2803
Rubik's World Speed Cubing Championship
Speed Cubing
Article by: © Michael J. Rosen 2012
"Puzzles May Be Made Smoother Internally by Sanding or Using Any Lubricant."
Erno Rubik, Hungarian inventor, sculptor, architecture professor, and inventor of the Rubik's Cube, once said:
Space always intrigued me, with its incredibly rich possibilities, space alteration by (architectural) objects, objects' transformation in space (sculpture, design), movement in space and in time, their correlation, their repercussion on mankind, the relation between man and space, the object and time. I think the CUBE arose from this interest, from this search for expression and for this always more increased acuteness of these thoughts.
to which everyone within earshot responded, "Yeah...for YOU, maybe."
Fortunately for the 263 competitors representing 33 countries at the 25th Rubik's World Speed Cubing Championship in Budapest, learning to pronounce növelt élesség (Hungarian for "increased acuteness") was not a pre-requisite.
There was, however, blind cubing, in which blindfolded, 14-year-old Hungarian Matyas Kuti solved 18 successive cubes in just over 46 minutes, disproving the age-old adage, "Keep your eyes on the cube."
There was the foot-solving event, in which another old adage, "You know what they say about big feet..." failed to help competitors in the least.
And then there was the classic 3 x 3-cube event: The overall winner, 16-year-old Yu Nakajima, solved 5 consecutive cubes in an average of 12.46 seconds.
What separates champion cubers from those of us who thought the cube, along with Cabbage Patch Kids, slap bracelets, and women's shoulder pads, disappeared in the 80s, is not just knowledge, but practice. For example, Andrew Kang, who once solved 3,800 cubes in a day, became the U.S. Rubik's Cube champion while still in high school. He typically practiced cubing three to six hours per day, which still left him plenty of solving life's other puzzles, such as finding a college with a Rubik's Cube major.
Kang also recommends:
- Lubricate your cube.
- Examine the cube ahead of time, and try to discern patterns in the puzzle.
- Solve the puzzle layer by layer (think: Three-layer cake) rather than side by side (don't think: Dozens of cupcakes).
- Remember that edges remain edges, corners remain corners, and center squares maintain their relationship to one another.
"A lot people think it's a gift that some people can learn things faster than other," Kang says, "but it's just a matter of how much effort you put in." Skipping two meals a day to practice should suffice.
Speed Cubing Simulation
Cubers work with tremendous velocity and precision, because they're penalized if any layer of a solved puzzle is even slightly misaligned. To get a better idea of this speed and dexterity-such as solving the classic cube in a world record time of 7.08 seconds, like Erik Akkersdijk of the Netherlands ) - try this simple test.
- Make sure that you are alone.
- Now, hold your hands out in front of you as if you're holding a Rubik's Cube.
- Twiddle your fingers as fast as you can, occasionally flick your wrists as if you were turning the cube.
- Once you've finished solving your imaginary puzzle-perfectly aligning the colors on each face-place it on the table, stand up, look around to make sure that you're still alone, throw your hands triumphantly into the air, and congratulate yourself.
While this test may give you some sense of the dexterous speed with which cubers actually work, you're now about as qualified to compete in one of the hundred World Cube Association's annual events as your air-guitar sessions are to earn you a chance to sit in with Metallica.
To solve a Rubik's Cube, you merely need to find the one correct configuration out of a total of 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possibilities. Need more advice? See www.worldcubeassociation.org.
No Dribbling the Squid
The above article is just one of a collection of off-beat articles on 2camels from Michael J. Rosen's wonderful No Dribbling the Squid - your front-row seat to 70 of the world's most mind-blowing feats of strength, endurance, and eccentricity.
For more info check out the No Dribbling the Squid website, Facebook fan page or Michael's very own website.
Purchase No Dribbling the Squid now from Amazon.com
Purchase No Dribbling the Squid now from Amazon.co.uk
More Rubik's World Speed Cubing Championship
