DAN DARES: Reporter speaks of Rubik's Cube challenge (From News Shopper)

DAN DARES: Reporter speaks of Rubik's Cube challenge

7:40am Monday 8th June 2009 in

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News Shopper reporter DAN KEEL had successfully completed five out of seven dares before this month's challenge. Here he speaks about his latest quest - to solve a Rubik's cube within three minutes of the world record.

BEFORE embarking upon a fresh new dare I always like to delve into the world wide web and find out exactly what I am getting into.

I watched the world record being broken by Dutchman Erik Akkersdijk at last year's Rubik's cube Czech Open.

Incredibly he achieved a time of 7.08secs meaning my target time for challenge number eight was to solve the cube in a generous 3mins 7secs.

After watching a few clips of other competitors solving cubes blindfolded I began to look for Rubik's cube video tutorials.

As I trawled my way through video-clip after video-clip of irritating, spotty, grubby American teenagers sitting in their dorms talking to the camera about how easy Rubik's cubes are to solve, I was filled with some hope.

"Yeah man - it's just a matter of getting a white cross on one side, fixing up the corners and then twisting front and back, front and back, front back", said Wayne from Ohio - before winking at the camera.

"After that I don't really have a plan, I just caress the cube and work my way through it solving the sides."

However, after listening to John from Canada say, "Don't just start flicking the sides back and forth - it's like bedroom gymnastics - the more you fiddle - the harder it gets", I became confused.

I was confused, not just because of the apparent penchant which Rubik's geeks appear to have for using sexual innuendoes when describing their cubes, but because I was getting conflicting advice.

But as luck would have it 16-year-old Jordan Burns from Petts Wood read my blog on News Shopper's website, empathised with my predicament, and came to my aid.

Jordan has been solving Rubik's cubes for two years and is now so advanced he can solve the 5x5x5 cubes as well as the standard 3x3x3.

He broke the process into six steps for me. Step one involved getting a white cross on the top of the cube, step two required me to match the corners on one side of the cube before fixing the four middle layer edges.

Steps four, five and six were a series of algorithms including eight steps which needed to be learnt parrot fashion - for example 'front side left', 'right side up', 'right side down' etc.

After a couple of lessons, and a tonne of encouragement, I was capable of completing the cross - but no matter how hard I tried I could not match the corners.

This problem plagued me up until a few days before the challenge, but by then it was too late. I was once again a failure, and to this day have not solved a Rubik's cube.

Dan has now passed five of his eight dares and failed three.