Civic Issues Blog 2: Political and Health Issues of the Youth Vaping Epidemic

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Recently, the state of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the Juul, a vape company, for creating a youth vaping epidemic. Vaping has grown at an extremely high rate among the youth, up 135% in the past two years, and although some steps have been taken to combat the issue in teens, it remains as an epidemic. This is a result of Juul targetting the younger generation with their advertisements, the ease of access of nicotine and tobacco e-cigarette products, and the poor ad campaigns against vaping.

First, Juul has been known to target a youth audience. They were recently discovered to have bought ads on sites targetting kids, such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, using images of young models vaping. Furthermore, Juul used many sweet, fruity nicotine flavored e-liquids to attract a younger audience. Although these flavored name brand Juul pods are now banned, there are still other alternatives available in stores and online. This is a major problem because the e-cigarette products that were meant to help smokers quit are now attracting a younger audience who are instead becoming addicted to nicotine products.

Example Ad

Another issue with youth vaping is how easily accessible nicotine products are for the underage to buy. A 9-year-old showed in front of the Colorado General Assembly, “All I have to do is enter my address, payment, fake birth date and the highly addictive, highly damaging nicotine product would come straight to my door.” Due to how weak the age verification for buying these substances online, it is extremely easy for underage teens to order them to their homes with no penalty, which is a major flaw that has lead to the growth of vape and e-cigarette usage.

To combat teens buying these products while underage, many states have raised the minimum age. For example, Pennsylvania raised the minimum age to buy nicotine and tobacco products from 18 to 21. Although this may seem like a useful action, it does not change the fact that teens always have the option to order products online. Furthermore, the American Lung Association gave our state an F for tobacco taxes and smoking prevention programs, showing that our current level of activity is not enough useful action has been taken against vaping.

 

There have been many ad campaigns against vaping and smoking among teens, however, they are oftentimes ineffective, or even detrimental. Forbes made an article describing the issue, saying, “They employ outdated internet memes, puppets mimicking the Breakfast Club, and zombies harassing innocent store clerks. Their actors can be awkward and theatrical, their messages ham-handed and overwrought.” Essentially, because of how embarrassing the ads are, teens ridicule them (something I have personally seen extremely often), thus dampening the impact, and in some cases even leads teens to try e-cigarettes. Although the message of the ads is valid, their execution and delivery do not connect with their target youth audience, which severely weakens their effect.

 Example of Ineffective Anti-Vape Ad

There has been some federal legislation to combat vaping, name the ban of single-use flavored nicotine cartridges that was mentioned earlier in the blog. More action needs to be taken to curb the number of youth vaping, however, it difficult to directly find a solution. Most of the vaping related illnesses and deaths have been linked to vitamin E-acetate, which was used in substitute THC vape cartridges, but these are already illegal as marijuana is federally banned. Furthermore, it is difficult for the government to regulate the large online market for vape products, as well as the underground market that sells the products to the underage. Stricter identification laws to purchase vape products online could be a good step forward against the epidemic.

In conclusion, vaping is a serious problem causing high rates of nicotine addiction among youth. Although there are some steps that have been taken against them, such as ad campaigns and the ban of many popular flavored cartridges, it simply is not effective. Because of the high market demand by the youth for these e-cigarette products, they will (and have been able to) find workarounds to fuel their addiction. For example, full disposable vapes have been increasing in popularity, and are also available legally in many flavors, so addicted teens can simply shift from Juul to the newer, legal nicotine trend. More laws that restrict the purchase of nicotine products through stronger identification verification could be useful, but even still the problem is complex and this would not solve the underlying issues behind the youth vaping epidemic.

Passion Blog 3: Overwatch League Week 2, Philadelphia Fusion v. Washington Justice

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The Overwatch League will be holding its second week of games in Philadelphia (and I’ll be attending it!), so we will talk about Philadelphia Fusions and one of their opponents, Washington Justice.

Philadelphia had a fairly interesting off-season. Although they have a great off-tank in Poko, they signed a potentially stronger Fury from the London Spitfire, who has been consistently ranked as one of the best at his role. In addition, the explosive flex support on their Contenders (lower level league) team, Alarm, is now old enough to play in the Overwatch League, and will likely take the starting spot from the mediocre Boombox. The other starting support will be FunnyAstro, who has proven his worth in many tournaments. They also signed DPS players Ivy, Heesu, and Chipsa, however, it is unclear how much playtime they will get when they kept the DPS duo who carried the team through Season 1, Carpe and Eqo. The biggest question mark on the team revolves around their main tank, Sado, who has consistently been the weakest player on the team. Sado is directly a bad player, but his level of play tends to be dependent on his teammates; if the team does not play well, Sado will play poorly, but he will be a serviceable tank if his teammates are playing well. With their new signings, Philadelphia Fusion will likely stray away from their streaks of incredible play followed by mediocre play and are looking extremely strong against other teams going into this season.

Washington Justice’s biggest strength lies in their DPS line, Corey and Stratus. Last season, the Justice was one of the worst teams, with a disjoint tank and support line, however, once Corey started playing DPS in stage 4, he shined and hard carried the team to a 6-1 record. Stratus was a bit behind Corey in skill level but was never a hindrance to the team. TTuba was signed as DPS in the offseason, a relatively unknown player from Contenders, but it is unclear if he will start over Corey or Stratus, as he has less experience than both. They replaced their tank line with former LA Gladiators tank Roar, and the European duo Ellivote and Lullsish. Roar was an extremely hyped player for LA going into Season 2, and he played fairly well, but not up to the par that was expected of him, and Ellivote and Lullsish have a very long history of playing together, so their synergy together could help the overall team play They maintained their main support, Ark, who was a serviceable player but replaced their flex support with Aimgod, an upper-tier player from the Boston Uprising. 

On paper, Fusion has a better tank and support line, and they have comparable DPS lines, but from last week the games seemed to depend heavily on the DPS to make strong plays, so the game could be close. Corey proved himself to be one of the best DPS players at the end of Season 2, so the match could go his way if he can maintain that level of performance. Towards the end of last season, Fusion’s DPS duo was fairly mediocre, but if they are able to return to their peaks from Season 1 they could outplay Corey. Either way, I’ll be rooting for the Fusion at the game!

 

Passion Blog 2: The Two Best Overwatch League Games to Watch this Weekend

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Overwatch League’s 3rd season starts this weekend, with the games being played in New York City and Dallas. 8 are games being played this weekend, so I will discuss the most interesting game to watch for each day. For Saturday, it is the London Spitfire vs New York Excelsior at 3 PM, and for Sunday the San Francisco Shock vs Dallas Fuel.

 

The London Spitfire’s roster consists of one returning player, Krillin, who received fairly low playtime last season, and new players from various teams in Overwatch Contenders, the lower level of competition from the Overwatch League. Their most anticipated pick up is Glister, a DPS player who previously was on team Gen.G; he was played extremely well in past tournaments and was sought after by many different Overwatch League teams. The other players, however, were either relatively unknown or considered to be average by the League’s standards. They are the clear underdog going into their match, and their performance will depend heavily on how well their star player, Glister, performs.

London Spitfire 2018 Roster, Season 1 Champions, who all are no longer on the team

 

New York Excelsior is an extremely accomplished team, who finished first overall in the standings for Season 1, and third for Season 2. Their returning players, Mano, Saybyeolbe, Libero, Nenne, Anamo, Jjonak, and Bianca have all been widely regarded as some of the best players for their respective roles, with Jjonak receiving the MVP award for Season 1. Some of their newcomers, however, show incredible promise. Whoru, a DPS player who led the Fusion University team to several undefeated seasons in Overwatch Contenders, is widely known for his aggressive Genji play, and Hotba, who previously played on Philadelphia Fusion and Guangzhou Charge, has been a consistently strong tank player over the past seasons. This team’s established synergy from years of playing together, and widely hyped newcomers, will be difficult for the fairly new roster of London to overcome.

Jjonak, Season 1 MVP with his trophy

 

The next game features the winners of Season 2, the San Francisco Shock. At the end of last season, they were by far the best team, beating the Vancouver Titans in the playoffs 4-0. Their team had the Season 2 MVP, Sinatraa, the tank and support from the USA World Cup team, Super and Moth, and the explosive flex support in Viol2t as their star players. The Shock was so powerful as a result of their incredible teamwork in-game, with players all using their abilities in unison to dismantle all the opposing teams and the players’ high individual skills. Almost every power ranking for the next season has the Shock at the top, so they are the clear favorites to win their first match.

Image result for san francisco shock grand finals

San Francisco Shock after winning Season 2 Finals

 

In the past, Dallas Fuel has been a fairly mediocre team, placing 10th in Season 1 and then dropping to 15th for Season 2. However, their offseason pickups for the team could help to bring the team up in the rankings. Decay, previously on LA Gladiators, and Doha, who played on the winning team of the Overwatch Contenders Gauntlet, are their two new DPS players, and both have been the carry players for each of their previous teams. Together, they will likely be one of the best DPS lineups in the entire league. In addition, the team signed main tank Gamsu, from Shanghai Dragons. The “meta” (what heroes and team compositions are considered best at the time) for Season 3 appears to include the tank Wrecking Ball, who not many tank players have much competitive experience with. Gamsu, however, played this hero frequently on the Dragons and was able to win the Stage 3 title against the dominant meta at the time. With Gamsu’s experience on Wrecking Ball, and the new star-studded DPS lineup of the Fuel, there is potential for the upset against the defending champions, the Shock, and even if not it should be a close, exciting game to watch.

Dallas Fuel 2020 Roster. From left to right, Doha is 3rd, Gamsu 6th, and Decay 7th

 

Civic Issues Blog 1: The Civic Issues Revolving Around Artificial Intelligence

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of programming software that uses logic to think and adapt their behavior based on their previous learning from their experiences. It is a rapidly growing field, with some modern programs being just as, if not more intelligent than humans. There are even AI developed conversational robots for customer service calls that are indistinguishable from humans. This level of advancement, however, raises ethical concerns. Should an artificial program with a mind just as, if not more, developed than that of a human have similar rights? Should an AI-controlled living being have the same kind of rights? Should humans know when they are interacting with another human or a robot? Should we compromise the efficiency of AI to make them less autonomous? 

 

This month, a study was published showcasing the world’s first programmable organism developed from frog stem cells; it is called a xenobot, and they are about 0.04 inches long. Michael Levin, one of the study co-authors, said, “These are entirely new lifeforms. They are living, programmable organisms.” If you think about what Levin is saying, this is an entity that is composed of living cells but is being entirely controlled by the implanted code of the developers. There are further plans to scale the xenobot up to be human-size, living robots, with a full nervous system and blood vessels. Although this technology has many incredible uses, it is extremely concerning when considering some of the quotes published in the study including, “we cut the living robot almost in half, and its cells automatically zippered its body back up,” and “it’s almost like a wind-up toy.” These quotes show that the scientists do not have moral considerations for the xenobot, as they treat is like an object despite it being composed of living tissue and muscle, and having mental capabilities on par with humans.

 

In addition to the issue of the AI itself having rights, there is also the conflict of whether or not humans should be informed if they are interacting with AI or not. Studies showed that when not informed if cooperating with an AI robot or human in a game, the participants were far more cooperative with the AI, however once informed that they were interacting with the software they became far more disruptive. Essentially, since the humans knew that they were not interacting with another human, they disregard their moral compass and are more likely to use abusive language or insults since the AI does not possess the emotional qualities of a human. As a practical example, this means that with the AI customer service, if the caller is informed that their service provider is non-human, then the overall quality and efficiency of the service will be degraded, whereas if the caller was uninformed if they were talking to a robot or human, efficiency would be optimal. For example, Google developed an AI assistant that was capable of conversation over the phone, but the public was outraged that the bot does not say it is not human, and would otherwise be deceiving the person on the other end of the line. Google agreed to have the bot initially disclose that it is software at the start of the phone call, despite it reducing the overall quality of the conversation through doing so. We cannot have optimal operating efficiency of AI while maintaining total transparency of it, so we need to pick between one or the other, as the two are mutually exclusive from each other.

 

A third potential issue with AI is its lack of programmed morals. AI software is coded with clear goals and incentives, and if executed will simply try anything possible to reach these goals, unless coded to avoid certain method (this would be the equivalent of morals). YouTube’s AI search algorithm, was coded to provide searches that would result in the most traffic on the site, which seems like an uncontroversial goal for the site. What this resulted in, however, is extreme, polarizing content being recommended. It seemed innocent at first, with videos of jogging leading to videos of ultramarathons, and videos of vegetarianism leading to those of veganism. However, a researcher reported that after watching footage of a Trump campaign rally, she was recommended videos including a white supremacist rant, and a Holocaust denial conspiracy theory. This tendency of YouTube’s AI algorithm to recommend to extremes based on a certain video has contributed to the polarization in the country because the algorithm sought only recommendations that would lead to the most viewership, and was not coded to recognize the ethical problems with this method. Although this compromises the optimal efficiency of the program, it is something that needs to be considered when creating AI software.

 

To sum up, AI software could help to bring a far more advanced and efficient future, however, it is held back by the civic issues of the ethics of its implementation in living cells, the issue of its most optimal efficiency relying on it being non-transparent to the public, and the lack of moral restraints intervening between the AI’s pursuit of its programmed goal. If these issues can be resolved, potentially through the limitation of AI in living creatures, compromising on the level of transparency of AI to maintain its efficiency and the implementation of restrictions on how AI achieves its intended purpose, then it could be a much more useful, controllable, and ethical tool for the future.

Passion Blog 1: Overwatch League Introduction

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Overwatch League is an E-Sports league where teams compete in Blizzard’s video game, Overwatch. It is heading into its 3rd annual season, starting on February 8th. 

The game itself consists of two teams of six players battling for control of an objective on the map. The main objectives are either a capture point and a payload that must be pushed. There are two players for each role: tank, damage, and support. Each role can choose between a different set of heroes to play as, each with unique abilities and designs. The game relies heavily on strategizing who the optimal heroes to play are during a match, strong teamwork, and mechanical skills (ex: reaction time) for each player.

 

Currently, there are four game modes that are competitively played: Assault, Escort, Control, and Hybrid. In Assault, there is an attacking and defending team for one capture point, and if the first point is captured by the attacking team then there is a second one. In Escort, there is a payload that the attacking team must escort to the end of the map, and a defending team trying to stop it. In Control, there is a single capture point that both teams battle over control for. Finally, in Hybrid, there is an attacking team trying to capture an objective that is defended by the opposing team, and if it is captured the attacking team must escort the payload to the end of the map, with the defending team trying to stop them.

Each Overwatch League is played on each of the four map types, and in the event of a tie there is a fifth tiebreaker Control map. Halfway through the season, there is a tournament between the top four teams, and at the end of the season, there is a playoff bracket and season finals.

There are currently 20 Overwatch League teams: Atlanta Reign, Boston Uprising, Chengdu Hunters, Dallas Fuel, Florida Mayhem, Guangzhou Charge, Hangzhou Spark, Houston Outlaws, London Spitfire, Los Angeles Gladiators, Los Angeles Valiant, New York Excelsior, Paris Eternal, Philadelphia Fusion (my favorite team!), San Francisco Shock, Seoul Dynasty, Shanghai Dragons, Toronto Defiant, Vancouver Titans, and Washington Justice. In the previous two seasons, all the games were hosted in a stadium in Los Angeles, however, moving into next season there will be home and away games in the teams’ respective cities.

In the next blog, we will talk more about each individual team, and then cover the weekly season highlights once it starts on the 8th.

Passion Blog 7: The Ghost Cube

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In my final blog entry, I will be going over solving my most challenging puzzle, the ghost cube. Just looking at the puzzle can be confusing: every side is the same color so how do you solve it, or mix it up? In practice, the ghost cube is actually just a standard 3×3, but the axes by which you turn on are offset. Essentially, you have to line up the layers correctly to be able to turn the puzzle, as then you can see the standard lines in between the pieces.

Axes by which you turn the puzzle are highlighted

 

Now, we will scramble the cube!

As usual, the first step is to solve the cross, but it is difficult to figure out how to start that on the ghost cube. I find it easiest to start with matching the edge that has the logo for the puzzle onto its appropriate center and then solving the other edges from there. From here, it should look like:

Next, we will fill in the corner pieces to finish the first layer. Essentially, just try slotting in corners that seem like they are the correct shape, and if it isn’t then you can just substitute another piece until the layer solidifies. Again, it is easiest to start by matching the pieces with the logo.

After the first layer, we have to solve the middle layer by orienting the centers and middle edges. Again, because the pieces have similar shapes you just have to try each combination until the full shape of the layer is formed.

Now, only the last layer has to be solved. We start by making the cross with the center and edges.

The last step is to solve and orientate the last corners, which brings the puzzle back to a solved, cubic state!

The reason this puzzle is so difficult is that is is very hard to keep track of pieces and figure out where they go because you have to rely on examining the shape of each piece, which is harder to track than a color. If anything, the ghost cube would be much easier to solve if each side was a different color, as it would be much simpler to figure out where to slot each piece.

That wraps up the final blog entry, thanks for reading about me solve all different kinds of Rubik’s Cubes!

Passion Blog 6: Solving the 2×2 and Pyraminx

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In this blog entry, we will go over solving my favorite puzzle, the 2×2, and then my second favorite the Pyraminx!

The 2×2 is unique since it is the only standard cubic puzzle without any center pieces; it is composed of 8 corner blocks! Now, we will scramble the cube!

Normally, the first step of a cube is to solve the center cross, but since the puzzle is all centers we simply have to orientate the centers in one layer, and then flip the puzzle upside dow. When starting with the white face, the puzzle should look as follows:

Next, we make the face that is opposite from the layer that we started a solid color. Since we started on the white face, we now solve the opposite yellow side:

Finally, the last step is to orientate the last two corners that are out of position with a single algorithm, which finishes the 2×2!

The pieces on the Pyraminx will be referred to as follows:

Now, let’s scramble the puzzle!

First, we rotate the outer pieces of the pyramid to match all the pieces it is adjacent to; this is extremely simple to do, as rotating these pieces does not move any other pieces.

Next, we choose a color and rotate all of the inner pieces of that color onto one face; in this case, we use the green pieces.

Now, we slot in the edge pieces of the chosen color to finish the side and put the completed side at the bottom.

After that layer is completed, we have to solve the upper half using a single algorithm to rotate the edge pieces, and then the Pyraminx is solved!

The reason that these two are my favorite puzzles is because of how quick and simple they are to solve! For example, using the methods that I describe here, I can solve each of them in under 10 seconds pretty consistently. Also, because there are so few pieces in each, you can often get lucky and skip steps, which can lead to some impressive times, such as my record of 0.69 seconds on the 2×2! In the next and (final?) entry we will go over my most difficult puzzle, the shapeshifting Ghost Cube!

RCL Blog 9: Ted Talk Outline

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TED Outline Format

Topic: E-Sports reaching mainstream levels of popularity

Purpose: Convince viewers of normality in viewing E-Sports and reasons for someone to pursue E-Sports

Thesis Statement:  E-Sports is an industry worth investing time into understanding because it is continuing to increase in popularity (even overtaking traditional sports), is increasing relevant financially and culturally.

Introduction

Attention Strategy:

Orienting Material: How will you begin this presentation in a way that appropriately garners audience attention?

The introduction will show a brief clip of a highlight from the Overwatch League Season 1 finals, and then I will explain the significance of it, and reveal to the audience that the play essentially got the winning team $1 million. Then, I will define E-Sports and transition to talk about E-Sports as a whole and approach the thesis statement.

https://twitter.com/espn/status/1023236836116848640?lang=en

Clip that will be used ^

Body

  1.                 Main Idea – E-Sports is growing in popularity
  2.             A personal example of me attending Overwatch Season 2 Finals w/ picture showing sheer number of people there, and describing the experience
  3.               E-Sports viewing is growing and projected to grow higher than most sports (graphs will be shown)

 Visual here is a chart of upward trending E-Sports viewership with projected viewership in future

  1.               Main Idea – Reasons people should pursue E-Sports through involvement or viewership
  2.               Lots of money can be made in the field as a participant

High salaries for professional players, coaches, casters, jobs in team infrastructure (social media relations), broadcasting, scholarships

  1.               Cultural relevance of viewing

As E-Sports continues to gain more traction, it will be more commonly discussed and shown. It is already broadcasted in some bars, and watching will allow people to discuss team strategies and such with others, similarly to how people do with traditional sports.

Visual here is graph of salaries and available jobs in field

III.             Main Idea – Comparison of traditional sports to E-Sports.

A  Comparison in the viewing of traditional sports and E-Sports

  1.         A common argument against watching E-Sports is “why would you watch someone else play video games.” Most viewers of traditional sports do not regularly play the sport (ex: football), and to be able to watch more skilled players perform at a higher level than you are capable of (the same reason people watch competitive sports)
  2.           League of Legends Championship 2019 had more unique viewers (100 million) than Super Bowl this year (98 million). Tickets to the event sold out in 4 hours. (CNBC).

Visual here is chart showing E-Sports projected to have more viewers than most other sports

  1. Comparison in competitivity
  1. Physical ability: For traditional sports, this corresponds to athletic ability and strength of individual players. For E-Sports, this corresponds to mechanical skill in game, resulting from the physical mouse and keyboard input by the player.
  2. Strategy: Both have strategical components ranging from practiced plays by teams, positioning of players in the sports field/in game, and generally a player knowing what they should do in a given situation.

 

Conclusion

Concluding Remark – Summarize main argument, and then talk about the increasing cultural relevance, such as through the potential for E-Sports as an Olympic event.

Passion Blog 5: Megaminx

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The megaminx is a 12 sided dodecahedron puzzle with pentagon sides. The pieces still follow a similar pattern to a standard 3×3, but it is not exactly the same. The biggest similarity is that the center pieces on the megaminx also do not rotate relative to each other, which allows for each face to be referenced by the color of the center. The megaminx also has corner and edge pieces on each face, but it has 5 of each while a standard 3×3 has 4 of each. Now that the fundamental similarities of the puzzle have been established, we will mix it up and go through solving it!

 

We start by picking a face and matching the edges of its color to it. For this, we will start with the silver side. Matching all the edges to the face results in a star pattern on the face, and each edge must be properly aligned with each center face as well so that the colors still match. This is the equivalent of solving the cross on a 3×3.

After solving the star, we must solve the next two layers: the corners on the top face and edges next to them. This, again, mirrors that of solving the middle layers on a 3×3 puzzle, as the process is exactly the same. When the first two layers are correctly solved, the puzzle should look like this:

Next, we solve all the faces adjacent to the first face that was chosen for the star. Essentially, we are making a solid color on all the sides that we partially solved in the previous step. The megaminx should look like, from both a top and down perspective.

At this point, the only unsolved faces are ones adjacent to the face opposite from the one that we initially solved the star on, and the opposite face itself. Since we started with the silver face, the black face is our opposite side. We fill in the middle layers, similarly to how we did in with pairing the edges with the corners in the second step. This leaves us with just the last layer to solve.

Now that we just have the last layer to solve, we start by creating a star on the face with the black center and aligning the edges with the centers adjacent to the face.

After creating the star, we make the top face a solid color by rotating the corners so the black color faces upward.

The last step to solve the megaminx is to move the corners to their corresponding positions. At this point, any color that is not aligned with any of the center pieces needs to be moved so that its colors match the surrounding pieces. Completing this step solves the puzzle.

Overall, solving the megaminx is fairly similar to the process for solving a standard 3×3, but some steps need to be repeated due to the larger number of sides. You solve the star and first two layers first, which is exactly the same process as the 3×3, Next, the next two middle layers need to be solved, following a process that is similar to solving the original middle two layers of the puzzle. After solving all the middle layers, it is just the last layer that needs to be solved, again like the 3×3. In the next blog entry, we will discuss two of my personal favorite puzzles, that are much quicker to solve: the 2×2 and the pyraminx.

Passion Blog 4: The 5×5

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In this blog entry, we can finally look at solving the 5×5 Rubik’s Cube! Surprisingly enough, despite having more pieces the 5×5 is actually simpler to solve than the 4×4 due to being an odd-numbered puzzle. Let’s start by scrambling the puzzle!

Similarly to the 4×4, we start by building the inner square of the puzzle on each side. The main difference, however, is that the 5×5 has designated center pieces, like the 3×3. This means that no matter how we rotate the puzzle, the center pieces will always be in the same position relative to each other. This makes solving the inner center easier than the 4×4 because we know where to build the inner squares, whereas in the 4×4 we had to remember the correct orientation of the standard centers to build the inner blocks.

After solving the inner centers, we have to complete edge pairing. The process is exactly the same as the 4×4 but has to be repeated twice because on the 4×4 each edge is 2×1 blocks, whereas on the 5×5 each edge is 3×1 blocks due to the inner center being 3×3 blocks. After completing edge pairing, the puzzle should look like this:

The next steps are again similar to the 4×4: solve the puzzle exactly like a 3×3! The paired edge blocks can be treated as a standard 3×3 edge piece, and the inner 3×3 center blocks can be treated as a normal center piece. Like normal, we start with the cross

And next we solve the corners and middle edges:

Finally, we are at the last layer. If you remember with the 4×4, parity was possible, where an edge piece has to be flipped or rotated using a special algorithm that does not exist on the 3×3. However, because this is a 5×5 which has designated centers, this cannot occur. This means solving the last layer is exactly the same as the 3×3 with nothing extra required! 

Because the 5×5 does not need you to memorize where each center should be positioned, as well as not needing parity, it is considered simpler than the 4×4. The set of rules for solving a 4×4 and 5×5 can be used to solve ANY cubic puzzle, no matter how large. You always start by solving the inner centers, then pair the edges, and from there solve it like a 3×3. The only caveat is on the even-numbered puzzles you can get parity, so an additional two algorithms are required. Because the pattern is the same for any cubic puzzle, for the next blog we will shift to a new type of puzzle: the megaminx, a twelve-sided puzzle with hexagon sides.