The Effect of Using Rubik's Cube on Child Brain Activity

Introduction

The Rubik's Cube was invented and designed by architect and sculptor Ernő Rubik in 1970. It became one of the most popular toys of the twentieth century. At first, parents and teachers saw the Rubik's Cube as a simple toy to distract children from learning.

Later this puzzle has won the minds of millions of people around the world. Today the Rubik's Cube is a popular intellectual sport and many kids are dying to know how to solve a Rubik’s cube. There is even an international association that regularly holds competitions and maintains its ranking of achievements of athletes.

10 facts about the Rubik's Cube

1. The Rubik's Cube was invented by Ernő Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and architecture teacher. In recent years, he has been engaged in the development of video games.
2. Ernő Rubik spent a whole month trying to solve the Rubik's Cube himself for the first time. Of course, because finding a solution for this task is not easy at all.
3. Rubik's Cube has 6 faces, 12 edges, 8 corners and is formed of 26 small pieces. The player is guided by the colour of the central element on each face.
4. Any colour combination in the classic Rubik's Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less.
5. The original Rubik's Cube 3x3x3 has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible alterations. In terms of human thinking, this measurement is practically infinite.
6. Luck will not help you. If a player makes a shift once per second - it will take him 4,200 trillion years to go through all possible configurations. So if you need some Rubik’s Cube help, like an online solution calculator - we understand how you feel.
7. There are a few methods to solve the puzzle. Past world records holders Feliks Zemdegs, Lucas Etter, Collin Burns and many others used the Fridrich method (CFOP). But it is not so simple at all: there are about 120 algorithms to solve the puzzle using this method.
8. The average person rarely thinks about the fact that the speed of the solution depends not only on the method: the cube must be of high quality and pre-lubricated because time goes on in a fraction of seconds. It is good to know that a lot of useful websites for students teach us how to find solutions for many different tasks.
9. The toy turned out to be very popular: more than 350 million Rubik's Cubes were sold all time (counting only the Rubik's Brand). One in six people in the world has already tried to solve the Rubik's Cube.
10. The youngest champion Li Dongyi was only 9 years old when he set a new world record and completed the puzzle in just 11.84 seconds.

What are the benefits of speedcubing for a child?

Puzzles are very good at developing spatial thinking. The development of spatial thinking applies to artists, designers, architects, engineers, filmmakers, writers and other creative individuals. So if you struggle to write your college essay, solve a Rubik's Cube.

Another important argument is that Rubik's Cube is training fine motor skills. Although fine motor skills, for the most part, have a beneficial effect on the development of the child, they are just as important throughout your life. Fine motor skills are one of the keys to longevity.

Puzzles are an incredibly interesting hobby that allows you to spend time with interest. This useful hobby brings together a lot of interesting people and expands your social horizons.

So, here are 8 benefits of such a hobby:

1. A real trainer for the brain improves fine motor skills.
2. Prevention of joint diseases and impaired motor functions of the body.
3. Stimulator of speech development.
4. A puzzle for the development of memory and logical thinking (To assemble the cube it is necessary to think and remember the algorithms. Beginners have no more than 8, pros have more than 200).
5. A way to learn to concentrate and solve complex problems.
6. A possibility to relax and avoid stress.
7. A simulator for raising self-esteem. The better the results of assembly, the more confidence in one's abilities.
8. A great way to meet new friends if you join a local speedcubing club.

As mentioned earlier, puzzles are a great exercise tool for fine motor skills. It plays an important role in a child's overall development. This is especially pronounced in the development of the speech apparatus since fine motor skills are very closely linked at the level of the brain.

Why is it good for us adults to work on puzzles sometimes?

Throughout life, it's important to keep your body in good shape. This applies not only to physical fitness but also to mental activity. Puzzles are good for stimulating thinking processes, so they can act as a trainer for your brain.

A particularly important role in training the brain is to improve memory. As the years go by, a person's memory weakens a lot and it becomes more and more difficult to retain a large amount of information in the head. To avoid memory deterioration, it is necessary to constantly train it, and solving a puzzle is an excellent exercise.