Shotaro Makisumi can solve a Rubik's Cube faster than you can peel an orange. The 15-year-old finishes the puzzle in less than 13 seconds, making him a relative star in the small world of speed cubing. A rail-thin kid who wears a retainer and a fanny pack, Macky, as he's known to his friends and competitors, is something of a prodigy. Not only can he solve the Rubik's Cube in 13 seconds, he can do so blindfolded and one-handed. Last year, at his California high school's talent show, Macky completed the puzzle with one hand while juggling two balls with the other.
So, the question is, does a talent like that get the girls?
"No, not at this age," Makisumi says.
But what about here?
"Here?" Apparently he wasn't expecting the question. Makisumi spins a cube in his hand and chuckles. "Possibly."
Here is the 2005 Rubik's Cube World Championships, a two-day event held in the parking lot of Disney's newest "value" resort, Pop Century. The hotels are broken into decades — Classic Years, '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s — each one decked out with cheesy cultural icons of the day. The '80s complex, of course, is covered in Rubik's Cubes the size of condos, making Pop Century the perfect backdrop for the championships. Contestants from around the world competed in 13 events, including the marquee contest — the fastest time on the original 3×3 cube.
Invented by Hungarian professor Erno Rubik in 1974, the cube was introduced to America by his countrywoman Zsa Zsa Gabor six years later, setting off a craze that saw millions of Rubik's cubes purchased worldwide (and millions stashed in drawers a year later). The puzzle is math-based; the goal is to swivel colored pieces on the cube's six sides so that each side becomes a solid color. In a world controlled by Xboxes and PlayStations, the Rubik's Cube — which is on permanent display at New York's Museum of Modern Art — is undergoing a surprising resurgence. Spurred on by chat groups and websites, a new generation of "cubers" have picked up the puzzle. And last weekend at Disney, they hardly ever put it down.
Part Olympics, part Star Trek convention and part high school reunion, the championships offered a chance for folks who usually connect through wires to hang face-to-face. (When transitioning from a virtual to a real world, the make-believe world of Disney is the ideal go-between.) The group was diverse; competitors hailed from 24 countries. There were students and teachers, computer programmers and pizza delivery guys.
Mostly men, cubers have something else in common: They're a little on the obsessive side.
Throughout the two days, you couldn't take a step without hearing the clicking. In the hotel restaurant. In the audience during the competition. Everywhere you looked, someone was flipping pieces, twisting the colors at breakneck speed. At one point on Saturday night, long after the day's competition had ended, six cubers — farmer tans and all — traded a scuba mask in the pool so they could solve the thing underwater.
"I thought it was impossible at first," says Chris Hardwick, who maintains a speed cubing website when he's not in math classes at the University of North Carolina. "But when I saw the instructions on the Web, I was like 'Wow.' After that I discovered speed cubing, and it was all downhill."
"The moment you start timing yourself, you can't stop," echoes Dan Knights, the 2003 world champ. "You'll be timing yourself for the next 50 years."
Cubers use algorithms, or a series of specific moves, to solve the cube. Some memorize as many as 1,200 algorithms, enough to get them from any configuration to the next step as quickly as possible. Whether they're solving the traditional 3×3, the 4×4 or the 5×5 cubes, the system is essentially the same. Even when they solve with their feet — yes, you read that right — the twists and turns are premeditated.
But the cube isn't just a math puzzle, at least not to everyone. For Chris Parlette, a 21-year-old Christian from Baltimore, it's a way to explain his faith. Most cubers start solving by arranging the pieces on one side into a cross. It makes mathematical sense this way, but Parlette doesn't think it's a coincidence. Once you find the cross, he says, "Your life starts falling into place. Just like your cube."
"I don't see it as a puzzle," says Makisumi as he waits on the AstroTurf seating area in front of the stage. "It's a lifestyle." The Japanese-born Makisumi, who runs his own speed cubing website, is studying French so he can understand French cubing chatrooms. But school is 3,000 miles away. Right now, Makisumi is getting ready to solve a cube blindfolded — he'll take a minute or so to memorize the scrambled pieces, assigning a number to each one and planning out his moves before he closes his eyes.
For a 15-year-old, Makisumi is surprisingly comfortable talking to a reporter. The kid — and the subculture — have been getting an increasing amount of press, and two documentary crews have been following the speed cubing circuit for over a year. Cubers and Cubefreak — which is focusing on Makisumi specifically — are trying to emulate the success of cult-sport documentaries such as Spellbound and the Scrabble—focused Word Wars.
"It's all about that last piece to me," says Matt White, Cubefreak's director of photography and a newly obsessed cuber himself. For White, the cube is an insight into life — a 3-D representation of yourself and of the world. "We're all looking for that last piece behind the surface," he says.
And for Shotaro Makisumi, that last piece isn't being a world champion. In the blindfolded competition, and in the 3×3 main event — where he's heavily favored — Makisuki comes up short. The kid is 15, he has been practicing for the past four years — he was wearing a monogrammed "Speed Cuber Macky" hat, for God's sake — yet he seems only mildly disappointed after he loses. He walks off stage, does a few interviews and sits down with some friends.
And that's the point. For all the talent these folks have, the 2005 Rubik's Cube World Championships weren't about winning, at least not completely. As the final event ended, cubers grabbed each other for photos, posing like it was the last day of summer camp. Speed cubing is an isolated, online world. But for two days, you could actually hear the clicking.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2005.