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By Kristelle Joy Festin, Special to The
Manila Times
Get more frustrated. Test your patience. Beware,
it’s back.
The hit craze of the 1970s and 1980s Rubik’s
Cube is now taking hold once again this 2008. Demand for
multi-colored box is soaring as today’s generation starts twisting
and turning their Cubes upside down to any possible direction in
pursuit of its completion.
“Playing the Rubik’s Cube is fun yet very
frustrating,” says Noreen Joyce Tañedo, a third-year-engineering
student. She has been playing the Cube since the start of the second
semester and has put her patience into test since then.
“I don’t sleep unless I complete at least a
phase of it,” she says in between shy giggles. She recalls how her
mind gets twisted as she turns the sides of her Cube adding: “I
usually end up with a headache.”
Provincial Cubes
Just as this techno-colored Cube floods every
streets and corners of Metro Manila, from the most expensive shops
in the malls to the cheapest imitations available in tiangge,
Rubik’s Cube has started its way toward the farthest of the
provinces.
Tañedo of Batangas State University recalls the
day when she got hooked in this mind craze.
“I went to school and saw almost all of my
classmates holding this multi-colored Cube and they were seriously
twisting it,” she says. Aside from curiosity and the challenge the
Rubik’s Cube brings, she confesses that the sense of belongingness
is what really hooked her.
“All of my friends are into it, so I can’t
help but to indulge myself in the same activity,” the Batangueña
student admits.
Tañedo shares that a lot of her time was spent
with the Cube that when she finally completed it, she almost had her
heart jumped out of happiness.
“It was really satisfying to complete a
Rubik’s Cube especially after a long time of trying with all of
frustrations and pressures around you,” she says adding: “It’s
as if you have finally overcome the challenge.”
Tañedo says that now that she has mastered the
art of turning and twisting this mind challenge, she becomes one of
the “stars” in their class.
“Before, I used to come to my friends and ask
for help, but now, they are the ones who come to me for help,”
says Tañedo.
Twisting Rubik’s
Invented in the spring of 1974 in Budapest,
Hungary by Erno Rubik, the Rubik’s Cube is meant to explain the
complexities of a three-dimensional geometry. However, aside from
proving the mathematical theory, it turned out to be one of the
world’s best selling toys ever created. In 1980s alone, an
estimated one-fifth of the world’s population was recorded to have
been rocked by the colorful Cube.
Initially called Magic Cube, the vibrant toy was
renamed to Rubik’s Cube by the Ideal Toy Corporation in 1980.
Like today’s computer games, the Rubik’s
Cube comes with its own cheat list. In competitions for speed
cubing, some of the common techniques used include Fridrich Method,
F2La Alternatives, ZB Method, VH Method and Petrus System.
Explanations and other techniques are now in access thru the
Internet and other books in solving a Rubik’s Cube.
Getting crazier, the Rubik’s Cube comes back
with innovations that are totally hooking. From smiley faces and
cartoon characters to simple romantic thoughts, Rubik’s is no
longer the ordinary multi-colored Cube everyone has been twisting
of. It has become an expression of a culture and a manifestation of
personality and character.
Lester Santos, moderator of the Philippine
Cubers Association, shares the fascinating evolution of Rubik’s
Cube in the Philippines. He says that way back in the 1980s, people
perceive the colorful Cube as something that “can’t be
solved.” He explains that because of it, they never tried to solve
it and thought that turning and twisting it is just a waste of time.
He explains that during that time, tutorials and cheats in solving
the Cube are not yet available. He adds that another problem with
the Rubik’s in that time was its absence locally saying “How
would people play the Rubik’s Cube if they don’t have one?”
Santos gives large credit to the innovations of
technology saying that the “internet brought scattered cubers
together.” He also says that through the communication and
accesses the Internet offers, tutorials and cheats are just a click
away making the Rubik’s Cube a certified hit.
Philippine Cubers Association claims to be a
non-stock, non-profit, national organization for Filipino Cubers. It
is the official organization entrusted and duly recognized by the
World Cube Association to promulgate the competitive hobby/sport
called Speed cubing in the Philippines. The association is the body
that will breed quality Filipino speed cubers that will represent
the Philippines in International Speed cubing competitions.
With cubing groups, clans, and associations on
the loose, festivities and competitions are just common activities
for people hooked by the Cube.
On May 3, with an average speed of 12.94
seconds, Edouard Chambon bagged the first prize in the Barcelona
Open 2008 for speed cubing. In 2006, Leyan Lo set the world record
for speed cubing with dashing 11.13 seconds.
Packed with more designs, crazy imitations, and
more frustrations, the Rubik’s Cube has definitely made a
comeback.
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