Straight As, Cubed
Do you have recurring nightmares about the 2,000 Italian vocab words you’ve been ignoring all semester? Is that stack of untouched Bio 50 flashcards only getting higher? No, resigning yourself to a Government concentration is not the only option. The solution to your memory conundrum may be a mere Toys R’ Us away, according to 15-year-old Andy L. Camann.
More than six colors, fifty-four squares, and countless hours of frustration, Camann claims the Rubix cube could be the key to unlocking your inner Einstein. The Cube brought the Newton teenager a 12th place finish at the World Rubix’s Game Championships—and stellar grades in ninth-grade English. “One time I had a vocabulary test,” Camann he says, “and I memorized all the 24 words in five minutes.” Give him three hours and he’ll absorb 1440 vocabulary words.
Over the past two and a half years, Camann has spent hours a day whittling his Rubix solving time down to 12 seconds. Fame aside, Andy praises the cube for improving his academic abilities considerably. “Solving the cube improves your spatial solving ability,” he says. “It improved both my short-term and long-term memory.”
But the road to Rubix—and memory—superstardom doesn’t begin by vacantly staring at your cube, he warns. “Go online and type in ‘beginner’s solutions,’” Camann advises. He claims there’s “no method that is secret,” and that practice is essential to improving Rubix prowess. If “Magic of Numbers” makes you squirm, don’t ditch that Cube yet. Camann says that “a couple of competitors say that they were never good at math or science.”
Can you Rubix your way to an “A?” It’s worth a twist. Even if your grades don’t improve, you can always use your skills to supplement your caloric intake, as Camann does. “I have been able to get free food by making bets with people at snack bars. They don’t think I can do it and then I get free drinks and free food.” Will late-night ’Noch’s Rubixers rival the Au Bon Pain’s chessmaster? Maybe not, but asking Santa for a Cube might make reading period a little less stressful. Besides, what else is there to do over winter break?