The worst possible moment to try
My arm was in a cast and I was wrestling with my T-shirt (the T-shirt was winning) when I spotted my cube on the shelf. And I thought: “This is the worst possible moment to try. But if I manage it now, I’ll have managed it forever.”
Until that day, the cube had always beaten me. As a kid I loved maths and challenges, so I’d tried it plenty of times, but I never got past one face and a bit of the second layer.
So I started one-handed. After a month of trying on and off, and with both hands by then, I solved it on my own. With my own method: painfully long, but mine.
Then came the part I enjoyed most: teaching it to about 20 classmates, who learned to solve it with my method. Solving it felt good. Watching others solve it felt even better.
A site for people who’ve barely touched a cube
I’m Diego, and I created this site in 2011, at first only in Spanish, on cuboderubik.com. I made it because I love teaching and wanted to help people complete a challenge so many of them have left unfinished.
Back then, most sites made you learn a lot of notation before your first turn, and their pictures weren’t much help either. I wanted the opposite: at every step you’d see exactly which face to turn and which way, as if someone were sitting next to you showing you. Made for someone who has barely touched a cube.
People liked it so much that I translated it into other languages. For those versions I used a different domain, but it had “Rubik” in the name, and that got me into legal trouble with the trademark. Time to move house, and that’s how TheCube.Guru was born. Today it’s in 13 languages.
Racing the clock
My first official competition was in 2006, in Leeds, while I was on an Erasmus exchange in England. Several more followed.
Two things stand out from those years: reaching the final of the 2007 Spanish Championship in Barcelona in three events (3x3, 2x2 and 3x3 one-handed), and solving the cube blindfolded at an official competition. Yes: memorise it, cover your eyes and solve it without looking again.
I haven’t competed for years, but my WCA profile is still there if you want to snoop on my times. Spoiler: you won’t find them on the records page.
Who I am today
I studied Mathematics at the Autonomous University of Madrid, did a Master’s in Teacher Training at UNED and another in Mathematical Research at Complutense University, and earned my PhD at the Polytechnic University of Valencia with a thesis on mathematics applied to diabetes: how to predict and control blood glucose.
Today I teach mathematics at university, on degrees in Mathematics, Physics and several branches of engineering. Deep down I’m still doing what I did with those classmates: explaining, step by step, something that seems impossible until it isn’t.
Now it’s your turn
If there’s a cube gathering dust on a shelf somewhere near you, maybe this is your moment. Probably a better one than mine: you’ve got both hands free.
You don’t need to know any notation or be a genius, just follow the pictures. Start with the step-by-step Rubik’s Cube solution. Once you finish it, you’ll have done it forever.