Community Draft · v0.1 · Review Prototype
A proposed positional notation and reproducible scrambling system for the ShengShou Q-Platypus, written for the speedsolving community — borrowing the FTO community's position-based labeling convention and applying it to the Q-Platypus's own geometry.
This is a proposed unofficial notation and scrambling standard for the ShengShou Q-Platypus puzzle. It is not an official World Cube Association event or WCA notation standard. The purpose of this project is to create a clear, reproducible notation and scrambling system for community speedsolving.
Every position label below assumes the puzzle is held exactly this way. Fix the orientation first — the same way FTO solvers agree on a "corner in front" grip before naming any face.
Pick up the puzzle and rotate it until the white tip points straight up and the green tip points directly at your chest. Every other position — R, BR, B, BL, L, D — is defined relative to this one grip and never changes.
Held in reference orientationB, BL, BR, and D are on the far / underside — not visible from this angle
With the puzzle in reference orientation, each of the eight tips gets a fixed positional letter.
This mirrors the FTO convention of eight fixed positional labels (U, F, R, BR, B, BL, L, D) assigned once from a single reference grip, rather than six cube-style faces.
Critical concept: position, not color. F means "the tip currently occupying the Front position" — not "the green tip." Green is only used to find Front while establishing the reference orientation in the first place.
Colors are shown throughout this page purely because they make the orientation easy to read at a glance. Once you're mid-solve, F still means Front even if you're thinking about it abstractly rather than looking for green.
All eight positions at once, flattened into a top-down layout so nothing is hidden. U sits at the hub (you're looking straight down its axis); the six side tips ring around it; D is called out separately since it's the one direction this view can never show.
Geometry note — please verify. The Q-Platypus's product listing describes it as solving "similarly to a Jing's Pyraminx," while a verified buyer review describes it as "an exact shape mod of a Redi Cube." Available product photography clearly shows only three arms plus the top cap from any single angle; the remaining back-side arms are never in frame together.
The diagrams on this page are built from what's actually visible in reference photos (rounded hub, tapered cylindrical arms, domed tips) and a same-color-per-position simplification for clarity. If you own a Q-Platypus, additional photos of the back/underside would help confirm the exact arm geometry for BL, B, BR, and D.
One card per face. Each shows which tip turns, its axis, the clockwise direction, and the reference color used to identify it.
These two are the easiest to mix up in a long scramble string. Compare them directly: BR is blue and sits on the solver's right side of the back; BL is red and sits on the solver's left side of the back.
Following the FTO convention: a plain letter is a single 120° clockwise turn, viewed straight-on from that tip. An apostrophe reverses it.
A single 120° turn, looking directly at the F tip from outside the puzzle.
The apostrophe (prime) reverses it: 120° the other way, same viewing angle.
The full set of sixteen legal moves — eight faces, each clockwise or counterclockwise. Rendered as individual tokens so no move can be misread inside a long string.
Generates a random scramble under the proposed rules below.
Scramble length: 25 moves.
Uses the eight positional faces: U F R BR B BL L D.
Each move may be clockwise or counterclockwise. Chosen independently and at random.
No 2 notation in canonical scrambles — see Turn Direction above.
No immediate repeats of the same face. F ... F back-to-back is disallowed, regardless of direction.
Optional. Steps through the current scramble one move at a time with a big diagram — useful while BR, BL, and friends are still unfamiliar. Shares its position with the stepper above.
Generate a scramble above, then enable trainer mode to step through it.
A template for documenting solves. This table — and this entire notation — carries no affiliation with or recognition by the World Cube Association.
| Date | Solver | Time | Scramble | Video | Witness | Notes |
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