General discussions: Prevent cheating in Rubiks Cube

Rodion (admin) 2014-09-28 04:49:38

Friends, I have a question about potential Rubik's Cube problem!

Recently both Sergey and Nicolas (seems like independently) proposed to add a problem about Rubik's cube.

It may look like this - starting from predefined position a series of moves is performed (given in FBRULD notation), then we ask, for example, colors of stickers of the front face of the cube.

I have a doubt about such problem:

it looks like its solution is straightforward but requires much efforts on implementation - representing cube faces and its transitions - so it may seem somewhat boring for some people :(
on the other hand I believe internet is bloating with software which, given moves, produce the final state of the cube - so it is quite easy to cheat :)

Could we invent any trick which will allow to prevent cheating?

I thought of some notation changes but I'm not sure it is the way - it will still be easier to convert whimsical notation to FBRULD...

nicolas_patrois 2014-09-28 10:37:58

Maybe posting the colour of a random sticker for each move (in 100 moves) may prevent cheating.

Moff 2014-09-28 15:44:33

To prevent cheating you may ask colors of all 9 stickers on front side.

And need to describe start position of cube, for example front-blue, top-yellow.

Moff 2014-09-28 15:51:17

The other cheat is using programs to solve it.

I've created my own version of such prog.

http://s30.postimg.org/gpfdho7rl/image.png

May be represent a stycker as random number of (1..54) and then shuffle cube.

Classic cube

        1 1 1
        1 1 1
        1 1 1
        -----
        2 2 2
        2 2 2
        2 2 2
        -----
3 3 3 | 4 4 4 | 5 5 5
3 3 3 | 4 4 4 | 5 5 5
3 3 3 | 4 4 4 | 5 5 5
        -----
        6 6 6
        6 6 6
        6 6 6

Modified cube (sorted):

           01 02 03
           04 05 06
           07 08 09
           --------
           10 11 12
           13 14 15
           16 17 18
           --------
19 20 21 | 28 29 30 | 37 38 39
22 23 24 | 31 32 33 | 40 41 42
25 26 27 | 34 35 36 | 43 44 45
           --------
           46 47 48
           49 50 51
           52 53 54

Rodion (admin) 2014-09-28 17:26:59

> The other cheat is using programs to solve it.

Yes, that is what I meant. There are programs, I'm sure, where one can enter initial setup and sequence of moves - and just see the outcome.

> May be represent a stycker as random number of (1..54) and then shuffle cube.

YES! - It looks exactly like what we need!

Thank you, colleagues, for helping with this issue! I hope that problem could be added soon now... :)

UPD: While working on the checker I've got to conclusion that even this variant still lefts the ways for smarter cheater (and even more for the reduced task when stickers of only one face are asked). Anyway these ways are not as obvious.