I have constructed a tactile cube by epoxying buttons, snaps, paper
clips and Q-tip stems to a store-bought cube.

It takes me about 20 minutes to solve with my eyes closed as opposed
to about 5 minutes with my eyes open. Maybe Conway cheats in his
5 look solution by feeling colors.

I minimize search times by always working faces in a fixed order
and by orienting colors (i.e. textures) before moving cubies on the
last face. But the ability to see (i.e. feel) the back of the cube
doesn't compensate for my as yet poorly developed tactile pattern
recognizer.

- Roger Frye