Back in December 2014 I took my wife on a trip to New York to celebrate her 40th birthday. It was an awesome trip. We did all the touristy stuff, saw friends and family,and even caught a free 60 minute live pop up concert in Times Square with U2, Coldplay and Bruce Springsteen (really).
One of the things that sticks with me though is going to the MoMA Design Store and whilst browsing the fascinating wares on offer I came across a Rubiks Cube. This was the new version though, with coloured plastic squares rather than the peelable stickers that the original cube had. In other words, no more cheating.
I remember having my very own Rubiks Cube in the early 80’s and not being able to solve it, despite many attempts trying to figure it out intuitively. I never resorted to peeling off the stickers and sticking them back on in the correct order. Nah, I just took it apart and reassembled it correctly.
Now, seeing one again after 30 years, I had to buy it, and I promised myself that I would learn to solve it once and for all.
I got back home and spent days reading up articles and watching endless YouTube videos. It turned out that the only way of solving it was learning different algorithms for each stage of the solution. There was no intuitive method. Even the worlds greatest speed cubers memorise algorithms that are so well practiced that they manage to solve it in under 10 seconds.
My aim was to try and do it in under 5 minutes.
I spent a couple of weeks finding the algorithms that I could work best with, noting them down on a couple of sheets of paper, then spent all of my spare time practicing.
It took me probably around three weeks, and I went from 15 minute solve times down to 10, then to 8, then to 5, then to 3, and finally managed to do it in under 2 minutes one day.
Boom, I was happy and achieved something that I never thought would happen. The joy I felt was overwhelming, and no matter how many times I sat down and solved the cube after that first time I felt a sense of satisfaction every time.
It’s amazing that all I needed was determination, patience, practice, and a realisation that it is never too late to do something for the first time. How many of you out there played around with a Rubiks cube back in the day and never managed to solve it?
Now is your chance to give it another go. See if you can beat my time of 2 minutes.