Rubiks Cube

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974

by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture, Ern Rubik. In
the mid-1970s, Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design
at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest. It is a cubeshaped device made up of smaller cube pieces with six faces
having differing colours.
The primary method of manufacture involves injection
molding of the various component pieces, then assembly, labelling,
and packaging. When production is initiated, the plastic pellets are transformed into
Rubik's cube parts through injection molding. In this process, the pellets are put into
the hopper of an injection molding machine.
They are melted when they are passed through a hydraulically controlled screw.
As the screw turns, the melted plastic is shuttled through a nozzle and physically
forced, or injected, into the mold. Just prior to the arrival of the molten plastic, the two
halves of the mold are brought together to create a cavity that has the identical shape
of the Rubik's cube part. This could be an edge, a corner, or the centre piece. Inside the
mold, the plastic is held under pressure for a specific amount
of time and then allowed to cool. While cooling, the plastic
hardens inside the mold. After enough time passes, the mold
halves are opened and the cube pieces are ejected. The mold
then closes again and the process begins again. Each time the
machine moulds a set of parts is one cycle of the machine.
The Rubik's cube cycle time is around 20 seconds. After the
cube parts are ejected from the mold, they are dropped into container bins and hand
inspected to ensure that no significantly damaged parts are used. The waste sprue
material is set aside to be reused or scrapped. Waste material can be ground up and
melted again to make new parts, however reground material can degrade and cause
poor quality parts.
Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help
his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural
problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart.
He did not realise that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new
Cube and then tried to restore it. Since its invention, the Rubiks Cube has become an
incredibly widely known toy, that the first World Rubiks Cube Championships were held
in 1982, in which the winner solved the Cube in under 29 seconds. The World Record for
solving the cube, as of July 2015, now stands at 5.25 seconds. It won Toy of the Year in
1980 and 1981. Over 350 million Rubiks Cubes have been sold worldwide making it
the bestselling toy of all time.
There are 43 quintillion possible combination for the cube and any scramble can
be solved in 20 moves or less, known by enthusiasts as Gods number.
A standard Rubik's Cube measures 5.7 cm on each side. The puzzle consists of
twenty-six unique miniature cubes. When the cube is taken apart it can be seen that
the centre cubes are each connected by axles to an inner core. The corners and edges
are not fixed to anything. This allows them to move around the centre cubes. Each of
the six centre pieces pivots on a screw, held by the centre piece, a 3-D cross. A spring

between each screw head and its corresponding piece tensions the piece inward, so
that the whole cube remains compact, but can still be easily manipulated.