Rubik's Cube

The puzzles, games, toys, and of course candy are pretty regular draws for students in my office. Over the past few days students have been discussing what toy is their favorite from the choices that are in my office. The Rubik’s Cube is one that frequently frustrates and yet appeals to a lot of students just the same. Here are some interesting Rubik’s cube facts according to the website listafterlist.com and the website recordholders.org.

The Fastest: 9.18 seconds by Edouard Chambon of France

The Fastest Blindfolded: 1 minute, 0.62 seconds by Alexander Yu of the U.S.

Most Cubes while Blindfolded: 10 by Dennis Strehlau of Germany

The Fastest One-Handed: 15.81 seconds by Thibaut Jacquinot of France

The Fastest with Feet Only: 39.88 seconds by Anssi Vanhala of Finland

Most Cubes Solved in 24 Hours: 3,390 by Zbigniew Zborowski of Poland

The Youngest Solver in Competition: Enxi Xie of China, 4.5 yrs old, solved in 1 minute 28.06 seconds

Underwater with no breathing equipment: Dan Harris, 6 cubes in 4 minutes, 10 seconds

So, while I find these facts interesting, I have to wonder – exactly WHAT were they procrastinating from doing?!? Seriously, how bored must you be to try to come up with the idea to solve a Rubik’s Cube with your feet or to take it underwater or to spend 24 hours non-stop trying to solve it, but whatever – it made my blog and plenty of other websites so I guess it was worth it. And the 4 and a half year old little kid who can solve it in less than a minute and a half… well, doesn’t that just make the rest of us who struggle to solve it feel stupid. :-) Oh well, it is still fun to try to figure out even if it is far far away from a world record.

(Thanks to Miss Schwartz for finding this Rubik’s Cube information…)

One additional note for seniors – tomorrow (Wednesday) you have a class meeting. All other grades will be on a regular bell schedule, but seniors will be released from 2nd period 10 minutes early and you will return to 3rd period about 20 minutes late.