In less than a minute, 13-year-old Joe Geres solved a puzzle that can bewilder others for hours.
Geres, a seventh grader, won the fastest time in the Rubik’s Cube Challenge held at Ashland Middle School late last month, mastering the toy in 43.34 seconds.
“It was great,” Geres said this week. “I think I could have done better. I made a couple of mistakes. I probably could have taken off a couple seconds.”
Teacher Lauren Laing hosted the second annual cube challenge in her morning Advisory class. About nine students participated in preliminaries, with four becoming finalists.
Coming in second in the final challenge was Derek Nash, with Jordan Proctor in third place and Donald York in fourth.
Laing said the event came about last year when students trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube started talking about holding a challenge for the school. Students organized and ran the contest.
The challenge was way back on Feb. 18. Geres has improved since then, with a personal record of finishing the cube in 33 seconds.
He first started solving the 3x3x3 cube, invented in 1974 by Hungarian Erno Rubik, about two years ago when he spotted a classmate working on the puzzle.
“He was a year younger than me and he could solve it in two minutes or so,” Geres said. “I was just amazed that he could even do it at all.”
After first learning from his fellow student, Geres turned to the Internet for strategies.
“I started to learn faster methods and had to memorize more stuff and eventually just got better and better,” he said.
The key is to memorize different algorithms, or configurations of the cube, and be prepared to solve any scenario, Geres said.
Mark Geres, Joe’s father, said he’s not sure where his son comes by his talent. The teen collects different types of cubes, which now come in a variety of shapes and configurations. He can solve them all, Dad said – it’s just a matter of how long it takes.
“It’s just a passion he has,” his father said. “He’s really good in math and science and he’s quite a whiz.”
Geres also enjoys physics and calculus and is a member of the Math Counts team at school. Outside of academics, he likes tennis, golf, skiing and camping.
The world record for solving the traditional Rubik’s Cube is 6.65 seconds, Geres said.
“I don’t think I’m going to be close to beating that for a while,” he said. “I’ll try.”
(David Riley can be reached at 508-626-3919 or driley@cnc.com.)
