Rubik's Cube Championship:

BUDAPEST - Some 300 participants are expected to puzzle over a small multicolored cube this weekend as Budapest welcomes the 2007 World Championships of the Hungarian-born Rubik's Cube. Besides returning to the birthplace of the cult puzzle, this year's competition will also be held in the presence of the man behind the cube, Hungarian inventor Erno Rubik. Some 300 candidates from 33 countries, including reigning champion Jean Pons from France, are expected to take part in the competition on October 5, 6 and 7, organizers said in a statement. Since it was launched in 1977, the Rubik's Cube has fascinated young and old. Each side features a different color -- red, green, yellow, blue, white or orange -- and consists of several smaller squares that can be moved around a central hinge. Once scrambled, the goal is to re-arrange the squares so that each side again displays only one color. "National and international championships have become regular meeting places for speedcubists, solution virtuosos," the organizers said in a statement. Originally fated to have a short life, the Rubik's Cube eventually became a cult object for the 1980s. It has been exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art and has entered into the Oxford dictionary.