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Speedcubing

1 Week With The Face-Turning Octahedron

Karl Abate

Karl Abate

— 4 min read
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59.52 Face-Turning Octahedron solve. The scramble is: B' D' B D' B R B' L' BR B D' L' BR' D B D' BR' D' B' L' R' U R BL' F D' BR BL'.
My first sub-1 FTO solve and current PB! (59.52) The scramble shown is the one I achieved it with.

As I've talked about in my previous weekly updates, last Saturday I got my first Face-Turning Octahedron (FTO for short), which is a twisty puzzle that will become a new official WCA event next year! Despite another decision from the WCA that I am quite unhappy with (Clock should stay.) I am very glad that a new event will be added; like I said, this hasn't happened in 13 years — it's the first time it's happened while I've been a speedcuber, in fact — and I feel like it'll really freshen up competitions.

The event will become official on January 2nd, 2027, so there's still a bit left for that, but I wanted to get one now so I can learn it earlier, and hopefully by the time we have our first competition here with it — which might be about two weeks later based on previous winter comps — I'll be decent at it! (Whatever that means)

I got the Dayan FTO, but I also got it with TheCubicle's Angstrom setup, because why not‽ Before I got it I was already looking at some tutorials just to get a better understanding of it ahead of time, and it actually helped a little bit, as I could do the first 3 steps intuitively once I finally got it, but I did need to actively follow a tutorial for the rest. I'm using the Bencisco method, and the main tutorial I followed was Tingman's beginner tutorial (which actually came out within 12 hours of me ordering it lmao), but I also followed benpuzzles's original tutorial for some sections where I got a bit confused.

I achieved my first solves on Sunday, the day after I got it, and I did my first timed solve a bit later, which was a pretty slow 5:31.82, but hey, it's a start, and that's quite similar to my first ever solves on a 3x3. I wasn't around my computer at the time, and none of the actual timing apps on my phone had FTO options, so I just used the standard Clock app and looked up an online scrambler. I did a few more hand-scrambled untimed solves after that until I returned to my computer and started a proper session on csTimer!

A Discord message showing my first timed FTO solve. A 5:31.82 with the following scramble: D' B R D L' D' U B U R' U B U R B' L' R' D B' F BR D' U B' R
(I also didn't take any actual photos of it because of that, so that's a shame)

I've been practicing a little bit every day since, occasionally untimed, but mostly on that csTimer session. As of now I'm at 112 timed solves, totaling up to almost 4 hours total [3h 53m 30s].

I got my PB single, average of 5, and average of 12 just today! My current PB is also my first sub-1 solve, at 59.25 (and it's the header image of this post)! I got both my ao5 and ao12 PBs on my most recent solve, with a 1:20.89 ao5, and a 1:28.94 ao12, which is also my first sub-1:30 ao12.

A screenshot of my current csTimer FTO session. It shows my 12 most recent solves, and my current PBs.

I can definitely improve more. Even though these last few solves have been a bit more consistent, I still vary a lot (the standard deviation of my PB ao12 is 23.25 seconds, which is insane) and I am still quite rusty in some bits. I still struggle a bit with building the middle three centres the right way, and I am not good at making the final pairs, to the point where I usually "skip" that step and just orient the corners and swap the centres manually, which definitely isn't efficient whatsoever.

Still, I do hope to improve in this event! I wasn't very sure about if I'd like it at first, especially as it reminded me a bit of the Pyraminx which I don't like much, but the more I solved it the more I realized how different and truly unique this puzzle is. I find it much more comfortable to hold, it's the right amount of intuitive for me (as in mostly, but not fully), and it's very unlike any other WCA event, or even any twisty puzzle I've tried before!

I'm still getting accustomed to it, but I absolutely love it so far, and I've had a lot of fun with it. I plan to keep practicing as much as I can, and hopefully if/when it's an event at a local competition I'll be able to have some good official solves!

A Dayan FTO next to its box.

Oh btw one more thing. I guess with this new event I'll have to rearrange my cubeshelf. Even though Clock is getting removed I do want to keep it there somehow, and I got the idea of putting a smaller shelf within the top shelf just for it. I photoshopped a mockup of that idea very quickly a few days ago, and I have it below, but I also want to share a behind-the-scenes image that I used to make it, since I find it very silly. I spent a while finding what to hold it with for the perfect height lol

A mockup of a plan I had for my cubeshelf. It adds the Face-Turning Octahedron, and adds a shelf for the Clock to go in above the other cubes.
A behind the scenes photo of the previous mockup. The shelf has all the cubes scattered, an additional Mirror Blocks is there, and the clock is beind held up by a 6x6, 7x7, and 1x1 cubes.

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