Speed cube
The Rubik's Cube was invented in 1974 by Hungarian professor of architecture, Ernő Rubik (Born 13 July 1944). Later, Ernő Rubik partnered with Ideal Toy company to widespread the international interest in the cube which began in 1979, which soon developed into a global craze. On June 5, 1982, the first world championship was held in Budapest, Hungary. 19 people competed in the event and the American Minh Thai won with a single solve time of 22.95 seconds and was considered as the First World Record of the Rubik's Cube.
Other notable attendees include Jessica Fridrich and Lars Petrus, two people who would later be influential in the development of solving methods and the speedcubing community. The height of the Rubik's Cube craze began to fade away after 1983, but with the advent of the Internet, sites relating to speedcubing began to surface. Simultaneously spreading effective speedsolving methods and teaching people new to the cube to solve it for the first time, these sites brought in a new generation of cubers, created a growing international online community, and raised the profile of the art.
People prominent in this online community, such as Ron van Bruchem, Tyson Mao, Chris Hardwick, and Ton Dennenbroek, eventually wanted to meet in person and compete. So twenty years after the first world championship, they orchestrated a second championship in Toronto in 2003 and another smaller competition in the Netherlands later that same year. This revival of competition sparked a new wave of organized speedcubing events, which include regular national and international competitions.
There were twelve competitions in 2004, 58 more from 2005 to 2006, over 100 in 2008, and over 1150 in 2018. Since Budapest's 1982 competition, there have been nine further World Championships traditionally held every other year, the most recent in Melbourne, Australia. This new wave of speedcubing competitions have been and still are organised by the World Cube Association (WCA), founded by Ron van Bruchem and Tyson Mao.
Since the rise of speedcubing in popularity, numerous businesses have opened up, specialising in either the making or selling of speedcubes. Rubik's is no longer the only company making cubes. There are now dozens of companies making their own cubes, with improved technology to allow faster solving. This has helped to launch speedcubing onto the global scene, not only as a sport and hobby, but a worldwide business.
