A mosaic portrait of Rosa Parks was created by Rubik’s Cube master Jake Hudson, a junior at Shawnee Heights. 

Ms. Leslie Weishaar, the library media specialist, announced the project on Jan. 10. Students had the opportunity to go in the library during their free time and create a picture of Rosa Parks using only Rubik’s Cubes. A key showed the students what pattern to create, with the final portrait being composed of 100 cubes.

“I had seen this project online, where you can check out these Rubik’s Cubes and you can do all sorts of different things with them. I chose the first image of Rosa Parks to be in kind of conjunction with Black History Month,” Ms. Weishaar said.

One student in particular found this challenge as a highlight of his school day. Junior Jake Hudson felt accomplished after he solved the first mosaic.

“It took me approximately an hour and thirty minutes. I came in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday during my lunch period,” Hudson said. “I just like doing Rubik’s Cubes because I like to see what people can create with them, and I just wanted to see what the experience would be like for me to create a picture.” 

Hudson said he has a handful of cubes at his house and wishes to get more in order to create pictures at home. Since he has solved many Rubik’s Cubes in his life, he is able to work around them fairly quickly.

“There was some that I messed up on so I had to go back and fix them but it was easier than expected. For a newcomer it would probably be harder, because they don’t have the experience that I do,” Hudson said.

Hudson has already started the second picture, a portrait of Anne Frank. He finished section one of the picture, composed of 25 cubes, within one lunch period. Ms. Weishaar plans to continue finding new pictures for students to create throughout the rest of the year.

“This part is not a competition but maybe in the future we can have one. It is a collaborative project where any kid can work on it so we just have different kids come in during their free time and they can kind of collaborate on it and work on it just as they come in,” Ms. Weishaar said.

Canvas messages from Ms. Weishar will update students when new mosaics start. The library plans to allow some students to check out a single Rubik’s cube to learn how to solve at home.