Denis' Micro Blog

Good day everyone,

for today I wanted to do something different and want to show you how to solve the Pyraminx puzzle. It's a twisty puzzle similar to a Rubik's Cube but in a pyramid shape.

It's surprisingly simple and yeah... I know... There are 5 billion tutorials out there. Still, I wanted to share this. Remember, nearly everything on the internet is regurgitated anyways...

Also, I'm not a pro. I'm not fast. But this method works and is easy to understand, which is always good for beginners. 😅

So... Here. We. Go.

First, I want to establish a bit of notation, which makes both of our lives a bit easier.

If I make a right (R) rotation, I mean this...

A clockwise rotation of the right side.

The same goes for the left (L) and top (U) sides.

And if I put a little apostrophe after the letter it means that the aforementioned rotation is done anti-clockwise instead of clockwise. So, R' means an anti-clockwise rotation of the right side.

Now, we got that out of the way, let's get started with the tutorial.

To start, we choose a side that we want to solve first, in my case the yellow one.

Then, establish which side of the pyramid is later on the yellow side. How can you see that? Well, look at the corners. If you can twist all three corners in a way so that every color of that face matches the desired color, you got it. If that isn't the case, then that face is originally of another color.

You can do this by hand, but after some practice, you can also prepare that step in your mind and see it before you can actually solve it.

After we found our side to solve, we need to put those three pieces into their correct slot. Again, this is only possible, if you found the correct pyramid face.

Those three pieces stay at the same relative position on all of the different faces. So that means each of those should be only one rotation to their goal away.

After that, it should look something like this...

Then we move the corners to their correct position so that the corner colors of that face match the colors of those three solved pieces.

After that, it should look like this.

Okay... So until now, it was pretty intuitive to solve and if you get the hang of it, it isn't that difficult. 😁

Now we need to solve the edges of our target face. If you are lucky one, two, or even all three edges can be solved by accident in this step. Well, congrats. You just got an "edge skip", which means you get to do the next step fewer times.

For all of us unlucky ones, I assume that no edge has been solved by now. (You just have to repeat that step 3 times in this case...)

Look at the top of the Pyraminx. All of those edges should be scattered around.

Move one of those edge pieces so that the yellow color is facing towards you and the other color of that edge is on the other side.

Just like this.

If that edge is on the left side of the pyramid, then do the following algorithm.

L R' L' R

If that edge is on the right side of the pyramid, then do the following algorithm.

R' L R L'

At this stage, one of the edge pieces can also be stuck in the wrong placement.

In this case, we can apply the same algorithm but only with some random edge piece to move it out. After that, this edge piece should be at the top of the pyramid again and we can insert it in the correct placement.

Okay. Do that three times and your Pyraminx should look like this. The complete bottom side of the pyramid should be solved correctly.

Now, we need to solve the top of the pyramid. Again, you can be lucky at this step and this could be already solved for you. 🍀
If you are at this stage. I think you can solve the top corner on your own and are done. Congrats. 🎉

For all of the others, here's how to solve the top.

First, we need to bring the top corner pieces in the correct order. See those pieces.

They are all in their correct position. So we need to move the edge pieces to their correct position. If you got good spacial awareness you might have noticed, that those pieces can all be clockwise or counter-clockwise moved and they're all in the same position.

So let's do some "rotations". To move it in an anti-clockwise fashion, apply this algorithm.

R' U R U R' U R

Do that one or two times and all of the edges are in the correct position. Sometimes even correctly oriented

If two pieces directly adjacent to each other aren't correctly oriented yet, apply this algorithm. Don't worry... It's the last one...

R' L R L' U L' U' L

After that, the second layer should be solved, rotate that celebratory corner piece into its correct orientation and you're done.

Congrats. 🎉

I hope you were successful until this point and you had some fun while trying.

Have fun practicing and...

See ya.