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Twisting Puzzles
Domino (3x3x2) - Solution
Notation
For the solution that follows, you need to be holding the domino as you see in the diagram below. You are holding it, and treating it like a normal 3x3x3 cube that has lost the middle layer, the one between the top and bottom layers.
U, D, F, R are used to denote the upper, down (bottom), front and right faces of the domino. In the algorithms a single letter means a clockwise 90 degree turn of that face. A ' after a letter means an anticlockwise turn. A 2 after a letter means a 180 degree turn of that face. All F and R turns are double turns on the domino.
For this method, you will also need to use a few slice moves. The letter M is used to refer to the slice between the right and left faces. The letter S is used to refer to the slice between the front and back faces.
Where you see a small letter y, it means turn the whole puzzle 90 degrees around the y axis. If you were holding the puzzle as shown in the diagram above, with the green side facing you, a y turn would mean that you turned the whole puzzle 90 degrees so that the red side is now facing you.
Step 1 - Bring Corners Into Correct Layers
Edges are not shown in the diagrams. There are only 2 colours we are working with here - corner pieces on the domino are not sensitive to orientation. The first case is quite simple - if you do combinations of R2 and U or U2 turns you will eventually end up there.
Step 2 - Permute Corners Within Their Layers
There are 6 possibilities here, it's the last stage of a 2x2x2 solve. If we're lucky, the corners are already solved. If not, we have one of the 5 unsolved cases.
Step 3 - Bring Edges Into Their Correct Layers
You can solve all of the edges during this stage although it can slow you down. If you can get this far on the puzzle - you can solve the whole thing using only the first algorithm in the table.
| Swap UR-DL Edge | R2 (D2 F2) x3 R2 |
| Swap UF-DF and UB-DB Edges | F2 M2 F2 M2 |
| Swap UF-DF and UR-DR Edges | F2 R2 F2 R2 F2 R2 |
| Swap UF-DF, UB-DB and UR-DR Edges | |
| Swap All edges | M2 S2 |
Step 4 - Permute Edges
Choose one of the layers to solve first and make that the top layer. Use one of the following algorithms to solve the layer.
