Date: 20 Oct 1981 10:26:57 EDT (Tuesday) From: Roger Frye Subject: Do It in the Dark To: Cube-Lovers at MIT-MC Cc: frye at BBNP I have constructed a tactile cube by epoxying buttons, snaps, paper clips and Q-tip stems to a store-bought cube. It takes me about 20 minutes to solve with my eyes closed as opposed to about 5 minutes with my eyes open. Maybe Conway cheats in his 5 look solution by feeling colors. I minimize search times by always working faces in a fixed order and by orienting colors (i.e. textures) before moving cubies on the last face. But the ability to see (i.e. feel) the back of the cube doesn't compensate for my as yet poorly developed tactile pattern recognizer. - Roger Frye