Cubing Rocks!

Rubik, the Amazing Cube

Despite the fact that the modest Rubik's Cube had no narrative, personality, or sentience, ABC still ordered a full season of an animated series about it's adventures. "Rubik, the Amazing Cube" aired 13 episodes on Saturday mornings in 1983. The puzzle was given legs, a face and magical abilities.

To complete the 1980s-ness, Menudo was enlisted to perform the title song.

The world's best Rubik's speedcubers are in Australia to solve this tricky puzzle faster than ever before

The best Rubik’s speedcubers are warming up their fingers and concentrating their minds for the World Rubik’s Cube Championships, on in Melbourne, Victoria, July 11-14. Australian stars set to shine include Jack Cai, 20, from Melbourne and Feliks Zemdegs, 23, from Sydney, NSW, who both hold current world records, as well as Jayden McNeill, 21, from Canberra, ACT.

Until November, Feliks Zemdegs was the world record holder for the fastest single solve of a 3×3 cube. China’s Yusheng Du broke Felik’s record with a time of 3.47 seconds. Feliks still holds the world record (5.69 seconds) for the fastest average* time of solving five cubes. Feliks is the only speedcuber to ever win the world championships twice.

The Rubik's Cube - fun facts and history

• Not many know this, but it was originally called the "Magic Cube". The first Magic Cube was sold in a Budapest toy shop in 1975.
• It won Toy of the Year in 1980 and 1981. Over 350 million Rubik's Cubes have been sold worldwide - making it the bestselling toy of all time.
• With six sides representing nine blocks of a single color - orange, yellow, green, red, white, and blue - a Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible configurations. That is over 43 quintillion!!
• If you turned a Rubik's Cube once every second it would take you 1400 TRILLION YEARS to finish going through all the configurations.

In 1974, 30-year-old Ernő Rubik was a professor of architecture in Hungary when he had the idea of constructing a handheld puzzle game based on geometry that could help students understand spatial relations. The first prototypes made of wood blocks and paper clips were encouraging. Pairing with a toymaker in Hungary, Rubik saw his original Magic Cube get modest distribution. In 1980, when the Cube was licensed by Ideal Toy Company, developers changed the name to Rubik's Cube - they felt "Magic Cube" invoked ideas about witchcraft.

Teen solves 3 Rubik's Cubes simultaneously, sets world record

A teenager who first impressed people by solving three Rubik's cubes while juggling them is now back with another extraordinary feat. Que Jianyu from Xiamen, China, has created a Guinness World Record by solving three Rubik's cubes simultaneously, using his hands and feet.

A video which shows him solving three Rubik's cubes at once has garnered over 40,000 views since it was shared online on Thursday, along with a ton of amazed comments.

According to Guinness World Records, the 13-year-old set the fastest time to solve three Rubik's cubes simultaneously with both hands and feet in just 1 minute 36.39 seconds. He then also went on to break another record by solving a cube while hanging upside down in just 15.84 seconds!

Changes to the World Cube Association Regulations

Recently, the World Cube Association Regulations Committee have made changes to the regulations that govern competitive speedcubing which have gone into effect as of the 1st of January 2018. Some of the most notable changes include puzzles with any sort of logo now illegal for blind events, competitors are now allowed to use their hands to inspect the puzzle prior to solving with their feet, and competitors now being allowed to use any “pillowed” puzzle when previously only pillowed 7x7x7 were only legal.

Firstly puzzles with any sort of sticker logo are no longer permitted in blindfolded events. This means if a competitor had a sticker logo of any sort on their puzzle the solve would be counted as DNF (Did Not Finish). This even includes cube stickers with the logo as part of the sticker itself. This has caused Mofangge, the company that produces the Valk 3 and the Valk 3 Power, to respond in a statement offering people who purchased or have purchased a cube to receive an extra cap and an extra white sticker so the cube is legal in blind 3x3 solves. However, on stickerless cubes where the logo is on the actual puzzle this may prove to be a problem.

How long did it take you to solve your first Rubik's Cube?

My grandfather found his own solution after about half a year. He used the same sequence of moves that he repeated over and over again to solve the cube. The only thing he had to do was to rotate the cube from time to time, but in the end he would always manage to solve it.

Witnessing that, I felt that he was like a magician, so he decided to teach me how to solve it (I was five or six at the time, but my fascination was clear). He told me that doing this simple sequence made these two parts switch places, rotating these others counterclockwise while keeping them in place, and so on. So it was a meticulous project, as we always had to look very carefully before we started each sequence.

I’m positive I never would’ve found a solution without his tremendous help. Using his notes on the subject, I compared the methods, and found some effective shortcuts.

When I started to solve it in public, using this combined system, some cubers approached me, and we would help each other out, and therefore I’ve been able to perfect it even more. So, my answer? I used three months, but I feel I had an already-built foundation to build upon. By myself, I don’t think I would ever have learnt it.