Void Cube Solver
How to read your Void Cube into the solver
Pick a colour, then tap the squares that show it. Hold the cube with one face toward you: that is Front, and whatever points at the ceiling is Up. To see the Right, Left or Back, turn the whole cube on the table so that face comes round to you, keeping Up on top. For Up, tip the cube toward you; for Down, tip it away. Paint each face exactly as it looks from there.
The middle of each face is a hole, the way it is on the real cube, so there are eight squares to paint on each side and every colour appears exactly eight times. The counter above the net turns red until it does. It does not matter which way up you hold the cube or what your colour scheme is; the solver works both out from the corners.
What the moves mean
Moves use the standard letters for each face: R Right, L Left, U Up, D Down, F Front and B Back. A plain letter is a quarter turn clockwise as you look straight at that face. A letter with a dash, R', is a quarter turn anticlockwise, and R2 is a half turn. The face to turn next is outlined on the net, and Step walks the solution one move at a time with the net updating as it goes.
Void cube parity, and why you will not meet it here
On an ordinary cube the centres tell you which colour belongs on which face. A Void Cube has no centres, so you have to assume it, and if the assumption is a quarter turn off you finish with everything right except two swapped edges. That is void cube parity. No sequence of face turns can fix it, because the cube is not actually wrong: it has been solved into a different orientation from the one you had in mind.
The solver never makes that assumption blind. It tries every way the colour scheme could sit, keeps only the ones that are a legal cube, and solves the shortest, so its answer always ends in a solved cube. In testing, half of all scrambles would have run into parity if read the obvious way.
If you are already stuck with two swapped edges on your own, the fix is not a long algorithm: turn one middle slice a quarter turn, which a Void Cube can do because there is no centre in the way, and finish the edges normally. The Void Cube guide explains why that works.
How it works
Inside, this is a full Rubik's Cube solver, because a Void Cube is a Rubik's Cube without the centres. It uses Herbert Kociemba's two-phase method: first bring the cube into a state that only needs half turns on four of its faces, then finish with those. That is what lets it search more than 43 quintillion positions in a fraction of a second, and its answers come out at around 22 turns.
It was tested before going up: four hundred random scrambles of an ordinary cube, every one solved in 24 turns or fewer, and a hundred and fifty Void Cubes held every way up with slice turns mixed in, every one solved.
How a Void Cube holds together without a core, and why it is no harder than a normal cube apart from parity, are in the Void Cube guide.
We do not make twisty puzzles. What the Void Cube shares with our range is hidden space: A6L and 6N are both built on hiding holes so the finished object reads as solid. The rest of the shelf is cube puzzles, and there are more solvers on the puzzle tools page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is void cube parity?
The case where a Void Cube is solved except for two swapped edges. With no centres, which colour belongs on which face has to be assumed, and if the assumption is a quarter turn off the cube ends up in this position, which no sequence of face turns can fix.
How do you fix void cube parity?
Turn one middle slice a quarter turn, which a Void Cube can do because there is no centre in the way, then finish the edges normally. That corrects the assumption rather than the cube. This solver avoids it altogether by trying every way the colour scheme could sit.
How do you solve a Void Cube?
The same way as an ordinary cube, choosing a colour scheme at the start and keeping to it, since nothing on the puzzle will remind you. Or paint it into this solver, which gives the turns for your own cube, usually around 22.
How does a Void Cube work without centres?
The corners and edges hold each other in place, so the cube needs no core. It is a Rubik's Cube with the centres taken away, and everything except parity works the same way.