Attempting to Solve a POLARIS CUBE (With NO Help)

I need to show you how this thing works .

It looks pretty complicated but it's not , you can't actually turn it .

Yay , we're done .

OK ?

I lied .

You can actually turn the corners , which seems a little bit useless .

But if we turn all of the corners , now we can actually turn this thing , this is called the polaris cube .

Now , this cube is not very similar to a normal three by three cube because of the way it turns instead , it is actually more similar to a cube .

OK ?

I've got to turn all these again , looking at it like this will never not give me anxiety when you do an actual turn on this , it will turn along this line here and it turns the entire cube in half .

It's not a cube , it turns the polaris in , it turns the puzzle in half .

And if I do twice and then three times it comes back to normal .

And that is just like a cube where it also turns in half and 1 to 3 turns goes back to normal .

And since I have already attempted to solve a cube , once , no spoilers here , I think that knowledge may help me in solving the polaris cube .

I'm going to start scrambling this .

And the thing is I actually cannot undo this because I don't think I can actually take it apart and put it back together .

Solved .

I have no clue how to take this apart or put it back together so that this is permanent .

I'm going to have to actually figure out how to solve this thing and that really scares me .

OK ?

I think this is pretty scrambled .

And what I actually love about the Polaris cube is if I ever get too stressed , I can just turn it all back into cube shape and forget about my problems .

It's almost like I've solved it .

OK .

Let's get to work .

I just think of something I want to solve and try and solve it and that is going to be uh maybe a corner .

What's my favorite corner ?

I like the white green red corner .

You guys probably know that I'm gonna try and solve the three edge pieces around the white green , red corner .

So here's white green , I need it over there .

Oh Wait , that's kind of easy .

I can actually turn it away , turn the corner and move it back .

There we go .

This one same thing I can just move it away and turn this corner so that when it comes back , it is in the right spot and I need this one .

This one is the green red uh there it is .

Ok .

This one's , this one's a little trickier .

So I'll probably want to turn this corner .

And what ?

Oh , this is so weird to think about .

Like , for some reason I want to turn the star and that would put this right here .

But that is not a possible move .

Oh , there's another red green , there's two of the same one that makes sense .

This one is red on the left .

So that wouldn't actually go here .

I need this one over there .

Ok .

Maybe that's why I was confused .

Maybe it's because it's not even possible .

All right , let's think about this one then .

So this , uh , how do you even move it ?

Ok .

It's moving with the corner .

I don't want that .

So I guess we'll get it out of that layer and I'll move it .

Oh , it can go right there .

That's great .

Ok .

So I just need to turn this and that was easy .

Great .

I got my white , red green corner and it is between the white green , yellow stars .

So I can , I just move a star ?

Oh , I can .

Ok .

Ok .

Like what is happening here ?

That piece shouldn't be there .

Where does , where did it come from ?

Ok .

It's supposed to be right there .

Something messed up and this piece needs to go back home .

Come on , send this piece home .

Well , that sucks .

Hope you enjoyed the video .

Ah , go in .

Oh , that , that wasn't too hard .

Ok .

It's back , we're back .

Ok , guys , I'll be right back .

I'm going to reassemble this completely as solved and then scramble it again because right now the way I've reassembled , it may not be solvable and I don't want to risk it .

So I've learned I need to be really careful with this thing .

We now have a brand new scramble , new scramble , new me .

I'm gonna figure this thing out .

All right , I've made the white , red green corner again and let's get it between the white , red green centers .

So if I move the white star here , this corner goes away .

How , what , how did I do this ?

I thought I did this earlier .

Can I just move a star ?

Something messed up ?

All right , but this should be no problem .

Um I can get the white star here .

I just need to then fix this edge as well .

So I if I move the edge away , I can then move it like that on this corner .

Put the white star here so it can carry this edge back like that .

All right .

So then that is correct .

And let's see if we can get the red center there .

I honestly don't know if this is the thing I'm supposed to be doing .

There we go .

I've got that one corner correct .

Um I wonder if I can just solve this corner by corner .

I got the white , red green here .

That means I'm gonna need the white .

OK .

It's not white , red , yellow , that's not the center that's supposed to be there .

It's supposed to be like that .

So white , red , blue to match the color scheme it starts with .

But I need the white , red , blue corner there .

Um This is so confusing .

How do you even turn this thing ?

I've been turning it for a while but I do not remember .

Oh my God , this corner is not twisted .

OK .

All right .

I actually have a new idea .

I have a theory that solving the edges is actually not going to be that hard because we can always just rotate three edge around without turning anything else .

In other words , the edges are the most isolate piece .

I don't know if that's a word .

Basically , the edges are the easiest ones to move around without affecting anything else .

Like if I want to move a center , I'm moving half of all the pieces at once just to move one of these centers .

And if I want to move a corner , well , the same thing , if I want this corner to go here , it's going to move half of all the pieces .

And if I want to move the edges , it only affects two other edges on a corner .

So the edges are the ones I should probably do last since they are the easy , just wants to move around without affecting other stuff .

I've solved .

If the edges go last and I solve the centers and corners first .

What that means is I just have a cube to solve first .

A cube is just centers and corner pieces .

So this is just going to be a cube for now if I ignore the edges and do I know how to solve a SCU Well , I guess I will spoil it .

Yes , I do know how to solve a cube but I don't know if I completely remember how .

So I'm gonna need the four white corners around the white center and uh I think this is already in the right spot .

Wait , is that one in the right spot ?

Oh This one's al also in the right spot .

Yeah , I can always just turn them to see if they look like they're in the right spots .

But this 10 OK .

Uh This one's also correct .

Did I just skip this entire step ?

Like all the corners are already in the right spot .

I know you guys don't like it when I get lucky .

So I'm gonna scramble it and add , actually try and solve this step because you guys are gonna say I cheated , which I didn't , I'm going to mess this thing up now .

OK .

Now the corners are definitely not in the right spot and I'm going to get them into the right spot .

So here's the white center , here's a white piece .

So this is orange , blue and right there would be the other white piece and so I need a white piece here .

Pretty much .

If you can get a white piece into the , the spot , it's probably the right spot .

That's why it ends up getting lucky all the time .

But if you look at that there , I've solved all the white corners .

Very easy and boom , I've definitely solved the yellow corners as well because I remember that's just how it works on a cube .

So I didn't get lucky .

Take that guys .

I'm reading my comment section too much .

OK ?

Now that all the corners are in the right spot , I need all the centers in the right spot , which was the second step on this cube .

So uh I don't remember how to do that .

This is too hard for my brain to see which centers are in the right spot .

White is in the right spot , blue is in the right spot because it's got all the corners around it .

But yellow and orange need to swap red and green need to swap .

Uh It was some algorithm .

I know I had some algorithms that could swap these .

Uh I figured it out on this cube .

I could re-figure it out here but I just want to do it .

I don't want to think about it .

I remember it's like I hold it in some way and I do triple sexy move which I don't remember how .

So it was like this , this and these two won't move if I do that .

So that means I want white and blue there so that uh they don't move because those , those are the correct ones .

So this , this and then back down and back this way .

So that's one sexy move and I have to do that three times .

Uh I'm just gonna hope that this is the right place to do it .

This is just an algorithm I remember from SCU I could have figured it out again here but uh like I'm not gonna pretend I don't have information that I had before .

So uh we're just rolling with this .

All right .

What did that do ?

It solved the rest of the centers ?

Nice .

There we go .

All the centers and all the corners are now in the right spot , which means I have solved the cube part of this but not the edges , part of it .

And I think the edges should be done last .

So we're gonna see if that theory holds up .

OK .

Let's start .

Of course with the white , red , green edge , this white red piece um not right red here .

I can move it like this and this does move all the centers around .

But obviously , I can just turn this to something else and move it back .

All right .

So all the centers are still in the right spot , but I've solved one piece and that was easy .

But I think the later ones are going to be a bit tougher .

So we're gonna see how this goes this one right there .

I've solved this piece now .

So I need this one .

Not sure how I'm gonna do the last piece .

Oh Wait , no , OK .

II I can see how to do that .

So there are two ways you can solve pieces .

One is by putting it in the right spot and then moving it away like I was doing the other way is to take the spot it belongs at and move the correct piece there .

So take this spot away , move the correct piece there and put it back like that .

I am so privileged to know all the cubing knowledge I have because that just seems so obvious to me .

And if you don't do a lot of cubing , you probably thought that was just out of nowhere .

This one's almost done .

Uh We need a red green here .

Let's see if we can find that red on the left green on the right .

So there we go .

So it's this one needs to go here .

What ?

Oh no , that's easy .

Just that spot and that spot now they can turn like that , but I can't do that .

Um I need to do it the other way , which is uh move the spot down , get this one in that spot and then move the spot back up .

Wow .

OK .

We've solved two pieces .

How about the green side ?

I got two green pieces .

So we need this one next .

OK .

No , this is no , this is still easy , still easy .

Now we need yellow green , uh yellow green , yellow green .

It is this one .

So , oh I have to do the other way .

Um When I was teaching Michelle Kari how to solve the cube , I actually taught her this as it's called hit the target .

So this is the target .

You move the target over here and you take this this thing , you hit the target and then you move it back .

Nice .

OK ?

I have the entire green layer done .

I just have the other layer left to go .

It has been smooth sailing up till now .

But I feel like the fact that I have some solved is gonna make the rest of it tougher trying to preserve all of these .

But I have a few tricks up my sleeve .

So we'll see how I do .

This is yellow blue that goes right here .

Uh Like that's , wow , that just solved .

OK .

Wow , that solved .

Wait , hang on .

Do these just solve themselves .

OK .

You love to see it .

But also that's kind of lame .

Uh So we're not gonna solve this one because the , the this piece needs a lot more solving .

So this is yellow orange , it's gonna go right there and this one goes to here .

No way .

No way .

Am I I'm done ?

OK .

Let me just let me just get this .

Wow , the Polaris cube .

OK .

We're not done here though because going into this , I thought this was gonna be one of the hardest puzzles that I attempted .

It turns out it wasn't that hard .

And I'd like to thank all of my cube knowledge for helping me out here .

So here's what we're gonna do next .

Usually after solving a tough puzzle , I just end it there .

But I think this one's easy enough that I can actually just time myself solving it .

OK .

Here is my scramble .

Um I scrambled for a long time so it's probably a decent enough scramble and I'm gonna solve around the white center .

So here are two white pieces that are done .

And uh this one goes here and this one goes here .

OK .

That's , that's all I can inspect .

So we're gonna put that there and this one that's OK .

So there are my white pieces and yellow goes around the other side that should be fine uh looking for correct centerpieces , not a single other one besides white .

If I swap these two , nothing gets solved .

And if I swap these two , only one of them gets solved .

So that's good .

I , I only want to solve one extra one right now .

Uh That is like this once , just my cube algorithm , my stupidly long SCU algorithm OK ?

Twice .

I should probably learn a better one .

But whatever , this is just what I know three times .

OK ?

So these two need to swap and these two need to swap .

Oh My God .

This is , this confuses me every time like this like this .

OK ?

Left-handed version once and three times .

OK ?

Now I need to undo that setup move , which is like this .

All right .

So red is surrounded by four reds and blues , surrounded by four blues , orange , green , yellow , good .

All the centers are correct .

Now , I need to start solving the other pieces .

So let's solve this 11 of them is already done .

I need this .

No , this piece is fine .

That's not even how it works .

That piece doesn't move uh this piece .

All right .

There we go and just fix the centers .

Oh That dissolved it .

OK .

And uh let's just do more white .

Maybe this white blue right here .

So um white blue , put it in , turn it , take it out .

That was the white , red .

So I can get it back in right now and I need the red blue , not this one .

this one .

So that can what ?

Oh OK .

It can go into this spot right here .

That's the target .

Um Go like like this , move the target up , hit the target with the red blue and then go back down .

There we go .

There's two pieces .

That's OK .

I've solved four pieces .

This is the easier part .

If I remember correctly , they just solve themselves .

Basically , there is a fully solved piece .

Uh oh This one's not solved .

Oh , I know how I can do this .

Wait , yeah , I just do this over and over , I'm pretty sure .

All right , this piece .

So I want to solve the yellow , orange part of it .

What ?

OK .

Like this .

And uh then lastly , I'm almost done , I'm almost done .

This is the yellow green salt , the yellow green .

And then I am not done .

Uh Last part annoying .

This is like pyramis tips should not count as part of the salt .

It is trivial , whatever .

06 minutes , eight seconds .

I got sub 609 .

I can be pretty happy with that .

And that's probably something I could never say for the puppet cube .

Ok .