Rubik's Puzzles
How to solve the 3x3x1 Floppy Cube
The Floppy Cube is so called because of its design: as the sides are turned the centre piece bulges slightly in order to allow the side to turn. Only the corner pieces are able to move position, the edges can only be turned over. This leads to only 192 possible permutations, making it one of the easiest cubes available. The Floppy Cube was invented by Katsuhiko Okamoto. Read on to find out how to solve the Floppy cube.
Notation
The individual pieces are labelled as follows:
Centre piece
Corner piece
Edge piece
The faces of the cube are labelled as follows:
F = Front
B = Back
L = Left
R=Right
Step 1
To begin, twist all the sides so that the edges are correctly orientated, i.e. so that they match the centre pieces. If you are solving the 2x2x1 Floppy Cube then you need to get the top and bottom faces all white and all yellow, there isn't a centre piece to match.
Aim
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Step 2
The second, and final, step consists of placing the corners correctly orientated into position.
Aim
The final part in how to solve the Floppy cube! If you already have a corner piece correctly placed, hold the cube as below and perform the algorithm once or twice to solve the cube. If no corner piece is in the correct place simply perform the algorithm once to get a correct corner and then proceed as normal.
Algorithm: R B R B