DeScrambler Eggheads

Man Solves Rubik's Cube in 11.13 Seconds

from The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - A 20-year-old California Institute of Technology student set a new world's record for solving the popular Rubik's Cube puzzle, turning the tiled brain-twister from scrambled to solved in 11.13 seconds.

Leyan Lo's record-setting time came early Saturday, among his first five tries in the preliminary rounds. The record-setting solve caught competitors and Lo himself by surprise and broke the previous record of 11.75 seconds, set last year.

Lo is part of Caltech's Rubik's Cube Club, a brainy clutch of students that hosted the competition at the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco. Contestants brought their own cubes, and a computer scrambled the cubes the same fashion each round to give contestants equal footing.

The world record alone wouldn't gain Lo the overall champion's title, determined by averaging three of five solution times. That title went to the teenager widely considered the fastest Rubik's Cube solver on the planet — Shotaro "Macky" Makisumi, a 15-year-old from Pasadena. For his victory, Makisumi won a Rubik's Snake puzzle, one of several variations on the basic cube model.