Collection world record. Speedcubers and world records. The best in the business

Felix Zemdegs set the world record for solving a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube with two hands in one attempt

People have long lost hope of competing with robots in terms of the speed of solving the Rubik's Cube. So, the absolute record among robots is 0.38 seconds, and robot designers still boasted that they deliberately paused between movements to reduce the risk of breaking the cube.

Against this background, the achievements of people look faded, but no one thinks to cancel the championships. After all, championships are held in checkers, chess, go, poker and other games where the computer has surpassed the human. People compete with each other and demonstrate the amazing abilities of the human mind. Though not as fast as a computer program, but the brain of Homo sapiens is also able to calculate options and make decisions with great speed.

Another proof of this is the new record for solving the Rubik's Cube in 3×3×3 format. The world record now stands at 4.221 seconds - again held by a 22-year-old Australian named Feliks Zemdegs, who has held records before and was a multiple world champion.

A month later, the guy already coped with the puzzle in half a minute. In less than two years, the boy won the Melbourne Cube Day 2010 championship with a world record.

In an interview huffington post after winning the second Rubik's Cuban World Cup, he said that this trick is available to everyone, it just takes practice and patience. Almost all participants in such championships learned how to solve the Rubik's cube using manuals from the Internet or on YouTube: “It just takes a little practice and patience. But once you understand the way to solve it, everything becomes very formulaic. You understand that for the first stage you need to make such movements, then go to the next stage and solve this part. It's kind of a beginner's method. And then, as you learn more and practice, you start picking it up more intuitively.”

“I'm always very impressed with people who have found a solution themselves, and I think it's incredibly difficult,” says the record holder. “I couldn’t even imagine that – it’s one of the most impressive things.”

According to the table of records, this is already the eighth record of Felix Zemdegs. He installed the very first one in 2010 (7.03 seconds). Then, within two years, he improved his own achievement five times, and then the palm passed to another athlete. Finally, Felix regained the record in 2016 (4.73 seconds), then lost again, and now he again improved the world record by 37 hundredths of a second at once.

Felix has one piece of advice for those who want to find a way to solve the Rubik's Cube on their own. He recommends submitting 54 colored cube squares not stickers, but fragments.

The champion also refuses to recognize himself as more gifted than the other competitors. He does not agree that he has some kind of talent: “Literally anyone can learn this. Obviously, to achieve a high result, you need some ability in pattern recognition, spatial thinking, finger dexterity. I'm not sure if this necessarily correlates with general intelligence, but it definitely requires spatial reasoning. And in order to achieve high speed in reality, it just takes a lot of practice and dedication.”

By the way, Felix holds several other current world records in other disciplines: the record for the average of five attempts, with the exception of the slowest and fastest (5.99, 5.28, 5.25, 6.13 and 9.19, average 5, 80 s), as well as a world record for assembly with one hand (6.88 s, set in 2015, on

Ben Katz/YouTube

Roboticist Ben Katz and software engineer Jared Di Carlo have created a robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube in 0.38 seconds. This is a record time, says Di Carlo in his blog, although on this moment it has not been officially confirmed.

The Rubik's Cube was invented back in 1974, but the puzzle is still very popular. People who are fond of high-speed assembly of the Rubik's Cube are called speedcubers, and the process itself is called speedcubing (from the English speedcubing). Today's record belongs to the American Lucas Etter, who in November 2015 collected puzzle in 4.904 seconds. Similar competitions are also held among robots: until now, the robot of engineers from Infeon was considered the unofficial "champion". In 2016, he solved the Rubik's Cube in 0.637 seconds. Now, however, Katz and Di Carlo have developed a robot that has improved the previous record holder by 40 percent.

Like all such devices, the researchers robot uses a camera (in this case, the PlayStation Eye), which transmits pictures of the sides of the Rubik's Cube to the computer. It determines the placement of the pieces of the puzzle, and then feeds the data to the min2phase program, which is based on Herbert Kotsemba's two-phase algorithm. In a split second, the computer calculates the optimal solution to the problem, after which it sends a command to the robot, and it moves all the elements in the right way.

To speed things up, Katz used Kollmorgen ServoDisk motors, which have a very high torque-to-inertia ratio. In addition, the engineer built a special controller that allows you to rotate the side of the Rubik's cube 90 degrees in just 10 milliseconds. Provided that the puzzle can be assembled, on average, in 19-23 moves, the robot of Katz and Di Carlo should solve the problem in 0.25 seconds. However, in reality, the process takes 0.38 seconds, since now the machine makes one movement every 15 milliseconds.

The developers are confident that in the future they will be able to improve their result. Now the tuning process is time-consuming, because debugging must be done with a high-speed camera, and mistakes sometimes lead to puzzle breakage or FET explosions. However, for a hundred different solutions, it took only 4 Rubik's cubes. The video below shows one of the unsuccessful attempts to assemble the puzzle:

Recently, programmer Martin Spanel has developed software that allows you to solve a Rubik's cube using augmented reality glasses. In real time, it displays the desired action using an AR headset directly on top of one of the faces of the cube.

Kristina Ulasovich

At the Australian Cup, which was held at the University of Melbourne, 14-year-old Australian Felix Zemdegs managed to complete the Rubik's Cube in just 6.77 seconds. Thanks to this achievement, the Australian teenager was listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

The previous world record for the fastest Rubik's cube was set by the Dutchman Erik Akkersdijk in 2008.

But the most surprising thing is that on the same day that the Australian Feliks Zemdegs set a new world record, the same competition was held in the state of Massachusetts as at the University of Melbourne. And at the competition in Massachusetts, 19-year-old contestant Rowe Hessler also broke the Dutchman's world record! But he lacked only 0.17 seconds to overtake the 14-year-old Australian.
Rowe Hessler accepted his defeat with dignity and is convinced that the record of the Australian teenager will hold on for a very long time. Rowe Hessler considers it a shame for himself that he solved the Rubik's Cube in 6.94 seconds, literally a couple of hours later than Feliks Zemdegs. Also, the 19-year-old contestant believes that the Australian honestly deserved the right to be a champion and worthy of being the God of all Rubik's cubes, because he has tremendous speed and extraordinary reflexes.

The record holder's father is now very proud of his son. Only now did he understand why his son spent hours building the Rubik's Cube at home. His training was long and daily, but his efforts and perseverance were not in vain.

And here is a video of Felix solving a Rubik's Cube:

Speedcubers, who is it? Speedcuber is a person who solves a Rubik's Cube for speed. And basically, anyone who timed a Rubik's Cube is a speedcuber. And let his result be 40 minutes, anyway this person is a speedcuber.

However, any novice speedcuber is able to assemble this puzzle in less time. But what are real pros capable of in this business? Do you know anything about them?

The first world record was set by a 16-year-old Vietnamese-American student, Minh Thai, who was able to solve the puzzle in 22.95 seconds. This happened at the world's first speedcubing championship - World Rubik's Cube Championship 1982. This is especially impressive when you consider that the record was set not on a modern high-speed cube with magnets, but on one of the first versions of the Rubik's cube, which had a very mediocre torsion.

After that, there was a lull. Not because there were no tournaments, but because there was no organization that could streamline the results of all participants.

In 2004, this place was taken by the WCA - world cube Association (World Cube Association). From that moment on, the results of all participants are stored in the database.

Since those distant times, records have been updated more than once. The rules and dice have changed, new disciplines have been added, and, of course, new champions have appeared.

The best in the business

One of the best speedcubers of this decade, the record holder among record holders is Felix Zemdegs. This young Aussie has already set 117 world records and holds the current world record in the 3x3x3 cube - 4.22 seconds single attempt and 5.8 seconds average over five 4x4 and 5x5 Rubik's Cubes with one hand.

His results are impressive, although he started, like all speedcubers. In 2008, when he was 12 years old, he became interested in speed cubing and began to train. By January 2010, he was the first person in the world to solve a Rubik's cube in less than 10 seconds. Since then, he has won everything and won competitions. And at the age of 17, at the World Championships, Felix proved that he is the best speedcuber in the world.

It may seem that Felix Zemdegs does not meet competition in tournaments, but this is by no means the case. It has many competitors from different countries.

One of his main competitors is Max Park. The American athlete already has 12 world records. Of course, after the results of Felix, this is not so impressive, but if you go deeper, each of them is amazing.

What is his record for the average time of five assemblies of the Rubik's Cube with one hand. He was the first in the world to do this in less than 10 seconds. He also holds the records in the 6x6 and 7x7 dice, both in a single assembly, and in the average time of five assemblies, as well as in the average time on a 4x4 dice.

And the next record holder is known not only for his records - Mats Falk (this is how his surname is read from Dutch). His last name began to be mentioned many times more after he signed a contract with QiYi MoFangGe, one of the world's top brands. Their flagship model was named after him, you all know about this cube yourself - it is now one of the best.

Mats was able to set 5 world records. But the most offensive situation happened to him at the Jawa Timur Open 2016 tournament. It was there that he set a world record of 4.74 seconds, but not for long. A little later, at the same competition, Felix Zemdegs made an assembly of 4.73 and broke Mats' record.

And from Kevin Hayes, Max Park took all the records, not only world, but also national, because they are both from the USA. Still, Kevin was the first person in the world to complete a 7x7 cube in less than 2 minutes, and he has already set 20 world records.

Moreover, Yuksin is cooperating with the American. They want to name a 7x7 cube in his honor, and maybe even a whole series of large cubes. And since Yuksin knows how to make fast and high-quality puzzles, the series will undoubtedly turn out to be chic.

It may seem that all the best speedcubers are abroad, but this is not so. There are many worthy speedcubers in our country.

For example, Dmitry Dobryakov. It is he who holds the Russian record for solving the Rubik's Cube both in a single attempt and in the average time. And it is he who will represent Russia at the Red Bull Rubik's Cube World Championship in Boston.

And at one time the whole world recognized the name of Vladislav Shavelsky, who set two world records in such a discipline as assembling a 7x7x7 cube. He also set 13 European records and 27 Russian records in disciplines from 4x4x4 to 7x7x7. He still holds the Russian records for assembling 5x5x5 and 7x7x7 cubes.

Or Roman Strakhov, who has repeatedly set world and European records for solving the Rubik's Cube 5x5x5 blindly. He now ranks third in the world in this discipline.

Also, Russian speedcubing knows the name of Dmitry Kryuzban, who set 60 Russian records and even a European record.

Every year we discover new names and faces that bring Russian speedcubing to the world level. Some of them are close to national records or have already achieved them: Alexey Zharikov, Artem Ganzha, Andrey Che and many others.

How to reach a professional level in speedcubing?

But how to achieve such results? Is it even possible to catch up with such speedcubing mastodons? And how to do it?

Of course, such results are achieved after many years of training. But everyone has different abilities and approaches to training, so there is no universal method.

There is a lot different ways assemblies: the Jessica Friedrich method, the Roux method, ZZ and many others. Try different formulas, ways of training and you will find the one that suits you.

And no matter how much you know the formulas, do not stop. Each new formula improves your skill.

But no matter what method you use, you definitely need to learn the Look ahead technique, literally “look ahead”. The bottom line is to think through all your movements in advance.

To train it, you need to use this type of training as slow turn, that is, specifically collect the cube slowly and see all the movements of the elements.

QUESTION: Who is currently the fastest to solve the Rubik's Cube puzzle? What is the speed record for assembling a cube with dimensions 3x3x3, 2x2x2 and 4x4x4? What is the speed record for solving a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube blindly and who set it?

Rubik's Cube 3x3x3

To date, the classic 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube was the fastest to solve by an American teenager. Lucas Etter (Lucas Etter). He set the absolute world record by solving the Rubik's Cube in 4.904 seconds on his first attempt! The record was set on November 21, 2015 in Clarksville, Maryland in the USA. Lucas is only 14 years old, lives in Kentucky and is a speedcubing professional.

Rubik's Cube 2x2x2

In addition, he also holds the world record for the speed of solving a 2x2x2 Rubik's Cube. Lucas Etter in September 2015 at the championship in Nashville collected the cube in 1.51 seconds!

Rubik's Cube 4x4x4

The world record for solving a 4x4x4 Rubik's Cube in 2015 was set by a 19-year-old from Australia at the China Championship 2015. He solved the cube in 4.9 seconds.

Assembling the Rubik's Cube 3x3x3 blindly

Marcell Endrey is a Hungarian speedcuber who specializes in assembling the popular puzzle with eyes closed. At the World Speedcubing Championship in 2012 in Zonhoven (Belgium), he blindly solved a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube in 28.8 seconds! But his record only lasted three years. In 2015, at the World Speedcubing Championship, which was held in China (China Championship 2015), a 17-year-old Chinese man set a new world record for solving a 3x3x3 Rubik's cube with his eyes closed, having collected challenging puzzle in 21.05 seconds!

Detailed information according to world records for solving a Rubik's cube of any size can be viewed on the website