Asking students to answer questions and solve mind-bending puzzles today, rather than requiring them to memorize and repeat, can help form the thinkers and inventors of tomorrow. This is the argument Google is making with its latest doodle, which celebrates one of the world’s most famous puzzles.
Today’s Google doodle celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube. Created by Ernő Rubik in 1974, the cube was initially intended to help Rubik’s students better understand spacial geometry and has since helped generations learn to think more outside the box and play in new ways. To celebrate the inspiration the Rubik’s cube has provided and pay tribute to the utility of its design, Google’s Creative Lab has created an interactive Web version of the famous Cube and plastered it across the internet through the Google homepage – with keyboard shortcuts to boot.
Using HTML5 and Three.js among other tools, the Rubik’s Cube doodle is one of Google’s “most technically ambitious doodles yet,” according to Google designer Richard The. Using this same technology is Google’s new Chrome Cube Lab, a gallery of Chrome experiments that play with the concept of the Rubik’s cube using the power of the Web. The Cube’s source code is available there so you can build your own experiment, too.
What will you build using the Rubik’s Cube?
