Absolute Beginner's guide to solving a cube!

Here is are the orientations of the cubes in the images that you will be seeing throughout my tutorials. Where the front face is the face that you are facing.

Before I start teaching how to perform algorithms, the first thing I'd like to teach you is the different parts of a Rubik's Cube and also the Notations used in algorithms so that you could actually understand them. This will help you understand more easily what I will be teaching you.

There are three main parts of A Rubik's Cube, They are called 'cubies'. The names that I you will read corresponds to the coloured cubies in the photos.

Centre Pieces. There are 6 of these in a single cube. These part can never move and always stays constant relative to each other, no matter how you twist the cube. Unless of course  if you dismantle or break it.

Corner Pieces.  There are 8 of these in a single cube.

Edges. There are 12 of these in a single cube.

Now I will be Explaining to you the Standard Notations used in algorithms to solve the Rubik's cube.

The typical and basic letters you will see in algorithms are:-

U, L, R, B, D & F

Now all of these notations, corresponds corresponds to the directions of the faces of the cube.

U-Up/Top

D-Down/Bottom

L-Left

R-Right

F-Front

B-Back

(Cube A)

Now what do you want to do when you see these notations in algorithms? Well that would depend.

There are also other things that you need to see in these algorithms, some has the apostrophe, or prime ' in after the letter and others have the number '2'. 

A typical letter 'U' with nothing else after it, is  turning/twisting, the Top/Up face clockwise 90˚. From the original photo right above here(Let us call this cube, Cube A from now on to make life simpler),making a U step will make the cube look like this.

" U' " on the other hand is turning the Top/Up face 90˚ counter-clockwise. From Cube A, Making a U' step would become this.

'U2' is turning the Top/Up face 180˚ counter-clockwise/clockwise. It does not matter wish direction you turn it as it will end up being the same after 180˚. Cube A will the look like this.

The same would go for any other faces with regards to prime or '2'.

L is Left face 90˚ clockwise

L' is Left face 90˚ counter-clockwise

L2 is Left face 180˚ counter-clockwise/clockwise

R is Right Face 90˚ clockwise

R' is Right face 90˚ counter-clockwise

R2 is Right face 180˚

and the same goes for all the other faces.

F

F'

F2

Now that you understand the different I cold then teach you the algorithms needed to solve the rubik's cube!

The first thing u need to do, is choose  a colour that you will consistently use as the bottom, this is important as constantly changing colour will make you confused and make even harder to solve! Even more so for the absolute beginner!

I suggest choosing yellow as the bottom colour, as all my photos from here on have the yellow as the bottom colour, and thus makes it easier for you to learn! Another point to note is that all the gray coloured cubies are those that you should not bother and ignore at a certain step, so take no heed of it!

 The 1st step you want to do is, turn the cube upside down, and put the bottom colour on top. In this step, what you want to achieve is the yellow cross.

These are two views of the cross, on above these words are a view from the front right of the cube, and below front left.

To achieve this, we need to find the four edges around the cube the cube, there are 3 possible places for it to be. The first case is if it were already on that same particular bottom face.(Which is on top at the moment as we've turned the whole cube around). Shaded in purple here.

What you want to do is look for them, check the other colour on that particular edge (not yellow). And then twist the Top/Up face until it is aligned with its centrepiece. 

It does not matter at this point that the edge is not aligned properly, I shall explain further on that later on.

The next case is if it were to be on the Top/Up face(It is at the bottom at the moment as we have flipped the cube upside down.)

Here is a view of this case from the front bottom view. 

 What you want to do is to find the edge, with yellow and check the other colour. In this case it is red.
You want to allign it so that it is in between the white centre piece and the red centre piece.(If the edge is blue and yellow, you want it to be in between the blue and white centre piece). Once you have done that, You want to twist the face with the none yellow colour, in this case red

So that It will again become like this.

The third possible position for the edge to be is in between the centre pieces on the, back, front left or right, 

What you want to do if this is the case, is ensure that, that particular edge, is on in between your front and right centre piece. You could turn the whole cube around, but must always make sure that yellow stays on top.

Once it is in between the front and right face, You do this algorithm.

R' D' R

It should then become this, which if you notice, is exactly the same case as before.

Once you have placed all the yellow edges in between its respective centrepieces and the yellow centrepiece. You'd be left with the once that are not orientated in the right direction. To reorientate this, you need this algorithm

F U' R U

It should then become like this.  These steps should easily help you make the bottom cross.

 Next would be to solve the corner pieces of the bottom layer. As the the cube is still upside down you'd want to solve this

Into this.

Now, there are generally 2 places of where corner pieces would be. either in corners of the layer with the solved crossed,

or the top layer, which with be the bottom at this point of time.

Let us first try and put them at the right positions if they were to be at the top layer(bottom at the moment)