Rubik's Puzzles
How to solve the Pyraminx
The Pyraminx is tetrahedron and another puzzle inspired by the Rubik's cube and created by Uwe Meffert. Interestingly the corners of the Pyraminx are completely trivial and have no impact on the solution to the puzzle. There are 75,582,720 possible permutations of the Pyraminx but if you set the corners to the correct positions and only move the other pieces there are in fact only 933,120 possible permutations. Read on to find out how to solve the Pyraminx.
Notation
In a similar style to the Rubik's cube:
L = Left
R = Right
U = Up
F= Front
Step 1
Work out which side goes opposite which and get them into place like so:
Aim
Remember that the tips are trivial so they can just be twisted back into place once your "centre" pieces are positioned.
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Step 2
Pick a colour face to solve, in this case we'll choose red. Put this face on the bottom of your cube. You're aiming for this:
Aim
There are then three possibilities.
Algorithm: U F U' F'
Algorithm: U' L' U L
Algorithm: F U F' U' L' U L
Step 3
The final step in solving the Pyraminx is to finish the last pieces at the top of your Pyraminx.
Aim
Make sure all the tips are correctly orientated and that the final top layer is twisted around to look like the aim of the above step. You will now either have a solved Pyraminx - woohoo - or you need to do another algorithm:
Algorithm: F U F' U F U F'