I came downstairs one morning to find this delightful puzzle waiting for me. My jaw dropped open when I initially saw it, and I knew I had to get a photo.

See, I have been practicing my Rubik's Cube skills for a few months/years now. At work, to give my brain something to do while I'm sitting on conference calls all day, I have a set of speed cubes on my desk: I have a 2x2x2, 3x3x3 (the standard size), 4x4x4, 5x5x5, 6x6x6, 7x7x7, and I even have a 9x9x9 that Angela bought for me... for really long meetings.

I have a 4x4x4 that I keep at home (pictured here), and I usually leave it lying around in the solved state. Sometimes the kids mess it up for me and challenge me to solve it. Usually they just turn the faces randomly.

This time, someone had clearly turned the faces non-randomly... and what really astonished me was that I had never seen this pattern before! The challenge was on to find out how to solve it without resorting to the algorithms I usually use. It took me a while, but eventually I figured it out.

I'm sure the "mystery cube scrambler" was Aila. Anyway, I wanted to share as I really enjoyed solving this puzzle she left for me.

Technical Details: This photo was taken with my Moto G.