Portal:Toys/Selected article/14

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D mechanical puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the "Magic Cube", the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980 via German businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy. In a classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces is covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours (traditionally white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow). A pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to consisting of one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of stickers, not all of them by Rubik. Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, many speedcubers continue to practise it and other "twisty puzzles" and compete for the fastest times. Its international governing body, the World Cube Association, has organised competitions and kept the official world records since 2003.