Ernő Rubik (born July 13, 1944) is a Hungarian inventor, sculptor and professor of architecture. He is best known for the invention of mechanical puzzles including Rubik's Cube, Rubik's Magic and Rubik's Clock.
Biography
Rubik was born in wartime Budapest, Hungary. His father was a flight engineer, his mother a poet. He graduated from the Technical University, Budapest (Műszaki Egyetem) in 1967 as an architectural engineer and began postgraduate studies in sculpting and interior architecture. From 1971 to 1975 he worked as an architect, then went back to the academia and became professor at the Budapest College of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Főiskola).
In the early 1980s, he became editor of a game and puzzle journal called ...És játék ("...and games"), then became self-employed in 1983, founding the Rubik Stúdió, where he designed furniture and games. 1987 he became professor with full tenure; in 1990 he became the president of the Hungarian Engineering Academy (Magyar Mérnöki Akadémia). In the Academy, he created the International Rubik Foundation to support especially talented young engineers and industrial designer.
Presently he is mainly working on video game development and architectural topics and is still leading the Rubik Studios.
Rubik's Puzzles and Games
Below is a list of some of the puzzles released under the "Rubik" brand name of Ernö Rubik.
Cube-like Puzzles
Other Classic Puzzles
The 90s Collection
- Rubik's Triamid
- Rubik's Tangle
- Rubik's Dice
- Rubik's XV
Other Puzzles
- Rubik's Double Tangram
- Rubik's Maze
- Rubik's Rings
- Rubik's Shells
- Rubik's Tangle (a series of jigsaw-type puzzles, with square pieces; the aim is to create a tangle of ropes that join end to end)
- Rubik's UFO
- Zigzaw (a jigsaw puzzle)
Multi-player games
- Rubik's Brain Game
- Two-player game;
- One player acts as the "Codemaster", creating a hidden pattern; the other player has to guess this in as few turns as possible.
- Rubik's Challenge aka Rubik's Game
- Cube-shaped game
- Two to six players
- Rubik's Eclipse
- Two-player board game;
- Possibly a re-presented of the Magic Strategy Game with different designs for the playing pieces.
- Rubik's Illusion
- Two-player abstract strategy game;
- the board is constructed as eight playing spaces wide, by four real playing spaces deep, with a mirror at the far edge of the board making the total depth of play eight spaces.
- Rubik's Infinity
- Two-player strategy game;
- each player has marbles of a certain colour;
- the aim is to make as many rows of four marbles as possible whilst preventing your opponent from doing the same.
- Rubik's Line Up
- Rubik's Magic Strategy Game (two-player abstract strategy board game)
- Rubik's Race
- two player game
- each player has a five by five sliding puzzle
- the object is to make the central three by three square into a certain pattern.
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