The kindest puzzle in the sport

Four corners that never move, four tips that twist on their own, and six edges that do all the real work. Most people learn to solve one in an afternoon.

The Pyraminx is a competition event in its own right, and the fastest solvers finish one in under two seconds. It is also the puzzle to hand a child who has been beaten by a cube, because its shape hides a genuinely simpler machine: turn any corner and only that corner twists, plus the three edges around it. The corners cannot swap places. Ever.

That single fact is why the method below is so short.

Start

Solve it

Tips, corners, then the edges. One algorithm, and even that one you could work out yourself.

Then

Getting fast

Why Pyraminx speed is almost all inspection, and how little is left to learn once you can solve it.

The scale of the thing, counted rather than guessed: ignoring the tips, a Pyraminx has 933,120 positions. A Rubik's Cube has forty-three quintillion. Every one of those Pyraminx positions can be solved in 11 turns or fewer, and only 32 of them need all 11.

turns solve any Pyraminx, tips aside. Proved here by sweeping all 933,120 positions at build time.

The figures on this page are re-derived at build time by sweeping every position the puzzle can reach, and the algorithm is checked by simulation: it must cycle three edges and return every corner untouched.