- Created by Joseph Gopiramesh

The first layer is solved in two stages:

• Form the cross
• Insert the 4 first layer corner pieces.

Forming the cross

There are 4 edge pieces with blue (ie. the 4 arms of the cross) which have specific positions. You can't put any blue edge piece in an arm of the cross because the other color on the edge cube must match up with it's center on the middle layer.

We believe that the cross in the first layer should be done intuitively. You need to understand it and solve it without learning algorithms. Until you can do this, We wouldn't bother attempting the rest of the cube! So, spend some time playing with the cube and familiarizing yourself with how to move the pieces around the cube.

Here is a picture of what a correctly formed cross would looks like (grey denotes cube’s pieces that are irrelevant to the cross). Note that the blue/red edge piece matches up with the blue center and the red center. The blue/green edge piece matches up with the blue center and the green center.

Here is a picture of an incorrectly formed cross. Looking at the blue face we do indeed see a blue cross, however the blue /red edge piece does not match up with the red center. The blue /green edge piece does not match up with the green center. This is wrong.