Daniel Evans

How I met the cube

Daniel Evans (UK)

A long, long time ago sitting in the cupboard was a Rubik’s cube, and one day I was just about tall enough to reach it so I got it down and scrambled it. I could not solve it so I gave it to my mum and after about 2 minutes it was solved. Over the next few weeks I kept scrambling it and making my mum solve it until one day, in despair, she got me to learn how to solve it. It took a while as she got me to understand each stage first so once I had finished I would not have to look back at it; I would know how to do it.

On the 17th December 2012 I solved a cube on my own for the first time, and it was brilliant. My first reaction was to try and do it again, but I did not know the last stage. I had skipped it first time so over Christmas I had to learn the last stage so that I could do it everytime. I enjoyed my cube a lot, and after a short period of time I was faster than my mum.

One day I found the 4x4x4, named ‘Rubik’s revenge’ and my mum could not solve that.It was not until nearly 3 years later that I would be able to solve it, though not exactly the same cube, as that cube is now in pieces, broken. Over time, I got more and more cubes built up in my collection and now there is only one I can’t solve. Maybe one day I will learn how to solve it. I have learned how to solve the rest, some on my own, some with help online, but the joy of speedcubing came from the fact that once I learned how to solve it, I got faster. The first timed solve was around 5 minutes and the next was around 4 minutes as my understanding grew. You can solve a cube. You just have to learn and years of fun with cubing will come.