Rubik's Cube - Solving a Cross

Hi, I am Bob Burton, Rubik's Cube Expert, and I am teaching you how to solve Rubik's cube. The first step to solving the puzzle is to solve the cross on the first face of the Rubik's cube. The first face that I will show you is white just because it sits out the best.

The first thing you want to do is look for any cross pieces that are already lined up with the color that they belong with. Remember, that the centers of the Rubik's cube puzzle are fixed. So, if you see, for example, this edge piece, which has two stickers, its already connected to centerpiece that it belongs with, you can move it freely to match up with the centerpiece of white. So, this is actually the first piece solved.

We will then look for more pieces that we can do this with. If you look at this red piece, it was only one move to line up the red edge with the red center. Once we have it like that, its only again, one move to match the white.

We then look for another piece. This one is blue. Again, you will see that blue only takes one move, and then we can put it back to match the white. There is one more piece that we need to solve is the orange one. The orange one is also one move to line up. Once we have it lined up with the orange center, we can move it all the way up to the top of the Rubik's cube. This is a completed white cross.

Sometimes you will get more difficult case to show up. Sometimes you can't actually have the orange match up with the orange center, or another piece not match up with its own center. In this case what you do is you bring the edge down to a middle layer. You look for the piece that it belongs with. For example, orange belongs between blue and green. We look for the blue and green edges, move them over, so that orange lines up right in between them. We put it in place, and then we restore the first move we made, that took the blue and green edges away from where they belong. That's it for solving the first step of the Rubik's cube puzzle. Next I will show you how to solve the first layer points of the Rubik's cube.