Watch This Teenager Set the New Rubik's Cube Speed Record

facebooktwitterreddit

The world record for least time spent solving a standard Rubik’s Cube is now officially under five seconds, thanks to 14-year-old Lucas Etter. He set the new record at 4.904 seconds this past Saturday at Clarksville, Maryland’s River Hill Fall competition. His speedy achievement has since been recognized by Guinness World Records and the World Cube Association.

Fellow teenager Collin Burns set the old record of 5.25 seconds during a World Cubing Association competition in Doylestown, Pennsylvania earlier this year. At the same event Etter attended this weekend, one of his competitors shaved .16 milliseconds off that time when he solved a Rubik’s Cube in 5.09 seconds. That time was never officially recognized as the new record, however, as Etter was able to best him before the day’s end.

While Etter is now recognized as the Rubik’s Cube record holder of the human world, the true distinction may arguably belong to a robot. In 2014, a “speedcuber” robot built from LEGO blocks was able to solve a cube in 3.253 seconds. It may take a while for humans to beat that record, but Etter can take comfort in knowing that he’s faster than at least one Rubik’s Cube-solving robot—and he only used two hands.

[h/t: The Verge]