Learning the Ropes: My Novice Journey to Problem Solving - Blog 1: Daydreaming, Random Thoughts, and Tetris Effect
Tags: learning, science, mind, web
Published: 2024-02-25 12:58:48

---
title: Learning the Ropes: My Novice Journey to Problem Solving - Blog 1: Daydreaming, Random Thoughts, and Tetris Effect
published: true
description: Exploring effective learning strategies through personal reflections and experiences.
tags: #learning #science #mind #web
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5tb3yqh6ilb609nf8mi6.jpeg
---

**Initial Note**: This blog was not generated by ChatGPT or any other AI tool. Everything that I've shared here is from my own experience, and also, I'm not promoting anything here. Being an introvert, I have a hard time coming out and starting my blogging journey. But, I've decided to take the plunge and write `my first blog`, which I've finally finished. Any suggestions from your side are much appreciated. If you enjoyed this blog, please share your thoughts below.

 - My drawings are bad, so please bear with them.

_**The hour hand reached 8:00 AM**_ -
"Vasudev... The driver is here. He has been waiting for you to get inside the car." I knew that voice, so familiar. It's been with me since I was a toddler. Yeah, it's my dad and my inspiration.

![Clock](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ia4dxxkaqcmxi5lu4ic6.jpeg)

I had been packing my bags and thinking about which book to bring along for the journey to **Vizag**, one of the most beautiful cities in India. If I recall my childhood memories, I can still feel the gentle touch of the beach waves on my feet, expanding my thinking horizons. It was one of the best experiences of my childhood.

From my childhood, I was more into playing and watching cricket all the time. Despite being skeptical about a lot of things, I slowly got interested in `maths` and `science-related topics` and `programming`. Moreover, I started seeing certain patterns and doing things smartly.

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## 💭 🌌 Daydreaming and Random Thoughts

The way our brain processes information is unique, and sometimes, I can't express the feeling of how we perceive the world. It's so bizarre too.

**Incident 1 - My car is a shredding machine**: Last time when I was driving my car on the highway, there were dotted lines in the middle of the road. For a moment, they seemed like `solid white papers` stuck on the road, with my moving car resembling a `shredding machine` that could shred that solid paper to fill the `potholes` available on the road.

![Shredding Car](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/td7por9yy843g4amv701.jpeg)

**Incident 2 - Remove the Dust**: When I was a child, I often found myself on dusty ground in my new clothes, which ended up fully smeared with dust after completing the last cricket match. I knew what would happen when I reached home. Trying to clean myself, I grabbed some leaves to dust off my clothes by lightly beating them. Recently, I revisited those memories and glanced out of my apartment window. I could see the tallest white building around my area and the trees next to it appeared quite small. My mind wandered, imagining the building covered in dust and **what if the trees were large enough to reach the building** and beat the walls to remove the dust, similar to what I did in a childhood incident.

![Remove Dust](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dh4ldbv3alz7mcfwxnix.jpeg)

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_**The minute hand reached 8:15 AM** -_
We had started the journey and I was thinking about solving a couple of puzzles when I came across one in a YouTube video: `How can you make 4 equilateral triangles with 6 sticks?` If you want, you can try it yourself. The answer is at the end of the blog.

![Journey](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/im8vssxge5bbr43hmcec.jpeg)

![6-Sticks](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/j6xq1fr4h5mi38du0xfd.jpeg)

For some time, the sticks had been floating inside my head as I searched for opportunities to arrange them in such a way that we could find the answer. After a couple of minutes, it came to me. At that moment, satisfaction filled me as the solution became clear.

## 🧩 Tetris Effect
While we were heading to **Vizag**, I came across this mega gated community called `KVR`. At first glance, I didn't give much attention to the community that was under construction, but I had seen the `KVR` name before. For me, it looked like a bunch of sticks arranged in a way to form a three-letter word.

![KVR](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7u6s2ki08ix3qwns17j9.jpeg)

I knew it wasn't related to anything in my life, but I could see a similar pattern a few days back when I was searching for **effective learning methods**. As you know, our brain retains information more effectively when it holds personal importance or emotional significance to us.

The best way to stick things inside your mind for the long term is:

![Effective Learning](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/eehquu1oqul225ya1k4p.png)

**Example**: There's a principle in Engineering Mechanics known as [Lami's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lami%27s_theorem) Theorem (or) the **Sine Rule**. It explains that "_When three forces acting at a point are in equilibrium, then each force is proportional to the sine of the angle between the other two forces_". My intention isn't to delve into technical details here. But imagine this is the type of information you're interested in. Let's translate this concept into something familiar:

1. Imagine a hanging cloth with three forces: the anchors on both ends and the force of gravity acting on the cloth itself. Picture this in a diagram. It's practical and a visual that can stick with you for the long term.

2. Consider the fidget spinner as an example. It's just for pattern-matching purposes, resembling the diagram of [Lami's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lami%27s_theorem) theorem.

![Lami's Theorem](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0say0xm7q5i6ifneais0.jpeg)

**So, you have to do 3 steps**:

1) Information
2) Translation
3) Representation

Make sure that you add emotions to that topic with your senses. Yeah! Now I got it where I had seen similar patterns. It's this: the first letter of these 3 steps, `ITR`.

![ITR](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/2dv911dep5ieezouerti.jpeg)

I know what you are thinking. It is also a 3-letter word and what's special about this? But, I think It's more than that. As I said before, the word `KVR` looked like a bunch of sticks arranged something like that. If you can carefully see if these were just wooden sticks, you rearrange the K letter to form I and the V letter to form T, and R remains unchanged.

![ITR](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/0gq0ger8f7k1yzxti4o2.jpeg)

What I did is similar to what's known as the [Tetris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect) effect. The [Tetris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect) effect is _a psychological phenomenon that occurs when people spend so much time and focus on an activity that it begins to influence their thoughts, mental images, and dreams._ This effect can enhance **automatic thinking**, improving your **pattern recognition** and **problem solving** skills.

**Example**: Chess players may experience the [Tetris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect) effect as they visualize potential moves and positions on the board even when they are not playing a game.

![Tetris](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4cwiglys0kpvl9mkejc6.jpeg)
**Image credits**: [Wired-Tetris](https://www.wired.com/story/tetris-effect-tetsuya-mizguchi-virtual-reality/)

Here, the known word `KVR` helped me remember `ITR` with pattern recognition ability. Have you experienced this kind of phenomenon before? If so, what was it?...

---

**Question**: How can you make 4 equilateral triangles with 6 sticks?
**Answer**: Triangular Pyramid (3 sides and 1 base)

![Pyramid](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qvgq8h3g8gkxu3b1ip65.jpeg)

---

## 👍 Acknowledgment:

1. Thanks to [Oleksii Trekhleb](https://github.com/trekhleb) for his wonderful tool, [OkSo App](https://okso.app/).
2. You can share beautiful images of your source code using the [Carbon](https://carbon.now.sh/) tool.
3. Would you like to know more about the ITR approach? Then, you can check out this wonderful video [The Sirianni Method](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpvEY-2dSdU&t=5s) by **@State-Of-Mind** YouTube channel.

## 🔚 Conclusion:

That's all for this blog. In my upcoming blogs, I'll share more of my experiences with all of you, including how we can effectively learn DSA, web development, and other computer science topics with the ITR approach. Until then, see you. ⭐️ Happy learning! ⭐️

Thank you for reading this post. Have a Nice Day!

Feel free to reach out to me, and let's connect! 😊

## 🔗 Links

[![twitter](https://img.shields.io/badge/twitter-1DA1F2?style=for-the-badge&logo=twitter&logoColor=white)](https://twitter.com/vasudev617)[![github](https://img.shields.io/badge/github-0A66C2?style=for-the-badge&logo=github&logoColor=white)](https://github.com/Vasudevatirupathinaidu)[![Dev Vinci Lab](https://img.shields.io/badge/YouTube-%23FF0000.svg?style=for-the-badge&logo=YouTube&logoColor=white)](https://www.youtube.com/@vasudev16180)