Meet the cube's pieces
Learn which pieces the cube has, and that you solve pieces, not colours — the single most important idea in this guide.
Three kinds of piece
- 6 centres — one colour each. They never move relative to each other: the centre’s colour is the colour that face must become
- 12 edges — two colours each
- 8 corners — three colours each
An edge can never become a corner and a corner can never sit on an edge: each kind only moves among its own kind.
The white- green edge has exactly one “home”: between the white centre and the green centre, with its white sticker on the white side.
So solving the cube means bringing each piece home, facing the right way, one piece at a time, without breaking the pieces that are already home. It does not mean making one face a single colour. (Many beginners make a white face whose sides don’t match, because they looked at colours instead of pieces.)
🎨 Opposite colours (standard scheme)
Almost every standard cube uses this Western colour scheme. With yellow on top and green in front, orange is always on the right and red on the left.