Yes, by looking up how to do it and then practicing until I could actually implement the instructions.

That Rubik himself figured it out with no guide is impressive as hell.

I read this book, published in 1981.

tl;dr - kid on skiing holiday, broke his hand, spent two weeks figuring out the cube, wrote book.

Jperm has great beginner method videos on YouTube. Learned how to solve the 3x3 last year practicing side by side with that video for an hour or so for approx 3 days.

I just solved the 12 sided megaminx a few days ago for the first time. It’s addicting lol

Back in the 80s, before they even had books with the solution (the Internet? What’s that?), my Dad quit smoking using a Rubik’s Cube.

Getting rid of the nicotine habit takes about 3 weeks to flush it from your system, but smokers are still left with lots of hand-mouth habits that all quitters will tell you is the most difficult thing to overcome. My Dad was a pipe smoker (that was a thing back then), which required a lot of ritualistic behavior, opening the tobacco bag, stuffing the pipe, relighting it with every puff, etc. Lots more than just just pulling out a coffin nail and lighting it.

So to fight the physical habits, he would just pick up his Rubik’s Cube, and try to solve it. He didn’t just play with it, though, he got analytical about it, writing down moves and steps, and eventually putting together his own cheat guide, before anyone had published one. We didn’t think of it at the time, but he could have tightened it up, and probably sold it to a publisher.

I’m any case, it worked. By the time he had solved the Cube, he no longer had the urge to smoke.

I watched one of my brothers once just start removing the stickers. That’s pretty much how that went.

I learned on the internet 15-20 years ago or so. I’ve also done 5x5 and 4x4 they aren’t really much harder, I didn’t need additional info, but when I hit the parity problem on the 4x4 I just scrambled and tried again. I mean they are harder, but not astronomically harder.

My almost 8 year old is obsessed. I went through how to do a 3x3, and wrote out the steps and he has copied my instructions into a notebook. He can do it in 3 and a half minutes with his notes. He hasn’t managed without his notes yet but he has only been learning since Valentine’s day. He just woke me up looking for his notebook.

Earlier this week I met somebody that did a Rubik’s cube independently in the 80s. (My son’s classmates grampa).

I had one as a kid, and it came with a little booklet that showed the series of moves to move pieces around. This definitely wasn’t the fastest way to solve, but it worked.

I remember it said to solve the top layer first, then align that with the correct “center” cubes on the second/middle layer. Then you’d get the “edges” of the second/middle layer in place using the series of moves. For the bottom, there was another couple sets of moves.

I was super into them as a teenager, learned to solve the usual 3x3 and even bigger the usual way, i.e. mostly by memorising a bunch of algorithms (tonnes of “beginner” tutorials out there). After not touching them for over a decade I was disappointed that I had forgotten most of how to do it! Now I’ve re-learned and finding a way that relies on understanding or intuition so that I don’t have to worry about algorithms or memorisation, I feel like this is a much nicer way to learn to do it!

No, I cheated. I figured out that it needs to be solved in layers, and figured out how to solve the first two layers,but could never figure out how to solve the top one. Eventually I looked up how to solve it and reproduced the movements. I can put it in order now, but I wouldn’t say I solved it since I’m doing movements someone taught me not that I figured myself out.

Yes, I got to it during COVID times and went from 1:30 (hour) to 30 sec in a few weeks. I learned by following this excellent tutorial from Wired : a great communicator explains the little he knows. That’s far more effective than the usual expert cube-head (I’ve become one of them) trying to convey anything. Wired video

Yes. With my hands, Bert. I solved it with my hands.

Yes. I got two for my oldest children as Easter gifts. They scrambled them and after a few minutes of frustration, left them lying on the floor.

I encourage them to keep trying to solve them but they told me " what chance do I have if you can’t even do it?" I thought about it and realized that they were right.

I downloaded a PDF of a Rubik’s beginner guide I found online and solved it in about an hour. I felt like I had conquered the world!

While bragging to my wife I saw my youngest scrambling it again and my heart sank. My wife saw my reaction and said “what’s the big deal? Don’t you know how to do it now?”

I explained that I had essentially cheated, but had to admit that the steps weren’t as hard as I had imagined. I decided then and there that I was going to learn and eventually memorized the beginner method!

After getting a speed cube and lots of practice, I started averaging about 2 mins. After watching some videos online I decided to give the CFOP method a try. It felt like starting over but I was patient and now I can do it in close to 30sec.

Easily thousands of times. I learned back in high school, on a forum that went on to be a very fondly remembered element of my teenage years.

It’s really not that hard if you can memorize a few algorithms. I learned a very basic set of general algorithms, like half a dozen. Not very efficient, but easy to learn and I can still solve one in about a minute.

If you want to get into proper speed cubing you can learn dozens, or even hundreds, of increasingly specific algorithms. This, combined with a high quality cube and finger tricks, can get you closer to 10 seconds.

But if you just want to be able to solve one, you can learn in an afternoon.

looked up the algorithm

Yes. I looked up algorithms for the last layer. After a few solves it stuck in muscle memory.

The first solves took a good while, but I was getting consistently under a minute after a week.

I haven’t speedcubed in quite a few years, but I spin the 4x4x4 a few times a week to keep those parity problems in muscle memory.