Max has been playing with Rubik’s Cubes since he was 9 years old. His parents introduced him to it to help him with his autism, which he was diagnosed with at age 2.
A new Guinness World Record was set for the fast time a Rubik’s Cube was solved: 3.134 seconds.
21-year-old Max Park, of Cerritos, California, now holds the prestigious title.
“I was just flabbergasted, really,” Max’s dad, Schwan Park, told Inside Edition Digital over Zoom about when it happened in the middle of a speed cubers competition in Southern California. “I heard this explosion of screaming. I knew in my heart that it must have been special because the type of screaming that I heard was pretty explosive."
Max has been playing with Rubik’s Cubes since he was 9 years old. His parents introduced him to it to help him with his autism, which he was diagnosed with at age 2.
“One of the issues that he used to have was fine motor skill problems. He just couldn't do certain things, like open up a Coke bottle, water bottle kind of a thing,” Schwan explained. “So we worked with an occupational therapist trying to strengthen his fingers. One day, Mickey, his mother, saw a Rubik's Cube and thought, ‘Well, this might help.’"
Mickey went on YouTube and taught herself how to solve the puzzle. Then, she taught her son.
“In a couple of days, he figured it out. He went on YouTube himself, he learned how to do it and we went down the rabbit hole from there.” Schwan said of how Max’s fascination with the toy began. In the beginning, Max practiced for about five hours a day.
His parents started entering Max in speed cuber competitions, which Schwan says helped Max find “his tribe of people.” There’s even a Netflix documentary about his journey. “He was pointing. That's the one thing that we tried forever to try to get him to point, because that's one of the things that kids with autism can't do very much, or they don't do very much. But we went to the competition, he's pointing at everybody. So much started to blossom from that environment and we just been doing that ever since.”
Max’s next challenge will be the U.S. nationals in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, followed by South Korea for the World Championships.
“He just loves the pursuit, just seeing what his limitations are,” Schwan said is the best thing about this whole experience.
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