Date:  June 24, 2018

I have decided to do a video tutorial to teach people how to solve 4x4x4 Rubik’s Cube.  There are many ways to do it.  But I choose this because it is easiest.  I actually mix and match a few formulas together.  So that half of the time I don’t need formula, half of the time, I used simple formula.  My son Jay taught me a new formula when solving the 2nd layer, it is much faster.

Solving 4x4x4 Rubik’s Cube is easy.  Let’s scramble the 4x4x4 cube first.

A.  Solving all 6 sites of colour center square face.

You don’t need any formula to solve these steps.

Step 1.  Solve White center square face.

This is the easiest step.  No need formula.  Find the first white piece.  Find the second white piece.  Move both the white pieces together to form a line.  Then, find the third and forth white pieces.  Move them to form another line.  Move both the 2-pieces white line adjacent to each other.  And then move the 2 lines to form a white center square face.

Step 2.  Solve Yellow center square (opposite White center square) face.

After you solved the white center square face.  It is time to solve the opposite yellow center square face.  Again, find the yellow pieces and form 2-pieces line.  Find another pair.  Move one of the yellow line to the top, opposite white square face.  Move the other to any adjacent face.  align the two yellow line in two adjacent face to form a straight line.  Then, move the bottom yellow line to the top, rotate the top face so that the yellow line go to the other side, and then reverse, move the other yellow line back to fill the gap.  And you form the yellow center square face.  The key idea is, yellow face has to be opposite white face.

Step 3.  Solve Red center square face.

Next step is to solve the Red center square face.  As you can see from the video, one of the red line has already been formed.  So, I need to find the other two pieces and form a red line.  As you can see, I position one of the red piece on the left bottom of the center square.  On the adjacent face, I position the other red piece on the right bottom of that center square of that face.  Then, both red lines are adjacent each other and form a line.  Then, move the red line at the bottom up, rotate that face so that the red line go to the left side, and then, move down or rotate down the right side so that the other red line is moved down to form a red center square with the left red line.

Step 4.  Solve Blue center square (It is on Red’s LEFT when yellow square face is pointing up) face.

You have solved the white center face.  You have solved the yellow center face, which is directly opposite the white center face.  You have solve the red center face in the middle layer.  Next, with the Yellow center face facing upwards, the blue center face must be position beside the red center face, on it’s LEFT side.  LEFT of RED with YELLOW pointing upwards.

Again, you can solve it without formula here with the same technique.

Step 5.  Solve Orange center square (opposite Red center square) face.

Now, remember, opposite Red must be an Orange face.  Opposite Blue must be green face.  So, let’s proceed to solve orange center square face with the same technique.

Step 6.  The remaining Green center square face is automatically position correctly.

Once you solve 5 sides, the remaining green center square face is automatically solved.

B.  Solving all 12 Edge Pairs.

Take a look at the cube again.  You have solved all 6 sides of center face.  Check again!  Yellow is opposite White.  With yellow pointing up, blue is on the left side of red.  Red is opposite Orange and Blue is opposite Green.

Now, you can proceed to solve the edges pair.  The aim is to find the 2 colour pair and move them together to form a edge pair sitting side by side.

[Red-Blue cube]  The trick is to move the red blue cube to be opposite each other, but across each other.  If the red blue cube are on the same side but opposite each other, that is wrong.

So, you need to move the 2 red-blue cubes to be on the same face, but opposite each other and it has to be across.  When they are across and opposite each other, if one side is red facing up, the other side must be blue facing up.

Once the 2 red-blue cube are opposite and across each other, you can now rotate and move the 2 red-blue cube together to form a red-blue edge pair.

Once you move the red-blue cubes to form the red-blue edge pair, you notice that all your center square face are miss aligned.

So, now, you have to rotate the red-blue edge pair to the side, so that it can be replaced by another pair of mis-matched pair.  I called it a non-paired mix-match-colour pair.  As you can see, I rotated the red-blue edge pair to the right, and move the non-pair pair down to replace the red-blue edge, and revert all steps.  Means, you rotate left, and then you fix the center face and align all to have a coloured square face again.  This technique is repeated to solve the rest of the edges.

[Red-Green cube] So next, I found another pair to solve.  Red-green cube.  You notice that the red-green cube are aligned directly opposite each other.

So, what you do, is you do a F-R-R-R-B to move the red-green cube #2 to the other side of the red-green cube #1.  By doing so, you move the red-green cubes to be opposite each other but across each other.  With one of them red facing upward, and the other green facing upward.

Again, you need to rotate the plane to move both red-green cube to be together, rotate the face so that the red-green pair are rotated to the right, and replaced it by a non-paired pair by rotating the RIGHT face down, and then, revert all changes, moved the replaced non-paired pair back to the original position, and then, fix the center face.

[White-Blue cube] Let’s solved the white-blue edge pair.  Use the same method to solve.

[Red-Yellow cube] Let’s solved the Red-Yellow edge pair.

[Green-Yellow cube] Let’s solved the Green-Yellow edge pair.

[Blue-Yellow cube] Let’s solved the Blue-Yellow edge Pair.

[Blue-Orange cube]  In the same video, let’s solve the Blue-Orange cube too.  The key idea is to move the same cube together to form the edge pair.  And then, move the edge pair away, and then replaced by the non-paired pair.  And then revert all changes.  It does not matter where you find the non-paired pair.  You can replace it from the right, or left.  As long as after you replaced it, you remember to revert all the changes.  And fix all the center square faces.

[Solving The Last two Edge Pair] Some how, you only solved 5 edge pairs, but because of luck, it also solved another 5 edge pairs for you.  So, all together, in this video, I magically solved 10 edge pairs.  Left with 2 unsolved edge pair.

[The Green-Orange & Red-White cubes]  Let’s solve the last two pairs.  First you have to position these four cubes so that their colour are directly opposite each other.  The Green-Orange is directly each other, the Red-White cubes are directly each other.

Take note the green-orange and red-white cubes are to face you.  In a way that there are one Green-Orange cube on each side, and a red-white cube on each side facing each other directly.

Here, you will use the first formula.  Dw-R-F’-U-R’-F-Dw’

Perform the formula.  This is to solve the last two edge pairs.

C.  Solve the remaining like solving a 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube.

By now, you have solved all 6 square center face.

By now, you have solved all 12 edge pairs.

So, what you end up is a 3x3x3 cube where all the center square face is to be treated as one big cube face.  And you will use the exact same way to solve this 3x3x3 cube.  And each edge pair colour face is treated as one cube face too.

Move the white cubes to be adjacent of the yellow face.  Then, check the first layer colour is it the same colour as the second layer center face.  If not, aligned it by moving the white cube.

Once you are confirmed that the first and second layer is the same colour, rotate all white cube back to the white face.  You will see the WHITE CROSS.

And then try to solve the white face by moving all the corner white pieces to the correct position.

Solving 2nd layer

To solve the 2nd layer, the formula to use either one of the bottom formulas.  Depending on whether you want to move to right or left.

So, now, you need to examine the top yellow face.  There are 4 edges.  Each edge represent a cube with 2 colours.  Find a cube that has no yellow colour.

As in video, I found a cube that is the Blue-Red cube.  And this blue-red cube (actually 2 blue and 2 red) has no yellow, and it should go into one of the 2nd layer edges.

So, I found the blue-red cube where blue is facing upwards, and the red is facing you.  Now, rotate the cube so that the red face is aligned with the Red Center square face.

Once you do that, Red Center square face is facing you along with that red side of the Blue-red cube facing you.  You notice that the blue center square face is on your left side.  That means, you have to move the TOP face away from this blue center square face left side.   Which is moving to the RIGHT.  This is where you need this formula…

[Top to move right] . U’-L’-U-L-F’-L-F-L’

First, you move the top side (yellow face) to the right, Left face move up, reverse the previous two steps, by moving the top side back to the left, and the left face move down.  On the blue face side (left), Front side to the left, left face move down, reverse it, front side to the right, and left face move up.  Then, you see the blue-red cube now is position correctly in the left 2nd layer corner.

Next, you found the Blue-Orange cube.  Position the orange side to the same orange face.  Your blue side will be on your right.

I want the blue-orange cube to be on the right hand side 2nd layer.

So, you will need this formula (which is opposite of the first formula)

[Top to move left] . U-R-U’-R’-F-R’-F’-R

Top side move away from the blue face on your right.  Right blue face move up.  Reversely, top side move back to the right, and right blue face move down.

Then, Face move clockwise, and right blue face move down, and reversely, face move to the left anti-clockwise, and the right blue face move up.  Your blue-orange cube will be moved to the right 2nd layer.

Then, let’s do the Red-Green cube.  Where the green is facing up.  The green center face is on your right hand side.  so, you move your top face clockwise away from the green center face.  And your green face will need to come down.  Reverse it, top face anticlockwise, and your green face move up.  Front move clockwise, green face move down, reversely, front face move anti-clockwise and green face move up.

Lastly, let’s do the final 2nd layer.  Which is the Green-Orange cube.

You solved all 4 sides of the 2nd layer.

Solve the Yellow Cross on the top face

You need use either of the formula to solve yellow cross.

[The FUR Formula] F-U-R-U’-R’-F’

The FUR formula is used when you have a hook or a right angle on the top left corner.

[The FRU Formula] F-R-U-R’-U’-F’

The FRU formula is used when you have a middle straight line.

One of the biggest different of solving this 3x3x3 for the 4x4x4 cube Vs solving the 3x3x3 cube is…. 50% of the time, you will have the yellow side of the cube, facing you, instead of facing upward to form a yellow cross.  Means, you have a straight yellow line and you also have a yellow hook at the corner.  Then, that is when you need a complicated formula to FLIP the yellow side upward without changing everything else.

This is where formula 2 comes in.

You can try using the FUR or FRU formula, but you will always get back this.

So, let’s do the complicated formula.

MR2-B2-U2-ML-U2-MR’-U2-MR-U2-F2-MR-F2-ML’-B2-MR2

Very complicated.  But after doing it for 20 times, your muscle memory should be able to complete it.

Solve Yellow Face

After you get the yellow cross, it is time to complete the yellow face.

Very luckily, in this video, I got a FISH.  So, point the fish at the lower left corner, and use the FISHY formula.

The FISHY formula goes like this.

R-U-R’-U-R-U-U-R’

After you apply this, you might get another fish but the fish is pointing at the right top corner.  Then, simply rotate the fish to point back at the left bottom corner, then reapply that fishy formula again.

This is another possibility.  You completed the yellow cross.  But you only have a yellow cross or you have two missing yellow.

Always face the side that has yellow piece on your left corner.

Perform the Fishy formula until you get the Fish.  perform 1-2 more times with proper fish orientation, then, you get a full yellow face.

Another possibility.

[Solve the cube]

The rest is exactly like solving the remaining 3x3x3 cube liao.

After you have completed the yellow face.

Depending on situation.  You might have a face with completed corner colour.

Or you might have a face with completed colour (all four of them).

Always oriented the completed corner or line to face to the back.

R’-F-R’-B2-R-F’-R’-B2-R’2

The above is important formula.

Lastly, once you have a completed face, and the rest of the corner pieces are in the correct position, you can perform formula 4. 

As you can see from the Orange face is completed.  So, I perform the formula 4 twice then, I solved the 4x4x4 cube.

There are times, where you need to move the front cube and flip it to the back.  This formula 3 will be useful.

Applying Formula 3 to flip the front cube to the back.

That’t it.  I know Kay Kay will be watching this video many times to learn the 4x4x4 cube.

After you have do so, you can compete with your kid.  My son Jay can do it around 4min, and I need about 5min to do it.   hahahaha