He’s only 13, but he’s already got a national record and a crowd of stunned adults watching him solve a Rubik’s Cube in under six seconds. Meet Scotland’s youngest speedcubing star—and listen up, because he’s got three tips that just might change how you look at the world’s most famous puzzle.
On a quiet weekend in Edinburgh, inside a bright but ordinary school hall packed with chairs and quiet tension, a Rubik’s Cube spun to a blur in the hands of Lewis McGregor. When the timer stopped, the screen flashed 5.81 seconds. Gasps, then cheers. A new Scottish under-14 record.
He didn’t shout. He just grinned. “Felt clean,” he said.
Not your average after-school hobby
Lewis isn’t glued to screens. He’s glued to cubes. Dozens of them—3x3s, 4x4s, even mirror cubes—lie scattered across his bedroom floor in Edinburgh’s Morningside. He picked up his first cube at 9, scrambled it, and forgot it. A year later, something changed. He saw a YouTube video, gave it another shot—and then never stopped.
“I just couldn’t leave it unsolved,” he says. “That would mess with my brain.”
Now, Lewis practices 2 to 3 hours a day. Sometimes more.
At school, his teachers joke about it. “They say they’ll confiscate my cube,” he laughs. “But they never do.”
So how did he get so fast? Tip #1: Learn finger tricks, not just solutions
A lot of people think speedcubing is all about knowing the right moves. Algorithms, formulas, strategies—sure, those help. But for Lewis, it’s more about fluency. Not in math. In muscle memory.
“You can’t pause and think at every turn,” he says. “You’ve got to feel it.”
That’s where finger tricks come in. They’re tiny tweaks to how you spin the cube—flicks, rolls, nudges—that save fractions of a second. Over 50 moves? Those fractions stack up.
• Instead of turning the front face with your whole hand, use your index finger for faster execution
• Learn to rotate the cube with your wrist—not your whole arm
• Practice “lookahead”—while executing one move, your eyes are already on the next pattern
“It’s like piano scales,” he says. “You do them slow. Then faster. Then you don’t think anymore.”
Tip #2: Break up the solve into four chunks
The cube isn’t solved all at once. It’s a series of stages. Lewis breaks his solves into four key parts, and he trains each separately.
“One bad cross, and the whole thing’s messed up,” he says.
Here’s how he explains it:
| Step | Description | Goal Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Cross | Solve one face’s edges | Under 1.5 seconds |
| 2. F2L (First Two Layers) | Pair and place corners + edges | Under 3.5 seconds |
| 3. OLL (Orient Last Layer) | Make top face same color | Under 1 second |
| 4. PLL (Permute Last Layer) | Move pieces to final spots | Under 1 second |
He trains each step in isolation. That means practicing the cross 100 times in a row. Or doing only PLLs for an hour straight.
“It’s boring. But it works,” he shrugs.
One paragraph. One sentence.
And it says everything.
Training under pressure: Tip #3 is all about nerves
Let’s be honest—anyone can be fast at home. It’s when the timer’s running and people are watching that it really counts. Lewis knows that all too well.
At his first tournament, his hands were shaking.
“I messed up the inspection,” he says. “Just blanked.”
Now, he’s learned to control it. His advice?
“Don’t overthink the first turn. Just go.”
He does breathing exercises. He listens to the same playlist before each heat—mostly lo-fi beats and some classic Queen. Familiarity calms him.
But he also visualizes. Right before solving, he pictures his hands moving perfectly. It helps him trust himself.
“That first move is everything,” he says.
A growing scene in Scotland, and a rising star
Speedcubing isn’t just a quirk anymore. In the UK, competitions have doubled over the past three years. Scotland now has its own circuit of tournaments, and they’re getting more crowded—especially with kids.
The World Cube Association reports that UK participation among under-18s rose by nearly 40% in 2024 alone.
Lewis is part of that surge, but he’s also leading it. In March, he placed third overall at the Glasgow Winter Open—competing against adults.
Some of them weren’t too happy to be beaten by a kid.
“There’s definitely a few egos,” he grins. “But mostly it’s chill.”
His coach—yes, he has a coach—is 21-year-old Max Yeung, a former UK top-10 cuber from Dundee. Max says Lewis’s rise has been “scary fast.”
“Most kids take a year to get sub-20 seconds,” Max says. “Lewis did it in six months.”
One sentence. Just one.
“He’s built different.”
What’s next for Lewis? Bigger cubes, bigger goals
While he still loves the standard 3×3, Lewis is branching out.
“I’m trying to get better at the 5×5. It’s just chaos right now,” he laughs.
He’s also eyeing European competitions next year, maybe even the World Championships in 2026. That one’s in Tokyo.
But for now, he’s still got homework. And he’s still a kid.
He plays football on weekends, argues with his sister, and eats way too many KitKats. The cube isn’t everything. But it’s close.
“I just like solving stuff,” he says. “It feels… right.”
And then he grabs his main cube—a Gan 12 Maglev—and spins it casually. In five seconds flat, the colors blur, align, and stop.
Solved.
