Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, October 28, 2011

Gallery (click any photo to view the gallery)

Speedcubing requires a certain level of manual dexterity to manipulate the puzzle quickly.

What do IndyCar drivers, slalom skiers and 10-year-old Lucas Etter have in common? The need for speed!

Lucas, a fifth-grader at Athens-Chilesburg Elementary, is steadily improving in his favorite hobby: speedcubing. Using the original 3x3 Rubik’s Cube, he recently aligned the colorful scrambled block in a personal-best 12.61 seconds.

• Video

How does he do it? With the right combination of math aptitude, spatial skills and finger dexterity. For instance, Lucas has learned nearly 100 algorithms for solving various puzzles in a finite number of sequential steps.

“The first part of the solving is intuitive, to get the pieces together. Once you get further along, the algorithms come in so you don’t mess up what you’ve done,” he explained. “It just comes in your muscle memory. You know it better in your hands after you’ve done it awhile, but you can still do it in your mind.”

Where does Lucas get the motivation to practice a couple of hours every day? It all started two years ago when he spent the summer with his grandparents, who bought him a Rubik’s Cube. “I saw some (YouTube) videos of world records, so I wanted to go out and learn how,” he recalled.

But merely solving cubes wasn’t enough for this inquisitive student. Since last spring, he has travelled around the country for a half-dozen speedcubing contests, where he’s often the youngest competitor.

“Once you see people doing it faster than you, you get encouraged to beat them,” said Lucas, who also likes baseball. “I get scrambles from the Internet and keep solving and solving. I really try to improve.”

ACE teacher Melissa Toutant can attest to Lucas’ perseverance as well as his critical thinking and complex reasoning skills, especially when it comes to geometry and manipulating three-dimensional objects in his head.

“He definitely exceeded all expectations in math class. He was always working to get the answer and understand the reasoning behind it. He always had a different approach,” said Toutant, who taught him last year.

So does speedcubing help Lucas’ performance in the classroom, or vice versa? He says both, with a slight edge to cubing. “It may make you think faster since you’re exercising your brain so much,” he offered.

His mother, Dana Mendenhall-Etter, sees the correlation and heartily supports his efforts.

“You have to have a very strong interest and patience to learn to do it. It’s a sport of the mind, I guess,” she said, comparing it to golf and chess. “It’s just one of those things you never imagine – one of those things everybody is amazed by.”

Mendenhall-Etter, a LAN/WAN technician at Crawford and Winburn middle schools, said the competitions have also helped Lucas expand his circle of friends.

“It’s definitely a sport with its own language. It’s been great for him to have a group he can relate to about his passion,” she said.

Perhaps Lucas can be a local ambassador for speedcubing.

“This is such a cool activity for kids with plenty of educational value coupled with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction when solving a cube,” his mom said. “It’s like finishing a puzzle or a difficult math problem – it’s a feel-good thing, so I hope he can spread that.”

The Lucas Files

• World Cube Association stats and personal bests

More videos:

• Best 3x3 one-handed time (30.52 seconds)
• Best 2x2 time (3.56 seconds)
• Practicing at home  

Resources

• www.speedcubing.com/
• www.cubingusa.com/
• www.worldcubeassociation.org/
• http://cube.stanford.edu/class
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedcubing 
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_theory