Bob Burton Jr.

Bob Burton (born Robert Russell Burton Jr. on February 21, 1985) is an American speedcuber, most famous for competing in and organizing competitions all over the world and his former world records on the Rubik's Magic and Rubik's Master Magic.

Bob Burton grew up in Kearny, New Jersey. He went to Kearny High School from 1999–2003, where he graduated 6th in his class. At Kearny High School, he was president of the Physics Club in his junior year and president of the Student Government Association in his senior year. He also played middle linebacker for the football team for three years and rowed on the crew team for all four years. Burton also studied mathematics at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey and graduated in May 2007. He rowed for the Rutgers Lightweight Crew team and was the president and founder of the Rutgers University Rubik's Cube Club.

Rubik's 3x3x3 speedsolving

Burton began speedsolving with the 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube in May 2001. He was first challenged by some of his friends in an informal competition to see who could solve one side the fastest and was consistently the last to finish, so he bought a Rubik's Cube and began to practice with it. He was able to solve the cube in under a minute within a few months using a simple layer by layer method. He competed in the 2003 Rubik's World Games Championships

Rubik's Magic

Burton was one of the pioneers of solving the Rubik's Magic in the United States. After learning how to solve the puzzle, he insisted on it being an official event in competitions. Ian Winokur allowed a Rubik's Magic competition at the Horace Mann Spring 2005 tournament, in which Burton broke the American record for single solve (1.56 seconds) and average of five (1.85 seconds). In his next competition, Burton also insisted on allowing the Rubik's Master Magic to be an event. Tyson Mao agreed, so in the Caltech Summer 2005 tournament, Burton set the single solve world record for the Rubik's Magic (1.28 seconds) and the single solve (3.05 seconds) and average of five (3.54 seconds) world records for the Rubik's Master Magic. At the Trumbull Spring 2006 tournament, Burton also broke the world record for Rubik's Magic average (1.40 seconds). Burton was also the national champion in 2006 for the Rubik's Magic and the Rubik's Master Magic.

Rubik's Clock

At the 2005 Dutch Open Championship, Burton set the American record for the Rubik's Clock for single solve (24.12 seconds) and mean (32.68 seconds).

Other puzzles

Burton has also competed in the larger cubes (4x4x4 and 5x5x5), the Mini cube (2x2x2), the Megaminx, and the Square-1. Though he competes in all of these events, he is not very competitive in those categories and concentrates mostly on the standard Rubik's Cube and the Magic puzzles. However, he was the national champion at the 2006 US National Championships in San Francisco for the Square-1.

One-handed cubing

Burton also practices the art of one-handed cubing, in which the competitor can use only one hand to solve the cube. He was among the best in the world, placing 5th overall (of 61) in the first round of the 2005 Rubik's Cube World Championship. Since then, he has dropped in the rankings, but competes in the one-handed contest nonetheless.

Blindfolded cubing

In May 2006, Burton successfully solved the Rubik's Cube blindfolded in an official competition at the Trumbull Spring 2006 tournament in a time of 6 minutes 21.87 seconds. He had failed his first ten attempts before that, dating back to May of the previous year. Burton uses the Pochmann system to solve a cube blindfolded, which solves one piece at a time.

Official competition times

Burton's best official solves: