Rubik’s Cube Marketing as Educational Tool

1WPCF 2014, Gyöngyös

Rubik’s Cube Marketing as Educational Tool

Sándor KissRubik Exhibition Co., Ltd.


“Gaming can be used as a form of teaching.”

“It was wonderful, to see how, after only a few turns, the colors became mixed … After a while I decided … let us put the cubes back in order. And it was at that moment that I came face to face with the Big Challenge: What is the way home?” – Ernő Rubik, 1974


19742x2x2

• As a young teacher, Ernő Rubik(29) was looking for novel, more exciting ways to explain spatial relationships

• He used eight interconnected wooden cubes first.


1974


Target and ConstructionCutting a cube with various planes is a fairly standard exercise and leads to the well-known 23 and 33 arrays.

1. Let the pieces stay together!

2. Let the pieces move only in groups!


Result

Hungarian Patent No.: HU170062Applied: 30 January, 1975Granted: 28 October, 1976


Model and Product

3x3x3


Magic Cube – Bűvös Kocka• It is not a toy – it is a puzzle for everyone.• Coloration makes the complexity.• Excellent tool for self teaching. A challenge

for one’s logic and patience. Cube has even many sub goals – e.g. one can get pleasure out of simply doing one or two sides or just the corners.

• Magic Cube gave birth to a new class of twisty puzzles.

See at Jaaps Puzzle Page


Complexity• Twisty puzzles typically made up of regular

corner/edge/center piecescorner/edge/center pieces and can be solved using basic tools of abstract algebra.

• However, if a sufficient number of pieces are fused togetherfused together, a "bandaged puzzle" emerges, and the mathematics behind this is more complicated.

• Few variations of classic Rubik’s Cube are bandaged puzzlesbandaged puzzles!


Solution

Ernő Rubik’s notes


Rubik wasn’t a marketing savant in 1974, but a shy 29-year-old

teacher who did knew he has had created a

unique cube


Hungarian Marketing• 1976-78 almost without concept, „just put on „just put on

exhibitory shelf…! Do not twist!” exhibitory shelf…! Do not twist!” Konsumex • December 1978 mathematician Dr. Tibor

Laczi, „Let me try!”„Let me try!”• Dr. Laczi showed it to

Tom Kremer • 1979 ContractContract

Production started in Hungaryin 1976


Partner is Ideal Toy Co.

• Tom Kremer was key figure who helped to bring the first Cube to American International Toy Fair in New York in 1980.

• "I knew when I first saw Ernő's Cube Ernő's Cube creationcreation that it was going to have universal appeal, but it was hard to imagine just how popular it would become,"


Marketing in USA• 1980 Toy Fair New York – Ideal Toy Co.• Hungarian connection was important

Zsazsa Gabor

Prof. Solomon W. Golomb

Source: KPCC

http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2013/01/30/30298/a-math-man-goes-to-washington/


Rymes and Robotics

Claude Shannon, the father of IT set about to build a device to solve the cube.

A Rubric on Rubik Cubics (1981)

Strange imports come from Hungary:Count Dracula, and ZsaZsa G.,Now Erno Rubik’s Magic CubeFor PhD or country rube.This fiendish clever engineerEntrapped the music of the sphere.It’s sphere on sphere in all 3D—A kinematic symphony!Ta! Ra! Ra! Boom De Ay!

Source: Scientific American Blog


Cube Big Bang


Cube Impact on Society• Media, TV, films…• Very popular among young ones, but also

many ordinary customers were frustrated • Mathematicians, scientists, engineers love it• Marketing community jumped for it• Fashion • … many more


Recreational Mathematics• Prof. David Singmaster is most famous for his cube

notation to the Rubik's Cubenotation to the Rubik's Cube (i.e., what letters denote what face to turn on the Rubik's Cube) and his huge personal collection of mechanical puzzles and books of brain teasers. He met the Cube in 1978.

• Prof. Solomon Golomb has devised an analogy between Cube corners and quarksCube corners and quarks, which he has extended into a complete Cubic cosmology. – The mating habits of quarks mirror the twisting properties

of the `corner cubies'


Two Puzzle Crazes

Rubik, the Amazing Cube

1880 1980

Samuel Loyd’s 15 puzzle Rubik’s Cube 3x3x3

Source: X EntertaimentSource: CTK Insights


Puzzle Craze in 1880• U.S. in FebruaryFebruary • Canada in MarchMarch• Europe in AprilApril• Craze had dissipated by JulyJuly, same year• Puzzle was not introduced to Japan until

1889• The craze was fuelled by numerous cash

prizes up to $1000 were offered for anyone who could provide a solution for the swapped 15-14 situation.

See more Fifteen Puzzle

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/ZPAGES/zzzFifteen.html

http://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/ZPAGES/zzzFifteen.html


Puzzle Craze in 1980• 1977 Magic Cube production 12,000 pcs for

domestic market• 1978 for export 2,100 pcs• 1979 contract was signed between Ideal Toys Co.,

Ltd. and KONSUMEX Foreign Trading Co. to deliver 1 million pcs1 million pcs within a year.

• 1980 February, New York Toy Fair.New name: Rubik’s Cube

• Craze had dissipated by 1983



Intn’l Mathematicians Conference in Helsinki

New York Toy Fair

Production stopped

Production started

Strengthening the Brand

More Competitions

You CAN do the Rubik’s Cube

STEAM

World Competition

Collected from several sources 180~400 million pcs cubes were sold

Video gamesWorld Wide Web 2005 You Tube….


Outreach 2010


Outreach 2014: STEAM Project• SScience, TTechnlogy, EEngineering, AArt, MMathematics• Exhibition at Liberty Science Center, Jersey City, USA

26WPCF 2014, Gyöngyös 26

Ernő Rubik said• „When you are studying from a book, lots of

people go straight to the end to look for the answers. But that's not my style. For me, the most enjoyable part is the puzzle, the most enjoyable part is the puzzle, the process of solving, not the solution itselfprocess of solving, not the solution itself.”

• But remember: THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY…

27WPCF 2014, GyöngyösPhoto: Landon Nordeman Smithsonian.com

Invent, play and inspire! Thank you!

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Rubik’s Cube Marketing as Educational Tool