Permute the corners. At this step, our goal is to place the corners of the last layer in their correct position, regardless of their orientation.
Learn to solve the 2x2 Rubik's Cube in 4 easy stages! Whether you complete all 4 stages or 1, be sure to tell your teacher about this program so all your classmates can solve with you! Teachers from all over the country use our program, at no cost, to teach their classes not only to solve.
- Locate two adjacent corners that share a color other than the color of the top layer (other than yellow in our case).
- Turn the top layer until these two corners are on the correct color side, facing you. For instance, if the two adjacent corners both contain red, turn the top layer until those two corners are on the red side of the cube. Note that on the other side, the two corners of the top layer will both contain the color of that side as well (orange in our example).
- Determine whether the two corners of the front side are in their correct position, and swap them if needed. In our example, the right side is green, and the left side is blue. Therefore the front corner on the right must contain green, and the front corner on the left must contain blue. If it is not the case, you will need to swap those two corners with the following algorithm:
Swap 1 and 2 : (2.a) - Do the same with the two corners at the back. Turn the cube around to place the other side (orange) in front of you. Swap the two front corners if needed.
- As an alternative, if you notice that both the front pair and the back pair of corners need to be swapped, you can do it with only one algorithm (note the huge similarity with the previous algorithm):
Swap 1 with 2 and 3 with 4 : (2.b)