Calgary siblings conquer the cube

A pair of Calgary siblings are taking on the Rubik's cube, but with different abilities. It's a hobby their neuroscientist father heartily endorses.

There is a constant clicking sound in all corners of Frida and Zain Ismail’s Calgary home. It’s coming from a multi-colored cube clutched in the fingers of their children, as they stare down at puzzles they are determined to conquer.

The Rubik’s Cube began as pandemic pick-up hobby but has turned into a passion, especially for Erik, their middle child.

“He borrowed one from a neighbor,” remembers father Dr. Zain Ismail. “It was really stiff and hard but it reminded me of 30 years ago when I did a little cubing.”

Erik was seven when he solved his first two-sided cube in a just a matter of days.

“I learned how to solve that, easy-peasy,” he said, grinning. “My dad told me when he was little he could solve the big ones like these with rows of three, so I was interested.”

“I showed him as much as I could remember,” said Zain “We’d cube together and before long he was faster than me, then twice as fast and three times as fast.”

“And then you were left in the dust,” laughed Frida Emry Ismail, Zain’s wife.

Now nine, Erik has been to cubing competitions in both Sweden and Edmonton. He studies videos and researches algorithms in an effort to get faster.