16-year-old sets Guinness record for solving most Rubik’s cube in 24 hrs

CHENNAI: A 16-year-old from Chennai has set a Guinness World Record for solving 9,792 Rubik’s cube non-stop over 24 hours.

HR Kanish, a Class 11 student of a private school in the city, has trained with the Tamil Nadu Cube Association to set the world record. He attempted the record for ‘Most diagonally rotating puzzle cubes solved in 24 hours’ at an event held recently.

His passion for cubing was kindled 8 years ago when he watched speed-cubers solve on social media platforms. A group of scramblers was formed by the association who would scramble the Rubik’s cube based on the difficulty standard set on a mobile app, which was designed by the Guinness World Records team.

Kanish’s record of solving 9,792 diagonally rotating puzzle cubes in 24 hours was recorded by the Guinness authorities. He has beat the record of 6,931, cubes solved by George Scholey in London between November 9-10 in 2022. Kanish will be presented a certificate next month.

Out of the wide range of cubes that includes 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, Megaminx, Skewb, Mastermorphix and others, he learned to solve them all. “Speed-cubing is interesting and a fun hobby, but not many know about it. I was not able to attend many competitions due to the pandemic. However, I kept learning and practicing. My parents were supportive and helped me with the resources for cubing. They bought the kind of cubes I wanted and encouraged me,” smiles Kanish.

The association trained him for the competition and also rendered logistics support. “The association organised the event and trained me to stay calm and composed as it was 24 hours long. I’ve been practicing for the event for a long time so I was pretty confident,” he added.

During the competition, he started solving the skewbs at a constant pace, and took short breaks every few hours.

Pointing out that more national and international level competitions must be organised in Speed-cubing to encourage for more people to participate, he said: “Cubing improves the overall concentration as it’s a mind-game. I’ll keep participating in more such competitions. I’m sure this world record will inspire more kids to take up cubing as a sport and hobby.”