Speedcubers Anthony Brooks, Tim Sun, and Andy Smith broke the world record for solving the Groovik's Cube on October 19, 2013.

On Saturday, October 19, Anthony Brooks, Andy Smith, and Tim Sun broke the world record for solving the Groovik’s Cube with a time of 4 minutes and 29 seconds. The previous record was held by speedcubers Kevin Hayes, Kris De Asis, and David Adams with a time of 5 minutes and 18 seconds.

The record was broken during our “Cubers Unite!” event at LSC which drew hundreds of cubers from the New York area for a speedcubing competition and group solve.

Mike Tyka, one of the designers of the Groovik’s Cube, offered his thoughts on the nature of speedsolving the cube and presented a challenge to those who would try to break its records in the future:

“When we first conceived of Groovik’s Cube’s 3-player mode, some doubted anyone would be able to solve it at all, never mind in a matter of minutes.”

“The most difficult challenge posed by Groovik’s Cube, however, has yet to be solved by anyone: Solving the 3-player mode without direct communication – i.e. communicating only via the cube itself. I hope that the speed cubing community will take on this challenge and prove that it is possible!”

Two other Groovik’s Cube records remain standing:

• 3-player, without prior cube state inspection: ~9 minutes
• 3-player, without communication (other than “No, wrong, go back”): ~45 minutes (Kevin Hayes, Kris De Asis, and David Adams)

The Groovik’s Cube was built by GroovLabs as an installation for the 2009 Burning Man art festival. The cube weighs approximately 2000 lbs and the 54 5′ x 5′ “pixels” are illuminated with 2 kilowatts of high-powered LEDs.

The cube will remain at LSC as part of the Beyond Rubik’s Cube exhibition, a celebration of the iconic toy invented by Erno Rubik.