The cube and its cubies

Now as you know how we define the sides of the cube, let us consider the cube in a more detailed way. As you can see your Rubik’s cube is a composition from 26 smaller cubes which we will call "cubies". However if you consider the cubies in a more detailed way, you will notice that some have three colored faces, some have two and some only have one.

Thus we will call from now on the cubies with

• 1 colored face: center cubies

• 2 colored faces: edge cubies

• 3 colored faces: corner cubies

Notice also that each cubie never changes its type. If you move an edge cubie (resp. corner cubie), it will always stay an edge cubie (resp. corner cubie). The same is true for center cubies, however they also don’t change their position in relation to each other. This means in particular that the white center cubie will always be opposite to the yellow one, the red one will always be opposite to the orange one and the blue center cubie will always be opposite to the green one.

The fact that the center cubies don’t move implies also that they define the colors of the cube’s sides. This means that for example the side with the yellow center cubie has to be completely yellow at the end.

Furthermore, in the following instructions the cubies will not always have the original colors of the Rubik’s cube but they will be sometimes purple, pink, black or silver. These colors will indicate distinct original colors of the cubies that we are working with at the given moment. However we will use the color grey for cubies whose colors are not important at the given moment. Let us consider the following example:

As white is an original color of the Rubik’s cube, this faces have to be also white on your cube. The purple and pink faces on the above picture can be on your cube for example blue and orange or green and red. Thus you know that they need to have different colors, bordering the white face in a specific order.