Get to know the four corners and turn the four tips to match their centers.
Goal
Read Pyraminx notation and turn the four tips to match their centers.
How to hold it
Hold the puzzle with one corner pointing up and one face toward you. In the player the front face is green and the bottom is yellow. The left face is red and the right face is blue.
Notation
U, L, R, B: turn two layers around the top, left, right or back corner.- Look straight at that corner and turn a third of a circle clockwise.
- Lowercase
u, l, r, b: turn only the small tip at the very end.
- A
' means counterclockwise, for example R'.
Rw: keep the left corner still and turn everything else.y, z: turn the whole puzzle in your hands without mixing any pieces.
Three kinds of pieces
- Tips (4 pieces): three-colored triangles at the very end of each corner. A tip only turns in place and never moves.
- Centers (4 pieces): right below the tips, also with three colors. Centers only turn in place too.
- Edges (6 pieces): two colors, sitting between two corners. Edges move around and can flip.
Since centers never move, the four centers decide which color each face gets. Most of the solve is putting the six edges in the right spots, with the right colors.
What one turn does
R turns the right tip, the right center and the three edges around the right corner. Those three edges swap places around the corner, and every other piece stays put. U, L and B do the same for their corners.
A lowercase turn like r only turns the tip. That is why fixing tips never breaks anything else.
How to tell the right colors
Centers never move, so the center right below a tip decides its correct colors. On each face, the tip's triangle must match the center triangle next to it.
This works no matter how scrambled the puzzle is. Compare a tip only with its own center, and ignore the edges.
To pick the direction, choose a face and note the center's color there. Find the tip triangle with that color, then turn the tip until it reaches that face. Once one face matches, the other two match too.
Steps
- Look at a tip and the center triangle just below it.
- Turn the tip until its three colors match the three colors of the center.
- Do the same for all four corners.
Memory tips
Do this step first because it is the easiest. Tips do not affect other pieces, so leaving them for last also works.
Check
Every tip matches the triangle just below it on all three faces.
Common mistakes
- Turning two layers (
R) instead of only the tip (r).
- Mixing up centers and edges: the center is the upside-down triangle right below the tip.
What next
Next you turn the four centers to match, still without any algorithm.