By Neena Gowda | Staff Writer
Ethan Jan, Class of 2023, has gained recognition for one of his many talents: Rubik’s cubes.
Ethan is involved in many on-campus activities and clubs; he is also involved in extracurricular interests. “I am the principal violist in the advanced string ensemble and vice president of the RHS Math Club. Last semester, I was involved with theater, SPI Stem club, Compact club, Scientific Breakthrough club, and Octagon club, although I am yet to participate in them this semester,” Ethan said.
The most noted, and most public, talent of Ethan’s would definitely be his Rubik’s cube solving. Ethan constantly tries new and exciting solvings under a multiple of challenging and changing factors. But, how did Ethan get into Rubik’s cube solving?
“Rubik’s cubes brought me to competitions, where I would meet people and socialize for several hours straight. These improved my social skills over the past seven years, and I found it easier to make friends at school. Solving Rubik’s cubes also requires algorithms, or sequences of moves to achieve a certain combination. By memorizing those, I created memory techniques, some of which I still apply to everyday life today,” Ethan said.
“When learning algorithms (sequences of moves to achieve a certain combination) for the Rubik's cube, the moves are memorized with sets of letters (ex: R means turn the right side, L means left, etc). Memorizing these letters individually is very difficult, so I might (1) look for common patterns in these sequences of moves that appear in many different algorithms, since remembering something common is often easier than remembering something rare.”
“Some algorithms are just rearranged versions of other algorithms or two entire algorithms put together with slight variations or no variations. This technique not only helps me remember algorithms more easily, but also gives me a better understanding of how the sequences of moves can achieve the combination I am trying to reach, as well as how it relates to other algorithms, which may lead to an easier time remembering more algorithms in the future.”
“I might also (2) track the stickers and find visual patterns in the paths that each of the stickers take, so I would not have to remember individual letters representing moves; instead I could just remember to move certain stickers to certain places at different points in the algorithm.”
“In rare cases, if the algorithms could not be explained intuitively and the only way to remember them is for me to memorize individual letters, I would (3) create words from the letters. For example, if I saw ‘R L’ in the algorithm, I could simply remember it as ‘roll’ rather than ‘turn the right side clockwise, then turn the left side clockwise.’”
“All three of these techniques, along with some others, could be applied to memorizing things unrelated to Rubik's cubes in shorter periods of time. Information taught in classes, especially STEM classes, can be condensed into intuitive processes or sequences that can be remembered by tracking objects visually, using acronyms/abbreviations, simply looking for patterns or relationships between ideas, etc.”
“However, I should make it clear that my memory is far from perfect and I do struggle somewhat often to memorize information, since a lot of information is, at the end of the day, still a lot of information.”
“Besides Rubik’s cubes, I enjoy playing the piano and viola. Music is either a way for me to relax, or a way to gain positive energy in the middle of the day. I have also enjoyed origami and memorizing digits of pi, although it has been a while since the last time I actively did either. Spending time with my friends is also a blast; I only started doing that outside of school recently, but it is probably the best way for me to get rid of stress. I also think the memories I make with my friends would be some of the best ones to look back at in the future.”
Ethan was recently featured on Fox’s Game of Talents show for his ability to juggle two Rubik’s cubes in one hand and solve a Rubik’s cube with the other.
“I first attended local competitions without any impressive results, but eventually managed to place decently high in some regional and national competitions (For example, 2nd place in Taiwan Championship in 2018). My times ranked me approximately equal to 130th in the world in 2020, but eventually the competitions ended due to COVID-19. I started making more online content and found opportunities to go onto Game of Talents and attempting two Guinness World Records. At this point, I am satisfied to have had these opportunities (and to have taken them), but I also feel fortunate, since these opportunities are rare.”
Ethan says he hopes to “[C]ontinue solving Rubik’s cubes in the future, regardless of how much [he] stay[s] dedicated. College will likely become my main focus, but I plan to continue making online content with Rubik’s cubes.”
Ethan’s Tik Tok account has more than 500K followers, but he is more than what is shown on his platform. “However, I also want to be portrayed as a common high school student, since I find that the majority of my days are focused on academics, similar to many other students.”
Ethan believes he is a common high school student; yet he demonstrates the qualities of an academically bright student. “I almost feel like I made it sound like my entire life revolves around Rubik's cubes or that I am completely different from everyone else because of this one hobby, and while I am proud of the ways I am unique, I also don't want to sound too arrogant.”
When asked who has had the biggest influence on his life, Ethan said, “I cannot name only one person; many online content creators on Youtube were a source of inspiration for me, not only because of their techniques in solving Rubik’s cubes, but also their personalities. Watching these people give their thought processes while solving Rubik’s cubes for hours on end helped me develop my own style in finding different solutions to the Rubik’s cube. Watching some of these content creators also helped me develop a better understanding of humor, since many people would make comedic content (and I occasionally would too).”
Speaking of Covid-19 and how hard the pandemic has been on all students, if Ethan could do something differently, he says, “I would tell my younger self to keep persevering, and never lose hope/get discouraged. In the past, I often doubted my own skills/potential, simply because of how advanced everyone else seemed compared to me. I was still relatively determined as a speedcuber to start with, but I wish I had been more focused on my goals (and more positive in general).”
Ethan advises us with a personal anecdote, “During my worst times, I sometimes felt as if I had no chance of success, or that I was meant to be a failure, but continuing to move forward despite how I felt eventually led me to where I am now.”
“People sometimes go through tough times because of a few (or even many) failures, but I advise everyone to keep moving forward regardless of what went wrong previously. In many scenarios, success will eventually arrive with hard work, and it will usually be very satisfying.”
Ethan Jan's tiktok : https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdHdeXTK/