The Puzzliest Toy

Nate concentrating on a Rubik's Cube in 1982

I debated about including this toy in my “classic” series. It seemed too new. But I remember my son playing with one at a year old (no, he couldn’t solve it). That son turned 40 this year (yes, he eventually solved the cube and became an engineer, although I’m not claiming a connection necessarily.) I’d say that qualifies the toy as a classic, worthy of investigating and sharing with you.

Born in Romania during WWII, Ernő Rubik learned much about creativity and design from his engineer father. Rubik studied both sculpture and architecture in Budapest, then went on to teach design at the Hungarian Academy of Applied Arts and Design. Not surprisingly, he made a hobby of creating geometric models.

Using small blocks of wood and rubber bands, Rubik’s goal was to solve a structural problem of moving parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. Not until he’d scrambled his cube and tried to restore it did he realize he may have created a puzzle.

His students loved it.

Given his father’s experience with applying for patents, Rubik quickly did so and received one for his “Magic Cube” in 1975. Four years later, Ideal Toys released the cube with a more distinct and memorable name. Ernő Rubik became a household name as the company sold around 200 million Rubik’s Cubes by 1983. Winning several Toy of the Year awards, over 350 million have sold to date, making the Rubik’s Cube one of the bestselling toys of all time.

Ideal originally advertised the puzzle as having over three billion combinations but only one solution. Since most people could solve just one or two sides, the next hot items to hit the market were books on how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. At one point in 1981, three of the top ten bestselling books in the US fell into this category.

Then the competitions began as “Speed Cubers” came out of the woodwork. Finally, a sport for math geeks! Budapest hosted the first world championship in 1982. Minh Thai, a Vietnamese student from Los Angeles, won with a time of 22.95 seconds. Currently, the record is 3.47 seconds, held by China’s Du Yusheng, set in 2018.

With so many geniuses improving at this skill, they needed to devise new challenges, like one-handed solving, feet solving, blindfolded solving, and multiple blindfolded solving. That latter is when a contestant studies up to ten cubes, memorizes their configuration, then dons the blindfold and solves them all. The seconds spent studying the cubes are included in their time. I know. Unbelievable.

In 2020, I watched the Netflix documentary The Speedcubers, which explores the rivalry and friendship between two of the fastest speedcubers in the world, Australian Feliks Zemdegs and American Max Park. Diagnosed with autism at the age of two, Max Park developed both social and fine motor skills through cubing. I highly recommend the film.

What boggles my mind more than a Rubik’s Cube is how anyone can believe we humans don’t have a Creator. Believing the brains of these Cube-solvers merely evolved takes more faith than taking apart a Rubik’s Cube, throwing all the pieces in a bag, then shaking the bag until the cube is reassembled with all six sides correctly aligned.

No? Just me?

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” (Psalm 139:13-14)

Life's a Puzzle

The puzzle that sat unfinished on our dining table for a year before being boxed up again will be up for grabs at my book signing on November 27. (My sister did successfully complete this puzzle during the pandemic.)

An antique jigsaw puzzle determined to remain unsolved for 80 years plays a pivotal role in my upcoming novel, The Last Piece, releasing November 16. Ironically, I’ve never been a fan of jigsaw puzzles. In a wild moment of reckless abandon in 2016, I opened a thousand-piece puzzle on our dining table. I thought Hubby and I could complete it over the Christmas break and share a little bonding time in the process. A year later, the unfinished puzzle still sat on our table. We’d covered it with a tablecloth on several occasions when we needed the space. Finally, in defeat, I returned the pieces to their box. That incident, along with a fascination for seemingly random stories which all converge in the end, provided my inspiration for The Last Piece. Of course, writing the book required some digging into the history of puzzles.

John Spilsbury, a British engraver and mapmaker, is credited with inventing the first jigsaw puzzle in 1767 when he pasted a map onto wood and cut it into small pieces to be used as an educational toy. To this day, “dissected maps” continue to provide a wonderful way for children and adults to learn their geography.

In the early 1900’s, puzzles for adults emerged and became both a craze and an addiction. Pieces were cut exactly on the color lines, making them more challenging. Because the pieces did not interlock, puzzlers could wipe out an evening’s work with one false move or jostle. Nor did they provide a picture on the box, so you may not know what the subject of your masterpiece looked like until the last pieces were in place. Those early wooden puzzles proved expensive to make, too, which meant only high society folk purchased them at up to five dollars for a 500-piece puzzle (about one tenth of the monthly salary of an average worker).

Well-known game makers, the Parker Brothers, introduced interlocking puzzles that included unique “figure pieces,” where an individual piece might be shaped like an animal or other recognizable object. This added so much appeal that in 1909, Parker Brothers stopped making games and devoted their factory exclusively to puzzle production that year.

The Great Depression of the 1930’s brought even more reasons to buy and sell jigsaw puzzles. By this time, the less expensive cardboard puzzles had emerged. They offered an affordable means of entertainment and escape from difficult times. They gave strugglers something at which to succeed. Folks could rent puzzles from libraries or drugstores for pennies a day. They could pass puzzles around a community until every family had assembled it. Puzzles were also given out free with the purchase of various products. The picture would be of the product itself, doubling as advertising for the company.

Other businesses jumped on the bandwagon and began producing weekly puzzles that people rushed out to buy every Wednesday, much like a newspaper, hoping to be the first to solve that week’s jigsaw.

Once colored photography became common, jigsaw puzzles displayed more photos than artwork. With the advent of television, puzzles quickly declined in popularity. But even today, as jigsaws continue to grow in sophistication with unique challenges like 3D or double-sided, many puzzlers remain devoted to the hobby.

LOCAL FRIENDS: I’m giving away gently used jigsaw puzzles as door prizes at my come-and-go book signing at the Portage regional Library on Saturday, November 27, from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Along with all my previously released books, The Last Piece will be available for purchase. Come finish your Christmas shopping. Or, if you already own one of my books not already signed by the author, feel free to bring it along. You may go home with a new-to-you jigsaw puzzle!