Resolution Settings In Cube World

Which is the fastest method to solve a Rubik's cube?

I actually don't agree with Joshua Bloch. He quoted Alexander Lau "methods don't have speed". I think methods do have limits. You can always improve your speed of executing a method, but if the method is inherently bad then you are not going to be efficient.I found this bachelor's thesis (Page on diva-portal.org) on comparing different methods for 3x3x3 cube. The paper use (1) beginner's method, (2) CFOP, (3) Roux and (4) ZZ to solve a 3x3x3 cube 100,000 times. I summarize the results for move count below.(1) Beginner's Method - average 134.61, min 7, max 227(2) CFOP -average 54.31, min 10, max 70(3) Roux -average 56.09, min 8, max 81(4) ZZ -average 59.35, min 5, max 79One caveat: It doesn't necessarily mean that CFOP is the most efficient when executed by a human though. When you do OLL and PLL you often need to turn the top layer to your preferred angle. Also when you're doing F2L sometimes you do a couple of y and y', so I'd add about 4 moves to CFOP here. The advantage of ZZ if that you don't need to rotate the cube when doing F2L, but you still need to rotate the cube for COLL. Assuming you are able to do EPLL from all 4 angles, I would add 1.5 moves to ZZ. I'm not familiar with Roux so please comment if you have any insight in Roux.Apart from move count, I think there are two factor that limit human's speed--how hard it is to look ahead, and how finger-trick friend the algos are. I think CFOP definitely is definitely better than Roux by these 2 criteria, and might be slightly worse in look-ahead compared to ZZ. But given it's lower move count, I'd vote for CFOP for the best method in terms of potential to be the fastest.

How long does it take to 3D print an item?

It depends on a few things:Type of printingSpeed of the printer head for FDMSize of the printQuality of the print and infill settingsThere are a few different types of printers, the main ones being FDM, which is what you usually see with a head melting plastic and depositing it in layers, and SLA which is a projector under some photosensitive plastic that hardens when light shines on it.Typically SLA is typically a lot faster to print, but you need to use certain chemicals with it to clean off the prints after you are done printing.  The Formlabs Form 2 prints at about 2x faster than most prints, but this is excluding all the time needed to clean off the parts.  SLA is also interesting because it allows to print whole layers at a time, so the speed of the print is actually only about how tall the print is.FDM printer speed is more about the volume of the print, since the printer head has to cover every bit of place.  Printers that are FDM are printers such as the printer that Toybox uses for their toys, and the Makerbot Ultimaker. These printers are generally cheaper to buy but take a little longer to print depending on their print area.Toybox claims to be able to print a 2x4 Lego brick in about 4 minutes, the Ultimaker is about the same.  But as you scale, since it is in 3d space, the time grows as a cubic function to the size of the print.  In short its pretty much just based on the volume of the print.  Where as the Form2 printer will just be a function of the height.You can speed this up by changing certain settings such as infill, which fills your 3d prints with plastic, or by setting your printer speed to go faster, but making your printer faster generally decreases the quality of your prints, and the chance of error.So for typical FDM prints here are some ideas of how fast you can print an object.2x4 lego: 4 minutesCell Phone Case: 20 minutesBaseball (With infill 15%): 2 hoursThose are some quick examples, if you have something specific in mind I can share how long it takes for my Toybox printer to print it.  It really depends on quite of a few variables.Hope this helps!