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3D Pyraminx Puzzle Simulator

Play with the online Pyraminx on your computer or on your phone.

Drag a sticker to turn that corner, or drag next to the puzzle to rotate the whole pyramid.

The buttons scramble the puzzle or switch to full screen.

➤ Online Solver
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Error messages appear here when the puzzle is not colored properly.
3D preview: drag to rotate
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⟲ ◀ ▶ » 2.0 s/move Back to scramble
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Pyraminx Solver

Calculate the shortest solution for any scrambled Pyraminx, at most 11 turns plus the tips.

Paint the colors of your puzzle onto the net, press Solve and follow the moves.

Use the palette, the turn buttons or a typed algorithm. Small letters turn the tips.

➤ Stopwatch
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Pyraminx Timer

Practice speedsolving on the pyramid!

Hold your Space button or the clock until it turns green, then release to start. Press again to stop.

With scramble generator and instant statistics.

➤ Tutorial

How to Solve the Pyraminx?

The beginner's method in four short steps: twist the tips and centers, build the bottom layer, cycle the last three edges, and flip whatever is left. Every diagram below shows the exact position it talks about.

A white-bodied Pyraminx balanced on its tip, one green face and one orange face showing

The Pyraminx was invented by Uwe Mèffert, and it is the friendliest puzzle in the whole twisty family. It has 75,582,720 possible positions - and once you ignore the trivial tips, only 933,120 of them really differ. Any scramble can be solved in at most 11 turns plus the tips, and most people learn the full method in an afternoon.

No pyramid at hand? Practice every step on our simulator, and let the solver rescue you if you get stuck.

R

How to Read the Moves

Pyraminx letters name the four corners, not the faces: U up, L left, R right and B back. A capital letter turns the two layers around that corner, a small letter (u l r b) turns only the little tip.

R
two layers together

r
the tip only

A plain letter turns clockwise as you look straight at that corner, an apostrophe (') turns counterclockwise. There are no double moves: two turns the same way equal one turn the other way.

The diagrams show the pyramid unfolded flat: the three side faces on top, the yellow bottom face below the middle. You can try any sequence on the net in our solver too.

💡

Know Your Pieces

Here is why the Pyraminx is so easy: the four tips and the four center pieces under them can only spin in place - they never wander off. The only pieces that actually travel are the six edges, highlighted below:

The color scheme is fixed by the centers, so you cannot get it wrong. In this tutorial we always hold the puzzle the same way: yellow face down, green face toward you, red on your left, blue on your right.

1

Tips and Centers

First the freebies. Turn each of the four tips so it matches the center piece directly under it - one little twist each:

three tips are twisted…

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…match them one by one

Now the centers. Hold yellow down: the three lower corners each hide a yellow sticker, so turn those corners (whole two-layer turns) until every yellow sticker points down. Then turn the top corner until its colors line up with the three side faces:

the top corner is twisted…

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…one turn fixes all three faces

These turns shuffle the edges - let them. Edges are the next two steps' job, and nothing can break the centers anymore.

Previous Step Next Step
2

The Bottom Layer

Keep yellow down. The goal: the three yellow edges solved around the bottom, each matching the face color above it:

Work slot by slot. Turn the puzzle so an empty slot faces you - its edge is the one colored yellow plus your front color. Find that edge in the top layer and turn the top corner (U or U') until it parks at the back. Now look at its yellow sticker:

yellow on the right side…

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…drops into the front slot

R U R' U'

yellow on the left side…

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…the mirror insert solves it

L' U' L U

Is the edge hiding in a wrong bottom slot instead? Lift it out with one turn of the left or the right corner, turn the top until it parks at the back, then turn that same corner straight back and insert it as above. Putting the corner back matters: a corner turn also spins the center piece inside it, and if you leave it turned the face will never finish. Use L or R rather than B - neither of them touches the back edge, so the corner can always go back without disturbing the edge waiting there.

When all three yellow edges are in, turn the top corner until the side colors line up again.

Previous Step Next Step
3

Place the Last Three Edges

Only the three top edges are left. Find the one whose two colors match your left and right faces - with our colors the red-blue edge. It belongs at the back, and where it sits right now decides everything:

red-blue at the front right…

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…one cycle places all three

R' U' L' U L R

red-blue at the front left…

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…the mirror cycle does it

R' L' U' L U R

Do not worry about which way the stickers face - only where the red-blue edge sits matters. After one cycle every edge is in its slot. Often the puzzle is now solved; if two edges show swapped colors, the last step fixes them. And if the red-blue edge already sits at the back, skip straight ahead.

Previous Step Next Step
4

Flip the Last Two Edges

Every edge is in its slot, but two of them sit with their colors swapped. Turn the puzzle so the correct edge is at the back and the two flipped ones face you:

two flipped edges in front…

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…solved!

L R' L' R U' R U R'

A shortcut worth learning. Sometimes step 3 greets you with a special picture: the two upper stickers facing you show the same color, and that color is the one on your left or on your right. Then skip the cycle and fire one of the two most famous Pyraminx algorithms:

twice the left color (red)

twice the right color (blue)

R U' R' U' R U' R'

solves the left case, and

R U R' U R U R'

solves the right one.

These two cases look the same from all three sides, so you never have to re-grip for them - one reason speedcubers love this puzzle.

If instead the two matching stickers show your front color, this is not the shortcut at all: those two edges are simply already the right way round. Carry on with the cycle above.

Previous Step Next
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What Next?

Congratulations - you can solve the Pyraminx! Fix the tips at the end of any solve with single twists, exactly like in step 1.

Now chase speed: the official world record single is 0.73 seconds (Simon Kellum, 2023), and with this very method a sub-20 solve is completely realistic. Practice against our timer, let the solver show you an optimal way out of any scramble, and read the Ruwix Pyraminx article for history, piece counts and faster methods.

Ready for a bigger challenge? Try the classic 3x3 cube, the pocket 2x2 or the big 4x4 next.

Ruwix Guide First Step
➤ Back to top

Online Pyraminx Puzzle Simulator, Solver, Timer and Tutorial

Free online 3D Pyraminx simulator, optimal solver, speedcube timer and a four-step tutorial for beginners.
The Pyraminx is the triangle-shaped cousin of the Rubik's Cube - and by far the easiest puzzle of the official speedcubing family.

The pyramid is older than the cube. 🔺 The German puzzle designer Uwe Mèffert carved his first prototype from wood back in 1971, found that friends would not put it down, and still left it in a drawer - there was no market for twisty puzzles yet. A decade later the Rubik's Cube changed that overnight: the Pyraminx launched in 1981, right in the middle of the craze, and went on to become one of the best-selling puzzles in history, with tens of millions of copies sold.

The numbers explain its charm. A Pyraminx has 75,582,720 possible positions, and because each of the four tips is a trivial one-twist piece, only 933,120 of them really differ. Any scramble can be solved in at most 11 turns plus the tips. The 3x3 cube, with its 43 quintillion positions, plays in a different league - which is exactly why the pyramid is the perfect place to start. Its cube-shaped counterpart, the equally quick Skewb, makes another great first puzzle.

Spin the pyramid in the simulator

The simulator at the top of the page is a full 3D Pyraminx. Drag any sticker and the two layers around that corner turn with it; grab a tip sticker and only the little tip twists. Drag next to the puzzle to orbit around it and inspect all four faces - the yellow bottom included. The Scramble button mixes it up with a realistic scramble, the Full button takes it to full screen, and nothing you do here can break anything, so twist away.

Stuck? The solver knows the shortest way out

Copy the colors of your scrambled Pyraminx onto the flat net in the solver - paint with the palette, use the turn buttons, or type a scramble like R U' L b - and press Solve. How does it find the answer? While the page sits idle, the solver explores the whole puzzle once: starting from the solved state it tries every turn, then every turn from those positions, and so on, until each of the 933,120 essential positions has been reached and labeled with its distance from solved. Your scramble is then just a lookup: read its distance, and keep playing the turn that brings it one step closer to zero. A path found this way is provably the shortest one: at most 11 turns for the body plus a single twist per tip, usually far fewer. Step through the moves at your own pace or let them play automatically, slow enough to follow on the real puzzle. And if a sticker combination is impossible, the solver tells you what looks wrong.

Race the clock

⏱️ Hold down the space bar - or the clock itself on a phone - until the display turns green, release to start, press again to stop. That is the same hold-to-start ritual as on competition timers. Every solve gets a fresh WCA-style scramble, and the statistics panel keeps what speedcubers actually care about: best, worst, average, and the rolling averages of 5 and 12 with the best and worst solves dropped. Your times stay saved in your browser between visits.

Learn the whole solution in four steps

🎓 The tutorial below teaches the beginner method in four short steps: twist the tips and centers, build the yellow bottom layer, cycle the last three edges into place, and flip whatever remains. Five short algorithms cover everything - none longer than eight moves - and every case comes with a diagram of the exact position. Most people learn the Pyraminx in a single afternoon.

Why is the Pyraminx the best first speed puzzle?

Here is how the pyramid compares to the classic cube:

Pyraminx3x3
Moving pieces620
Possible positions75,582,720about 43 quintillion
Worst case11 turns plus the tips20 moves
Record single0.73 s
Simon Kellum, 2023		2.76 s
Teodor Zajder, 2026

World records as recorded by the WCA, checked August 2026. They move often - the live list lives at worldcubeassociation.org.

OnlineCube.com also has the classic 3x3 cube, the pocket 2x2 cube and the big 4x4 cube, each with its own simulator, solver, timer and tutorial. Once the pyramid feels easy, the cubes are waiting for you.