whole puzzle rotations of the megaminx

[RobinHankin]

as it stands, it is impossible to turn the whole megaminx bodily because the central pentagonal facets are assumed to be fixed. To implement this we would need a facet number for each of the 12 central pentagonal facets. This is problematic: we cannot use 1-12 [which would be consistent with the numbering shown in the megaminx net diagram] because, annoyingly, numbers 10,11,12 correspond to facets on face 1. Not sure of the best way forward.

[RobinHankin]

the best way forward, I think, is to tack the pentagonal facets on the end of the movable ones. so we would have 130-141 inclusive. so 130 -> 1, 131 -> 2, ..., 141 -> 12. Might be better to skip 130 and have 131 -> 1, 132 ->2, ..., 142 -> 12 though.

[RobinHankin]

We would need names for the solid-body rotations. Consider a clockwise rotation by one-fifth of a turn about the axis from the white face to the gray face (this would turn the red face blue). We could not call this W, as that is reserved for "turn the white face one click clockwise". Lower case w doesn't seem right, because I would expect upper case letters to be whole body rotations and lower case letters to be single faces.

[RobinHankin]

One massive bonus for including whole-body rotations is that we can represent manipulations which are rotating all the megaminx except for one facet. For example, given START we could hold the white face still and rotate the rest of the toy clockwise by one click. This would be equivalent to turning the white face clockwise one click, then rotating the whole toy anticlockwise one click. That would be good.