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Erno Rubik Facts & Worksheets

Erno Rubik’s invention, the Magic cube is still considered the most popular puzzle toy.

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Among the 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 ways to arrange the squares, according to mathematicians, only one combination is correct. Erno Rubik’s invention is still considered the most popular puzzle toy.

See the fact file below for more information on Erno Rubik or alternatively, you can download our 27-page Erno Rubik worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Life

  • Hungarian inventor, architect, and professor Erno Rubik was born on July 13, 1944, in Budapest, Hungary.
  • His father, Erno Rubik, was an aircraft engineer and a highly regarded glider engineer.
  • His mother, Magdolna Szanto, was a poet.
  • Erno Rubik’s inspiration was his father.

Education

  • As a child, Erno Rubik developed a love for drawing, painting, and sculpting.
  • He initially studied sculpture at the Technical University in Budapest and pursued architecture at the Academy of Applied Arts and Design.
  • In an interview, Erno Rubik mentioned that he continued to study architecture because it is also a form of art and has aesthetics.

Career

  • Erno Rubik was a professor of architecture at the Budapest College of Applied Arts from 1971 to 1979.
  • Erno Rubik became an editor for “És játék’” (And Games), a game and puzzle magazine, in the early 1980s.
  • In 1983, he founded his own company known as Rubik Stúdió.
  • His company focused on producing and designing games and furniture.
  • He became a full-tenured professor in 1987.
  • In 1990, Erno Rubik was appointed as president of the Hungarian Engineering Academy, where he built the International Rubik Foundation.
  • The said foundation-supported promising engineering and industrial design students.
  • Erno Rubik became an honorary professor in 2009 at Keimyung University in South Korea.
  • He also spent his time doing tours and giving lectures through an exhibition entitled Beyond Rubik’s Cube.
  • Erno Rubik co-authored books such as A bűvös kocka (The Magic Cube) and The Rubik’s Cube Compendium and wrote Cubed – The Puzzle of Us All.

The Magic Cube

  • In 1974, Erno Rubik was looking for a way to show three-dimensional movement to his students.
  • He spent his time working in his bedroom.
  • Erno Rubik made the first magic cube from materials such as blocks of wood, rubber bands, paper, paper clips, and glue.
  • At first, his idea was to connect eight wooden cubes and make them intact.
  • At the same time, his goal was for his cube to also move around and exchange places.
  • However, in this attempt, the cubes fell apart.
  • He performed several more experiments until he came up with a unique design that allowed him to build a solid but fluid object. 
  • To see the movement clearly, Erno Rubik added colors such as yellow, red, white, green, blue, and orange to the squares of the cube. 
  • He kept twisting his cube until he realized that he couldn’t return it to its original state.
  • Erno Rubik was able to solve his puzzle in a month after twisting it several times.
  • He presented the prototype to his class, and they all liked the idea of the cube very much.
  • Due to the simple structure, he realized that the cube could be easily manufactured and might attract a larger audience.
  • In January 1975, he applied for a patent at the Hungarian Patent Office for a “spatial logic toy” and named it the Magic Cube.
  • After this, he looked for a manufacturer in Hungary, but it was difficult for him to find one due to the failing Hungarian economy.
  • In 1977, he found a small company that agreed to produce 5,000 magic cubes, which went on sale in Hungarian toy shops.
  • After two years, sales of the Rubik’s Cube went as high as 300,000.
  • However, Hungary remained in an economic crisis, so exports were limited and controlled.
  • Erno Rubik took his invention to international toy fairs, but the response was not so great.
  • At the 1980 Nuremberg Toy fair, Tom Kremer, a marketer, saw the Magic Cube and made a deal to bring it to America.
  • In 1979, a US company called Ideal Toys was given the contract for the Magic Cube and rebranded it into Rubik’s Cube.
  • Erno Rubik was brought to the New York Toy Fair in 1980 by the Ideal Toy Company to demonstrate how to do the cube.
  • In three years, there were about 100 million sales of Rubik’s cubes.
  • To this day, it still sells and remains the best-selling toy in history.
  • Apart from the famous mechanical puzzle Rubik’s Cube he invented, Erno Rubik was also known for Rubik’s Magic: Master Edition and the Rubik’s Snake.

Achievements

  • Over the years, Erno Rubik received several awards and achievements.
  • In the 1980s, he consecutively won the title “Toy of the Year” thrice from different countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, the USA, France, Finland, Sweden, and Italy.
  • In 1982, the Museum of Modern Art in New York added Rubik’s Cube permanently to their gallery.
  • He won the Hungarian State Prize in 1983 and the Juvenile Prize from the State Office of the Youth and Sport in 1988.
  • In 1995, he was acknowledged for his achievements in the field of innovation by the Navofer Foundation and was given the Denes Gabor Prize.
  • Other prizes he won in Hungary include the Ányos Jedlik Prize, Prize for the Reputation of Hungary, Moholy-Nagy Prize, and the Kossuth Prize, which was considered the most prestigious cultural award in the country.
  • He was appointed as the EU ambassador of the Year of Creativity and Innovation in 2009.
  • Awards he won from 2010 onwards were the USA Science and Engineering Festival Award, The Hungarian Order of Merit Commanders Cross with the Star, Prima Primissima Prize, and My Country Awards.
  • In 2014, he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen, the highest medal by Hungary. 
  • According to Erno Rubik, being selected as Honorary Citizen of Budapest was one of the most significant titles he received.

Erno Rubik Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Erno Rubik across 27 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching about Erno Rubik, who invented the Rubik’s cube.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Erno Rubik Facts
  • Erno Rubik
  • Is It True?
  • Pick the Right One
  • Rubik’s Crossword
  • Figure It Out
  • Here’s the Story
  • R-U-B-I-K
  • Quote Me
  • Masters
  • Benefits

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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