Month completed: July 2007

The Rubik’s Cube is one of the most iconic puzzles ever invented. If there was ever one puzzle I wanted to learn how to do, it was the Cube.

Given the nerdiness of this goal, I nicknamed it ‘The Square vs The Cube’.

But I thought I should take it to the next level – not just learn how to do the Cube, but learn how to do it pretty quickly. 183 seconds seemed like a reasonably quick time, and had a nice tie in with Project 183.

Before trying to do it in under the 183 second mark, I had to learn how to do it. Solving the Cube is done through completing in order a bunch of different moves (or algorithms, as I nerdily like to call them). You can learn the moves here but there are plenty of other places you can go, and even tutorial videos on YouTube.

During my trip to Europe in July I took my newly-purchased Cube with me (much to Nat’s displeasure). The first time I solved it was when we were waiting in line at Dubai airport passport control (BTW, Dubai passport control wasn’t a pleasant experience – but I digress).

After I could do it a few times by memory, I started the process of improving my time taken to complete it, from 15 minutes to 10 to 6 to 4. The first time I did it in under 183 seconds was in my hotel room in Paris, but since then I have done it quite a few times under the 183 second mark. Nat loves me nerdily playing with the Cube!

Below is a video of me doing the Cube in just under the goal completing time. This was a fun and very satisfying goal – and if you would like a personal demo one day, just let me know. I love showing off!

Footnote – I don’t consider using an instructional website as cheating. I had to practise for weeks to memorise the moves in order without looking at my notes, and then even more time practising to do the moves in under three minutes. I would love to hear from anyone who completed the Cube without any form of assistance, because in my books, you would have to be a genius.