He was given a 3×3 Rubik’s cube eight years ago. With a few twists it could go from a colorful mess to an organized block of color. He became fascinated with turning the scrambled squares back into their perfect form.

“I was interested then, but it was really brief and I just sort of played with it like everyone does, get stumped and then move on,” said Brody Lassner ’20. “And then a few years later, I came back to it and looked up a tutorial online and struggled with that for a few weeks until I eventually figured it out.”

He was around 8 years old when he could completely solving the cube. Lassner learned over several weeks from studying videos and memorizing concepts to help him solve it. One of the most helpful videos was by Youtuber Dan Brown. After a series of trial and error, Lassner could solve the cube in about a minute a half.

In seventh grade there was another student at Northwest Junior High, Nathan Deyak ’21, who could solve the cube faster than Lassner. Lassner made it his mission to surpass his classmate’s 35 second record.

“I wanted to be the fastest person at Northwest … and so I achieved that [and] that gave me the motivation to really try. Then I surpassed him in about a month and then from there, you just want to go as hard as you can.”

That competition led him to speed up the solving process and become as fast as he is now.

“I remember the the first week or two after I started learning to get fast were really, really frustrating because I made mistakes every single time I tried,” said Lassner. “But after I got past that, it was just smooth sailing and I’d finally gotten the hang of it. And then I made a lot of progress really quickly.”

After beating his classmate, the word spread about his talent around Northwest Junior High.

“Most days, somebody would come to me and bring me a scrambled cube they brought from home, I’d solve it for them,” said Lassner.

Though he was able to amaze his junior high peers with his quick solving skills, it’s the online reactions that have stayed constant and amazed Lassner.

He started his Youtube channel, BrodytheCuber in April of 2015, around the same time he started competing in cubing competitions.

“Of course a lot of kids go through a phase where they want to make videos, they want to be famous, and I went through the same phase of just like pouring out videos without much thought. But then about a little over a year ago, I started really caring about what I was making and trying to make it quality,” said Lassner.

Lassner started focussing on helping others solve cubes faster. His first hit video was titled “10 INCREDIBLE Techniques To Help You Get Faster At 3×3”, which was posted last year.

“I rode that success for a few months and then it mostly died down about six months later,” he said.

Lassner then found a Youtube channel about marketing videos and he had another wave of success following the implementation of the skills he’d learned.

He has been to eighteen cubing competitions, including the US national cubing competition where he placed 13th in the one handed solving contest. At West, Lassner created a speed cubing club with Anuj Jani ’22.

Today he has more than thirteen thousand subscribers and his online support has been surreal.

“In real life people are like ‘that’s interesting’ and then move on, but like online a lot of crazy stuff has happened. People will find my Facebook account and then they’ll friend me and be like, ‘Are you the real Brody Lassner?’” said Lassner. “People will message me and say ‘Wow you helped me so much’ and like it’s unreal. It’s something I’ll never get used to and I don’t want to get used to it.”