-UL & DF-*DL*.



Thank you. The mistake was because I actually solve it like that, but it's much easier to learn as a beginner the way I gave.

I've gotten really lazy, but I'll finish stage 2 tomorrow. I don't think I'll find my missing notebook, so I'll have to rewrite that section.


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## ArcticxWolf (Sep 6, 2010)

Wow, this should be a very helpful tutorial. I'll remember to link this to any friends who want to learn ^__^


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## Rorix (Sep 6, 2010)

Maybe I missed something but I don't understand what parity is, so I'm stuck on step 4. Could someone explain this? "Parity – The parity of the puzzle is the odd/even overall permutation of the pieces."


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## blade740 (Sep 6, 2010)

Rorix said:


> Maybe I missed something but I don't understand what parity is, so I'm stuck on step 4. Could someone explain this? "Parity – The parity of the puzzle is the odd/even overall permutation of the pieces."



When the puzzle remains in cubeshape, the puzzle can only be solved with either an odd or even number of 2-piece swaps. If the number is even, the puzzle can be solved without leaving cubeshape, so there is no parity. If the number is odd, the puzzle requires you to leave cubeshape to solve it.


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## PeterV (Sep 11, 2010)

I'm a little stuck on parity as well. How do you recognize parity before doing CP? Do you only need to look at the edges or do you need to look at the corners too?


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## vcuber13 (Sep 11, 2010)

you check for the pll, but its farily advanced


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## blade740 (Sep 11, 2010)

That's one thing I sorta took for granted. I should've realized that not everyone knows PLL (or can even recognize PLL cases). This guide is written in (mostly) the same order I learned things. But before I started seriously working on square-1, I was already (relatively) proficient at 3x3. The more I think about it, the more I realize that there's no easy way to recognize parity without either solving CP first, or learning all the cases.


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## Rorix (Sep 11, 2010)

What confused me most was that recognizing the PLL was referring to 3x3 PLLs. I thought it meant a set of new square-1 PLLs.


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## blade740 (Sep 11, 2010)

Reworded a bit to make that more clear. I'm still not sure how I want to handle parity recognition yet.


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## PeterV (Sep 11, 2010)

Thanks all. Makes sense now.


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## jms_gears1 (Sep 26, 2010)

Do you perchance have a timeline that you would like to get this done by, and all the steps in between?


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## NeuwDk (Oct 24, 2010)

Not to bump this thread or anything, but I really like your site, and I'd like to know when you'll upload stage 2?
Became really interested in SQ-1 after I saw your site  Thanks


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## blade740 (Oct 27, 2010)

Your wish is my command.

http://crunchatize.me/stage-2/


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## Robert-Y (Oct 27, 2010)

Thanks Eido, really easy (and fast) algs to remember.

I'm looking forward to stage 3


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## Radu (Oct 28, 2010)

Thank you very much blade! It's really a great tutorial. I've started recently to learns sq1 too and I think it's great. Too bad it's not so popular. Now, I really think it deserves to be an official event in speedcubing.

Most time consuming part is bringing it into a cube...then, it's quite easy.

Checking the 2nd stage now.

Thanks again!


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## SaberSlash49 (Nov 3, 2010)

Seeing how I just got my new square-1 (CubeTwist, i'm hoping it'll be good after some really good tensioning and lube), I looked for a tutorial and this is amazing. 'nuff said.


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## Lid (Jun 28, 2011)

Looks like all pages except the frontpage is 404:ed


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