Pair the 12 edges
Join the 24 edge pieces into 12 pairs, centres untouched.
- You start with (input)The four side centres
- Result you will get after finishing this stepPair the 12 edges
How to do it
- A 4x4 has 24 edge pieces, two on each edge of the cube. Two pieces with the same two colours join into an edge pair. This step makes all 12 pairs.
- Move edge pieces only with outer faces (, , , , , ) and whole-cube turns: they never break a centre or split a pair.
- Find two pieces with the same colours. Put one in the front-left edge, top half, the other in the front-right edge, bottom half, as in picture 1: the upper piece’s left colour matches the lower piece’s front colour.
- Turn until the top-right edge holds two unpaired pieces ( leaves the two front edges alone). No unpaired edge on top? Bring one up with , , then . Then do picture 1’s formula.
- A piece in the right edge but the wrong way round (colours on the wrong faces)? Bring that edge to front right and flip it with picture 2.
- The last 2 pairs: put those two edges front left and front right as in picture 3 and do the formula.
This step: look only for
- Piece
- Edge pieces (2 on each edge of the cube)
- Colours
- Two pieces with the same two colours
- Where
- Anywhere on the cube
- How many
- 12 pairs, one at a time
Leave every other piece alone for now: the pictures show them in grey. Found one? Compare it with the cases below.
Which case do you have?
Before you compare and all through the formula: keep the front (the face marked FACING YOU in the pictures) turned towards you. A picture marked BACK, AWAY FROM YOU looks from behind: do not turn the cube, just tilt it to see the back.
Uw′RUR′Uw
- All 12 pairs? From now on turn outer faces only: step 5.