OTS 180: From Puzzle to Practice with Rubik’s Cubes in School Based OT
- Jayson Davies
- Jul 14
- 34 min read
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 180 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
What do Rubik’s Cubes, art, and therapy have in common? In this inspiring episode, Jayson chats with Kyle Wright, a Rubik’s Cube artist and autistic adult who has transformed a personal coping strategy into a therapeutic tool for others. Kyle shares his journey of late diagnosis, how he found emotional regulation through cube art, and how he’s now empowering therapists and clients alike to find joy, structure, and growth through this creative medium.
Whether you’ve never touched a cube or are already solving them in seconds, this conversation will change the way you think about therapy tools.
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Learners will identify how Rubik’s Cube-based activities can support the development of fine motor, visual-spatial, and executive functioning skills in students.
Learners will describe how to scaffold Rubik’s Cube tasks to meet diverse learner needs and align with individualized OT goals.
Learners will explore ways in which Rubik’s Cube art can support emotional regulation and student engagement in therapeutic and educational settings.
Guest(s) Bio
In July 2024, Kyle Wright was diagnosed with autism as an adult, a moment that profoundly reshaped his understanding of himself and his future. At the time, he was streaming video games on Twitch under the name “Rightbr0tha,” but the constant changes in gaming proved overwhelming. Seeking something more consistent and creatively fulfilling, Kyle—with the support of his therapist and his wife, discovered Rubik’s Cube art and quickly fell in love with its balance of structure and freedom.
He launched a 30-day YouTube challenge to test the waters, and by the end of it, his subscriber count had nearly doubled. Just a few months later, his channel gained major traction with over 500,000 views and 2,000 new subscribers in December alone—solidifying that he had found something truly special.
Today, Kyle Cubes is more than a YouTube channel. It’s a creative platform and therapeutic outlet that allows Kyle to share his passion for cube art while spreading a powerful message: “Know That You Are Loved.”
Quotes
“Rubik’s Cube art isn’t just about creating something beautiful—it’s about developing real skills with a fun, tangible outcome.”
-Jayson Davies, M.A., OTR/L
“You don’t have to solve the whole Rubik’s Cube. You just have to be able to solve one side of the Rubik’s Cube.”
-Kyle Wright
“Every client is different. Every client has different needs, different things that they need to accomplish. And we need to make the activity fit their particular therapy goals.”
-Kyle Wright
Resources
👉Kyle’s Daisy Method Video: Tutorial for solving one side of a Rubik’s Cube
Episode Transcript
Expand to view the episode transcript
Jayson Davies
Hey there, and welcome to episode 180 of the OT school house podcast. I'm your host, Jayson, and as you might have heard, whether it be through previous episodes or through the OT school house newsletter, it is an exciting time right now in my home, as well as here at the OT school house, which, to be honest, are sometimes one the same. Anyways, I just celebrated my birthday on July 3. My wife and I are expecting our second child any day now, literally between, you know, now June or July 14, I think this is episode or that is coming out, and August 1 is the due date. And also with ot school house, we have the back to school conference kicking off in just over a month on August, 23 so like I said, exciting times. But enough about me for now. Let's talk about you and how you can use a toy popularized over 30 years ago to support your students right now in 2025 and beyond. This is a toy that you know, as you probably read in the title of this podcast, something you probably played with when you were between the ages of five and 15, and people are still using it today. Today we're diving into how a Rubik's cube can be used for something completely different than what it was designed for art. Now, if you've ever felt intimidated by these colorful cues, because, like me, you've never actually solved one, don't worry, as you'll learn creating Rubik's Cube art is not about solving the whole cube. It's all about focusing on just one side, making it both fun and approachable for anyone, it also makes it a little therapeutic. Joining us today is Kyle Wright, a Rubik's Cube artist whose life transformed after being diagnosed with autism as an adult and when he realized that video games may not be the best outlet for himself, Kyle discovered the therapeutic potential of Rubik's Cube art, not just for himself, but also for others. Today, Kyle is here to share how we as school based ot practitioners can use this creative medium to support fine motor skills, visual spatial abilities and even emotional regulation with the students that we serve. Also, Kyle has a free Rubik's Cube art therapy guide that he wants to share with us at the end of the episode, so be sure to stay tuned for that. So grab your coffee or maybe a Rubik's cube if you want to fidget with something during the episode. And let's explore how this unique approach can spark creativity and growth in your practice. Let's get started.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jason Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Kyle, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How you doing today?
Kyle Wright
I'm doing great. Jayson, thanks for having me out.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely I, you know, I very rarely have people contact me via our website that I actually end up having on the podcast. But when you reached out, you shared what you're doing, Rubik's Cube, YouTube, art therapy, all that good stuff here, I just knew I had to have you on. So I am so excited to talk everything with you, Rubik's cube, and just a little bit also about your life. And yeah, let's do it. Excited. Yeah, I'm excited. All right. Well, let's go ahead and dive into before we start talking about Rubik's Cube, I want to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your kind of last few years of life, because you were diagnosed as someone with autism relatively recently, I believe, and I wanted to kind of get your take on that part of life, like, how was that transition? Was it scary? Was it exciting? Did you just What did that feel like?
Kyle Wright
Yeah, so I'll kind of start from the beginning, honestly, from early on in childhood, myself and my parents both kind of knew something was a little off. You know, I was always a little bit socially different. Always did things a little bit abnormally. But unfortunately, you know, back in the late 90s and the early 2000s when my parents tried to have me diagnosed, they really didn't know a whole lot about level one autism. And I believe I was being diagnosed when I was like, you know, 11 or 12 years old. At that point, I had already learned how to mask too well that the therapy, you know, the therapists, weren't able to, you know, formally diagnose me. And so I was told at that time that I didn't have autism, and I went off to college and did all of that, and, you know, struggled with it, but I got through. But it wasn't really until COVID and kind of the shutdown and all the craziness happened that really I noticed, like, Okay, I've got to do something. Something's not right. Because. Because, you know, I, I work a nine to five job, I had a very structured routine and how I did everything. And one Friday we were, you know, March of 2020, we were in that structure. And then the very next week, it was completely different. And it just completely rocked my world in so many ways, and kind of led me on a, basically a three year journey trying to figure out what was wrong. Because I could see, like, all of my friends, you know, they, all of my coworkers, were, like, thriving. Like, yes, I get to work from home. I don't go to the office again, like all of that, and I'm sitting here like, I hate this. I hate literally every single moment of this. And but, but why? And so, working with me and my wife, we kind of came to the conclusion, like, Yes, I am autistic. I kind of self diagnosed. And then it wasn't until beginning of last year 2024 that me and my wife are like, okay, let's, let's try to get you formally diagnosed. Let's figure out what does that look like as an adult. And, you know, unfortunately as an adult, it's a very complicated process, because a lot of the requirements are for childhood. They don't really like it has to be present in childhood. So it was a long journey. I was diagnosed in July of 24 and as soon as I got the diagnosis, I jumped head first into therapy, and haven't stopped since,
Jayson Davies
wow, wow. There's so many, so many follow ups that I have, I one thing that has been playing back in my mind ever since you kind of said it was that masking back, you know, when you were 1011, 12 years old, looking back at that, what did like? You know, 10 years, 20 years later, we have so much better view of our life 20 years ago. For you, what was that masking? Now that you look back on it like, what were you doing to mask?
Kyle Wright
Yeah, so, I mean, I think one of the biggest things that I struggled as a child, you know, not knowing that I was autistic, was I had a really high tendency of unintentionally offending people. I would make a comment or say something and their facial expression, I'd be like, Oh, I messed up. Like I wasn't supposed to say that out loud, you know, whatever that may be. And so from a very early age, my mother was like, Hey, Kyle, you you can't say that. Like, you can't go up and tell the bigger lady that she's big. It's just not something you do and you're like, just kind of stuff like that. And so from an early age, I just kind of had to learn that while I am different, I also have to fit into this neurotypical world.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I can imagine that just being really like, your brain wants to do one thing, and you're trying to conform into to this, like you said, neurotypical world, that's like very much pulling you back. And there's some internal conflict, I bet, and so that that's tough, so, but here we are. You got your diagnosis, and then you said that you jumped headfirst into therapy. What's that been looking like? It's
Kyle Wright
been really good. I meet with a couple of different therapists. I kind of have, like a life coach, business coach. I work in it full time. I have a very high demanding job, and so I kind of have like a little bit of a life coach, just somebody to talk to, and then also have an occupational therapist that I see on a regular basis, just to help me with the executive functioning and all of the kind of different struggles I have and as an autistic
Jayson Davies
adult, Wow, very cool. That's, you know, obviously you're on an OT podcast, and we primarily in this podcast. We focus on school based occupational therapy. And so it's funny, I often get asked, like, people who don't know understand OT, and then I'm specifically school based OT, like, how can I do this with my, you know, aged mother? How can I do this with someone at different different lifes than a school based life, and I'm like to be honest with you. OT is very different from school based to working with adults, I don't know, but all that aside, I want to dive into what you're now doing with Rubik's cube. And this is just amazing. I've I binged watch your YouTube channel because it's just so much fun, but I want to get your take on, kind of how you got into Rubik's cube, and then we can kind of start to talk about the therapeutic values.
Kyle Wright
Oh, absolutely. So before I started doing Rubik's Cube art, I was doing, I was Twitch streaming on nights and weekends, playing video games like Diablo four. Four and fortnight. And honestly, I loved the games, but the community was kind of always difficult for me, having to always be on and interacting with chat and streaming and all of the things that go into that is very exhausting for, you know, somebody that has autism, and also, you know, in the last 10 years with the world of video games, we've kind of seen this shift of games being story based and shifting to more like seasonal content. And so games are constantly changing. And as somebody with autism that likes structure and likes routine. I would much rather go play Zelda Ocarina of Time 15 times over, then always feel like I'm having to learn the game over because they changed mechanics. So basically, like, towards the end of my streaming career as a Twitch streamer, I honestly, every time I streamed, I was going into meltdown for like, a solid day or two days after, like, I just couldn't take the stress, and my mental health was really struggling, and so I knew I needed to change. And so that was kind of when I started talking to my therapist, and she was like, Well, sounds like you need to find a new outlet. You need to find something that is, something that you have more control over, something that's not going to change under your feet and cause you so much struggle. And so kind of through that conversation with her, you know, I said, Hey, like, I saw this guy on Tiktok that was making art with Rubik's cubes, and I thought it looked really cool. And I was like, You know what? I'm just gonna go home and buy myself 100 cubes and see what happens. And now you fast forward to today, and I have a whole business around it, and I own over 2000 Rubik's Cubes. Oh, wow, I've got my hands full.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And so as you made that shift to, you know, from video games to Rubik's Cubes, what was it about Rubik's cubes that, to you, just kind of felt grounding you obviously talked about, kind of the with Twitch and with video games, a lot of change, and with Rubik's Cube now is a little bit something more controlling from the OT World. Obviously, as I know you're aware, we look at, you know, sensory processing and various senses, whether it be visual, tactile, proprioception, all that was there, that part of it, or what was it? Just that just really grounded it for you.
Kyle Wright
So really for me, it's the emotional regulation and being able to have that structure and routine in the activity. And what I mean by that is, before I ever even place my first cube, you can actually see one of my mosaics back here, if you're watching the video on this podcast. But before I even place the first cube, I already know what every cube is going to look like, and I know how it's all going to be mapped out. I know that doing 400 Rubik's cubes is going to take me about three to four hours on average to complete, and there's not going to be any hiccups or changes or anything like that, because I've already done all the planning. And that's really the part of Rubik's Cube art that is the most beneficial, I feel like, to neurodivergent individuals, is it's structured, and you you know what you're getting into when you start, and you're you're not going to be thrown off by that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's really I mean, as someone who also likes structure, not necessarily autistic, but as someone like structure, I totally get that. I like having the end goal in sight and almost being able to plan backwards to get to that point. And there's something to be said about routine. I guess kind of a follow up to that a little bit is, how long have you been doing this, and does it ever to the point get almost boring, or do you feel like that routine is so good for you, or and just, there's other ways, I guess, to make it not boring. But I guess, does the routine over and over and over again ever get tiring? A
Kyle Wright
little bit, not really, because, I mean, at the end of the day, I have something new that I've made, you know, even though I'm making it with the same medium, making the same thing, like, you know, one day I might make a portrait of somebody, and I might be like, Hey, today I don't want to do a portrait, because I did that two days ago. Maybe now I'll make a landscape, or I'll make a, you know, there's, there's so many different facets. I feel like a lot of artists, you know, they're like, Okay, I've, I've painted a million farmhouses, so now I'm gonna switch and paint the horse, you know, like, I kind of get that vibe with the Rubik's Cube art. I started doing it back. Back. So I was diagnosed in July of 24 and I think I started exploring Rubik's Cube in September of 24 and I started making cube art, and started just showing it to some friends. I was just doing it for my own therapeutic benefit, and my friends were like, Dude, you need to sell this. You need to share it. You need to do something. And so it's like, okay, so October 16 of last year, I posted my first YouTube channel on what was then my old, you know, Twitch stream, YouTube channel that had like 200 subscribers. And I just made a promise to myself, Hey, I'm gonna post for 30 days and I'm gonna see what happens. And 30 Days turned into 60 days. And now, you know, almost seven or eight months in, I have over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube. So obviously, you know, I hit a I hit something that people like, and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and speaking to that side of things like, what are you finding? As far as, like, you know, we all talk about in business, you got to find your niche. Obviously, you found your niche with with Rubik's Cube art. But every niche has an audience. What are you finding? Are you finding, I guess, similarities in those 30,000 people that are watching you. Are you gravitating toward therapists? Watching? Are you gravitating toward other autistic people? Watching? Are you kind of discovering that?
Kyle Wright
Yeah, I'm still working on it. I mean, the 30,000 that I have now is mainly just people that think the art is cool, and they think it's really awesome. The therapy aspect of Rubik's Cube bar is fairly new for me. I've started kind of developing that over the last two or three months and and trying to make a plan and a routine to kind of start to shift the YouTube channel to be more therapy based, making content for therapists and other people that can benefit from Rubik's Cube art,
Jayson Davies
awesome and so, so what's driving that? Obviously your background a little bit, but moving forward, what's driving it?
Kyle Wright
Yeah. So the big thing for me is I've just seen how much of a benefit Rubik's Cube art has had in my own life, not just in fine motor skill, visual motor executive functioning, but also just my emotional regulation. And my wife has even told me, like she noticed a huge difference when I start doing Rubik's Cube art versus when I haven't done it for a week or two. She's like, Babe, you need to go do some Rubik's Cube art, because you're getting a little edgy. So, you know, obviously it's, it's working for me, and it's a benefit. And so I'm going to keep doing it as long as I can.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. I love this idea that it's something that you truly enjoy and that you can do it for your own emotional regulation, but it's also something that you are now kind of being able to pass along the knowledge and pass along the know how for other people to support their own emotional regulation. That's completely awesome. So we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to dive into the process and the ideas behind how school based ot practitioners can use Rubik's cube, so hang on tight. All right, we are back, and like I said, we wanted to dive into how school based ot practitioners can really start to harness the idea of Rubik's Cube. I know for me, when I was young, I never solved one. I got the first, you know, face, and I got the two rows done, but I can never get that third row and that bottom done, and that always frustrated the heck out of me, and I just didn't want to do Rubik's Cube anymore after watching some tutorials. But for you, it's super emotional. Regulate, regulating. I'm sure that it is regulating to complete a Rubik's view. But even more so for you, you know, doing that art, but for people who see Rubik's cubes as just being like a complete non emotional regulating task, how can, how can we start to use these? Or why should we start to use these in potentially school based practice? How can we support kids using Rubik's Cubes?
Kyle Wright
Yeah, so there's a lot of different therapy goals that you can use Rubik's cubes for, and in a lot of my programs, like, yes, we do Rubik's Cube art, but we also take it and break it down, you know, starting with, you know, rotating the cube to solve that top face and to, you know, instruct the students to place cubes in certain patterns or certain places, you know, obviously kind of stair stepping up that that you know, benefit of the Rubik's Cube art, the big one that I like to always talk about is fine motor and how Rubik's Cube really can support. People with fine motor needs because of the twisting and turning aspect of the cube. And my perfect example of this is Max Park. Max Park is considered to be one of the best Rubik's Cube speed solvers of all time. And he is a 23 year old autistic adult, and the only reason that he was ever introduced to a Rubik's cube was because at the age of 10 years old, he wasn't able to take the bottle cap off of a water bottle, and so his therapist introduced him to the Rubik's Cube solely as a fine motor activity so that he could take the lid off the water bottle. And obviously he loved it, turned it into his full time passion, and now he is the one of only two speed cubers in the world that has ever won the World cube Association world championship twice, and so he is. He holds multiple world records in cube solving.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I think I remember watching the Netflix special on him a few years ago. I'm pretty sure that was him that it came out on right? Yep,
Kyle Wright
they did the Netflix special on him and Timon, which were two of the big cube solvers at that time.
Jayson Davies
That's awesome. Yeah, so fine motor skills, absolutely right? There's and it's crazy. You know, you look at cubers once they get professional and oh my goodness, the fine motor skills that they use like they're no longer using their wrist to to twist the different sides. It's often just a flick of a finger in their twisting sides, and obviously the fine motor skills are there for him now. So, yeah, another aspect that we often look at is visual processing, visual spatial skills, obviously something with cubes that is very important. You want to talk about that for
Kyle Wright
a moment. Yeah, absolutely. So we definitely can support visual spatial, really, in the just the aspect of, you know, looking at a cube and saying, Okay, it's in this current state, but I need it to match this guide, or I need it to match the certain template. If you're doing Rubik's Cube art or just doing other activities, you know, we have students that we work with that are autistic, that we say, hey, let's make a green cross together on one side of your Rubik's cube. And you know, you've got to think about that in a visual aspect. You've got to look at the cube and say, Okay, I need to turn these certain things this certain way to accomplish this goal, and even that for a lot of autistic clients that I've had the opportunity of working with is a huge accomplishment for them, because they're like, whoa. Like, I did something, you know, I accomplished this. So, yeah, I mean, you can definitely get in the visual space as well.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. How? How different is solving a Rubik's Cube from making art with the Rubik's Cube? Like when I see your artwork online, you're just using, obviously, one face of the cube to make the art. But, yeah. How different is it?
Kyle Wright
It is very different. I mean, like you mentioned earlier in the podcast, you you got that first layer pretty easily. You try, you got the second layer, and then you just quite never got to that third layer. And that's honestly what a lot of people tell me when they're like, I don't think Rubik's cube r is going to work for my clients because I don't know how to solve a Rubik's cube. And what I tell these clients is, Hey, you don't have to solve the whole Rubik's Cube. You just have to be able to solve one side of the Rubik's cube. And I have, you know, a video on my YouTube channel that's about six minutes long that teaches you a very easy, simple method for solving one side of the cube. So if you think you can't do it, I would say, definitely give it a try, because you don't know until you try it out.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. We'll be sure to share a link to that YouTube video specifically in the show notes. So be sure to head over to the show notes so you can get a link to that. And kind of going along with that is, how do you start to break down? Because, you know, I can get one side of a cube, but obviously you're putting what, like 40 cubes together, maybe 100 cubes together, to make this, this art piece. How are you breaking that down into manager, manageable steps?
Kyle Wright
Yeah. So basically, what I do is I start with an image. And you know, whether it be something I find online or I create something in paint, I'll start with a photo or something. And there's actually free websites online where you can take an image and it'll actually convert it to. To a grayscale image, and then it assigns each of the values to the different cube art colors, or the colors of the cube. And so the darkest colors are going to be blue, and the lightest colors are going to be white, and everything else in between is the other colors. So that's really the biggest thing, is getting your contrast right, and doing all of the planning of how big does this piece need to be to make it look good? That's where the challenge comes in, because you're not going to be able to go and take a picture of a forest with hundreds of trees and then try to turn that into Rubik's Cube art, it's not gonna look very good, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of considerations that go into that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and you only got six colors. Have you ever been frustrated by that aspect, or are there Rubik's cubes that you can buy to get past that?
Kyle Wright
So it's actually kind of funny. We actually don't use green in a lot of Rubik's Cube art. So really, we only have five colors, which you would think, yeah, that would be limiting. But I kind of enjoy it, because it's, I don't have to think about too many colors. You know, it's, again, that structured, like I know what I'm getting into, and I plan it out and I just do it. I mean, I honestly don't really even think about it that often,
Jayson Davies
yeah, to a degree. I mean, any sport, any game you play, it's the limits that really make the game kind of interesting and make it fun, right? Like, what's the point of I don't know what's the point of playing soccer, if the soccer goal is, you know, the entire side of the football, the entire side of the soccer pitch, if I can use the right language in soccer, not my forte, but yeah, so kind of having just the six colors, or if you take away green the five colors, it kind of puts some limits on what you can do, but to a degree, that helps you potentially focus a little bit more. So good insight. You've talked a few times now about working with kids, working with others on Rubik's art. I'd love for you to share a little bit about what that looks like for you.
Kyle Wright
Yeah, no, it's been a lot of fun. I've been working with my own occupational therapist as well as a couple of other clinics to kind of do the research to build out my therapy program so that Rubik's Cube art can be more readily available to the masses, because it isn't really something that currently exists in the market to my no to my knowledge, and, you know, just working with these Kids, it's so awesome to, you know, something as simple as making a cross on one face of the Rubik's Cube, or making one face an entire color like the joy and excitement that that brings to the kids is phenomenal. Because a lot of these kids, they've got autism, you know, now, a lot of them, it's lower functioning autism, like, you know, this is a pivotal moment in their life. They were, you know, able to solve something with, you know, a little bit of help from their therapist. But it's just great to see that smile of, like, I accomplished something. Because, you know, a lot of autistic people, we kind of go through a lot of roadblocks in life, you know, there's a lot of things that we can't do, or we just can't do very well, and I've seen that a lot as a high functioning autistic, you know, I'm sure it's even worse for people that are lower functioning. So it just brings me so much joy to get to work with the kids.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, are you? So are you kind of doing groups with your therapist, or are you doing kind of your own thing where you're running a program, or How's that looking? I just want to know kind of what this looks like, because it sounds really awesome.
Kyle Wright
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. And we've done some group activities. So you know, all of our therapists that are kind of using my program. They they have 136 set of cubes actually, kind of the same one here that's on my shelf, and we use that in different group settings or just one on one sessions. I'm always, I'm always with a therapist of some point, whether it's occupational therapy, you know, we're also exploring how to use Rubik's Cube art and speech therapy, you know, all the other different therapy aspects as well, but always just sitting there. And honestly, I just like to observe, you know, I want to watch the occupational therapist, one kind of figure it out for themselves. You know, how, how's this activity going to look with the client, but also using my guide as a, you know, framework. You know, I outline multiple activities and grading and scalability, or not scale. Y'all call it scaffolding. I believe in OT where you, you know, increasing your way, increase the act, working up the scale. And, you know, we're. Creating that program for ourselves. You know, the end goal is to make a 36 cube mosaic art. But a lot of kids, you're not going to start there. So a lot of things that we do is, hey, let's make that cross, or let's make this design with one cube. And then we say, okay, let's, let's do it on three or four cubes. And then once they get up to about nine cubes, we actually have all 26 letters of the alphabet built into nine cube Rubik's Cube art. And so then that really opens it up for the child to say, hey, I want to make the letter the first letter of my first name, you know, and that's like, their first, like, I actually made art with Rubik's cubes. And again, just seeing those, those children, and even the adults we've worked with, they're like, Dude, this is, like, really cool, like, you know, and being able to scale it up to where they can eventually make the art.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I love that. You know, I hadn't even brought up handwriting yet. That was something on on our questions list, but you brought it, brought it up, and how it can work. And I know on your your website, you have, I think, larger versions of letters that you also make, which is really cool, because that's now working your way up from nine cubes up to, I'm assuming, 16 and and even larger. What I really like about the idea of Rubik's Cube, because I've used art in therapy, in school based ot all the time we use like, we'll go on YouTube, and we'll find a artwork, and we'll kind of work through the art, and we oftentimes will use grids for visual, spatial stuff. But what I really like about Rubik's Cube is that, going back to kind of all the things that we've touched on today, you've got fine motor in there, you've got visual spatial in there. You've got emotional regulation, definitely, for when you're getting frustrated and trying to keep calm, like there's a lot here that you can support. And with that, you brought up the scaffolding. Sometimes we have to make one part of that a little bit easier, because we want to focus on the emotional regulation piece. So maybe we make the fine motor easier to focus on the emotional regulation piece, or vice versa. How have you seen that with these kids and and the adults that you're working with, like, how do you adapt it to support them?
Kyle Wright
Yeah, I like to put it this way. You know, every every client is different. Every client has different needs, different things that they need to accomplish, and we need to make the activity fit their particular therapy goals, and so something we've been working on really hard, me and my therapist and a couple of other people on my team is exactly like you said, like you might have a kid that they don't need to focus as much on the fine motor aspect, but they definitely need the executive functioning. So what activities can we create using the Rubik's cubes that are going to put more of an emphasis on the executive functioning and not as much on the fine motor and vice versa, you know, for all the different therapy goals, and that's something that we're currently working on right now. You know, we've, we've found that some students have a really hard time lining the Rubik's Cubes up. You know, they can twist the cubes really well, but when they start laying it on the table, their hand gets real shaky. And so we've made activities where the whole activity is, How many cubes can we line up in a row? Like, let's make a snake, you know, just things like that. There's and this is all stuff that we're providing through my membership program as well, is continuing to innovate and add these different activities that you can do with Rubik's cubes in a therapy setting.
Jayson Davies
That's really awesome. I love that you're kind of taking this to the next level and thinking about the scaffolding and like Rubik's Cube art. It looks awesome. It looks awesome when you finish it you put it on the wall, but it is freaking hard to get to that point. And I love that you're thinking about all the different quote, unquote levels to kind of work your way up there, and figuring out how you can break it down to make it a great starting point for any individual, whether it is, like you said, just getting maybe two colors on on a block to to getting all the way to the artwork, so that that's really awesome. You've mentioned it a little bit here and there, with the guide that you're working on and the membership a little bit, but I want to give you a chance to kind of talk a little bit more about that. The first question related to that is like, what is your overall like? What is your goal like? What do you want to see at, you know, 510, years from now, what is your goal for your program? Like, what would you like to see?
Kyle Wright
I just love that it's getting to help people and people that really need that help. And, you know, five or 10 years, I would love to just have a program that people are sharing, and they're like, Hey, I use this with my autistic kid, and these were the things that he benefited from, or these are the things that and basically have it be a library that not just occupational therapists are using, you know, I would love to see it in speech therapy, in group therapy, play therapy, ABA therapy. Like there's so many different therapeutic outlets that you can use Rubik's cubes and Rubik's Cube art in and really, I just want to grow that membership, not just so that I can equip therapist. You know, that's what I'm doing right now, is focusing on equipping therapists and giving them the activities and the things that they want. But I'm also have a membership specifically for the client. You know, if they want to go home and buy their own set of Rubik's cubes and start making their own art, we provide weekly build guides for that as well, on top of the therapy resources, wow,
Jayson Davies
wow, that's really cool. I I don't know. I just really, I, part of me is amazed by Rubik's Cube, partially because I'm never able to solve one. And I love the idea of being able to, I guess, create art without actually having to solve the full Rubik's cube, and being able to make meaningful I mean, not just skill development, but also have an end product that is kind of cool to have once you work on that skill development. So that's really cool. I know you've given us a link that we can share with everyone to kind of get access to a free guide. And I'd love to let you talk a little bit about what's in that guide that people can go ahead and get access to,
Kyle Wright
yeah, absolutely. So really, the guide kind of starts off, and it just gives you the you know, how much table space you need, the resources that you need to purchase. You know, we have links to all the different resources that you can use to get started the video to learn how to do the the you know, what I like to call the daisy method is the, you know, easy to do, solving one side of the cube. And we highlight all of the different therapy goals that we have found today that we believe, you know, Rubik's cubes can support. And we've kind of written all of that out in an easy, you know, four page, easy to read, easy to digest, and it's got a couple of just basic activities in it that you can really just take right out of the box. And when you get a set of cubes, you can instantly start using with your clients. And I've been getting a lot of feedback from the occupational therapist that I've been working with, awesome.
Jayson Davies
You mentioned attaching like or you mentioned finding goals that kind of relate to Rubik's Cube art. And for me, as a school based ot practitioner, we're often trying to really relate our goals back to academic standards, and it's always possible. It sometimes gets a little tricky, but it's always possible. But with yours, what type of goals are you relating back to? Are you relating back to, like, academic type of handwriting, reading and stuff like that? Are you relating back to getting dressed, ADLs, or all of the above?
Kyle Wright
Yeah. So currently, I mean, end goal is definitely to do as much of that as we possibly can. A lot of the focuses right now are just, you know, fine motor, visual, spatial, emotional regulation. Like we're, we're kind of on the ground floor of everything. But the goal, ultimately, like you said, is to link it back to, okay, this activity with the Rubik's cube can be used to help the handwriting or this, you know, activity can be used to, you know, teach a kid that, you know they can't always do whatever they want. You know, whatever those different goals are like. Obviously, from an academic perspective, there's hundreds of different struggles that neurodivergent individuals struggle with. And the end goal really is for us to make a program that says, Okay, you're trying to support handwriting. In our membership, you can go search handwriting, and we'll give you four or five different activities that you could try. You know, that's really ultimately our goal. But, you know, we're kind of in that beginning phase of really trying it out with these kids.
Jayson Davies
No, that's really cool. I really like the way that you're thinking about it. It's not just Rubik's cube for yourself. It's not just about Rubik's Cube art. For the sake of Rubik's Cube art, it is Rubik's Cube art as both a means and an ends for for skill development. And you you get something to take away with it, right? You like you. I already said it once, but you get the physical product of having something awesome that you created, plus you get the skill development that you're developing while putting that all together. And I love the idea of putting this guide together. Or what, you know, an occupational therapist like myself, or an occupational therapy assistant, someone who's never used a Rubik's Cube. Like, what is that first thing that you kind of first piece of advice that you give to them that are thinking about, hey, I might be able to use a Rubik's Cube in therapy.
Kyle Wright
Yeah. So kind of mentioned it earlier in the hall was, you know, it's, it's, I promise you, it's not as intimidating as you think it is. Because a lot of people, their first thought is, oh, I have to solve a Rubik's Cube. That's not for me. And that's not at all the case, you know, you just need to be able to solve one side of the Rubik's cube. And much like we break down getting to being able to make the cube mosaic out of 36 cubes by starting one cube at a time. We're kind of doing the same thing with the therapist, because we also realize most people in this world don't know how to solve a Rubik's Cube and probably have minimal contact with it, and so we're trying to give those therapists the resources they need so that they can feel confident knowing that they can ultimately teach this to their clients. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
yeah. This is going to be fun. I think a lot of people are going to listen to this episode over the summer. This is going to come out in the summertime, and I think they're going to be really interested, to kind of put this out there and start using it with their students come fall when school starts back up. So I really like the idea that you talked about earlier. We do a lot of handwriting. So I can imagine therapists using it to, you know, help kids to understand how to develop their the letters in their name, or even put words together by using Rubik's Cubes. I mean, that that's just really awesome. How, how long does it take to put a smaller project together for some people?
Kyle Wright
I mean, really, it just depends on the client. You know, me, myself. You know I could do a 36 cube mosaic in less than 2025, minutes, you know. But I've also been solving Rubik's Cubes my entire life, and you know, the Well, last 15 years of it, at least so half of my life, you know. But we, we understand that, you know, there, there's a learning curve, and so it's going to be a little bit different. The goal is, you know, for a 36 cube mosaic is for the client to eventually be able to finish that in a single therapy session. You know, most therapy sessions, I think, are 4550 minutes, usually, depending on, you know, where you're at, where you work, as far as ot goes. But really that goal is to get the client to that point, and, you know, maybe even doing it faster, because a lot of occupational therapists I've talked to have said, you know, I don't want to spend the entire 50 minutes doing one activity. And, you know, and that kind of goes back to again. Let's start with twisting the cube, making a couple of crosses, like we can make this a five or 10 Minute activity in the beginning, as we're building that scaffolding and really getting them to that point where they can make art in 20 minutes.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I'll also say that to degree I sometimes like, especially depending on the client. I like when I can break down an activity into multiple sessions. And so even if it was a four or a nine, you know, brick design, I would love to do two today and two next week and two the following week to kind of build up to that. Because I think that, in itself, is a skill that is a time management skill and emotional regulation skill, like, just the ability to break a larger task up. So sometimes it's good to break it up into smaller, manageable pieces.
Kyle Wright
Absolutely, I, you know, but with the therapist that I've worked with, specifically, you know, they've, they've, they've told me they're like, you know, as much as I'd love to do cube art for the whole session, or teach a kid how to make Rubik's Cube art in one session, like, more often than not, that's not going to be the case. You know, we're going to have to gradually build that again over multiple sessions. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
yeah. All right, Kyle, well, it has been a real pleasure talking to you about Rubik's cube. And as I mentioned already, I really see a lot of people, you know, figuring out how they can use Rubik's cubes in school. I think it's great. And we didn't even talk about the social participation side of it, because, I mean, if you can solve a Rubik's Cube, everyone wants to be your friend. So.
Kyle Wright
Exactly, exactly.
Jayson Davies
But I do want to give you one last chance to talk a little bit about something important, because I know for you, faith is such a huge thing, and it's not something I talk about on the podcast very often. It's not something that we bring up. But I know for you, this is something that is like part of it's part of your life, and it's part of your the way you do business and the way you do everything. And so I want to give you an opportunity just. To talk about how faith ties into all this.
Kyle Wright
No, absolutely. A couple of years ago, I started what I like to call the know that you are loved movement. And really, this comes from my time as a kid. You know, again, I knew I was different from a young age, and a lot of other people knew that I was different too, and I got bullied for that a lot in middle school and high school, and I really felt undervalued, and honestly caused me to be at some of the lowest points of my life because of, you know, some of these things these bullies were telling me, you know, I didn't feel like I was loved, and really, I've taken it upon myself that every opportunity I can, I tell people that you are loved, because regardless of your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, whatever it is, at the end of the day, you are a human being, And you deserve to know that you are loved somebody in your life, regardless of if it's a friend, a family member or a co worker, somebody loves you. And I really take that from John 1334 kind of like you mentioned Jason. I am a Christian. And in this Bible verse, Jesus is talking to his disciples, and He says, you know, love others as I have loved you. And he stops right there. He doesn't say, love people if they believe the same politics as you do, or think the same way that you do, like he just says, Hey, I've loved you, so now you're gonna go out into the world and love others. And so really, my mission is to spread that love, and hopefully my goal is to do that through Rubik's Cube art and being able to provide Rubik's cubes as a therapy method.
Jayson Davies
Awesome. I love it, man. Thank you so much for coming on and give a shout out to everyone where they can learn more about you and your cubes.
Kyle Wright
Yeah, absolutely. I'm on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, most of the social platforms. Just search for Kyle cubes. And like Jason mentioned, if you're interested in taking the next step and trying Rubik's Cube art for yourself, you can visit Kyle cubes.com/ots to claim my free therapy guide,
Jayson Davies
and you can bet we will have all those links over on the show notes. So Kyle, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate having you here, and look forward to seeing all your artwork over on YouTube.
Kyle Wright
Thanks again, awesome. Thanks for having me. Jayson,
Jayson Davies
all right, that wraps up episode 180 of the OT school house podcast. Remember, you can find all the show notes, including all of the resources shared by Kyle over at ot school house.com/episode 180 we'll have all the links for you there. Thank you to Kyle so much for spending your time with me today as we explored this unique and inspiring world of Rubik's Cube art. Kyle, I can't thank you enough. You sharing your journey, sharing how you have taken this cube and turned it into art, both for yourself and for others, is just absolutely amazing. It is awesome that you're thinking about how you can use a tool or a toy, really, from 30 years ago to support emotional regulation, fine motor skills and creative expression, just just awesome. I also want to thank you. You know the OT practitioner taking your time out of your day today to listen to this episode, thank you for tuning in and being a part of this conversation. I hope you're walking away with fresh ideas about how to bring a Rubik's cube into your own practice. If you have one sitting in at home, maybe you solved it once upon a time and you never touched it again because you were afraid to unsolve it. You know, take this as a as a cue, as a sign that maybe it's time to to dust it off, play around with it, figure out how to solve it again, or figure out how you can bring it into your therapy world, to use it as art or even a separate tool within your therapy practice. One last thing, if you're ready to dive deeper into resources, into professional development and mentorship and all the things that make school based ot practice really fruitful, really amazing and just helps us to do our job, I'd love for you to check out the OT school house collaborative. The OT school house collaborative is a supportive space where you can continue to learn, you can continue to grow, and you can continue to make even greater of an impact within your school setting by getting support myself and other peers here in the collaborative. So you can find all the details about the OT school house collaborative, all about our professional development. Opportunity, our resources, our research that we bring together over at ot schoolhouse.com/collab or you can find that link in the show notes until next time, keep being an amazing occupational therapy practitioner and remember you are making a difference every single day. Take care and look. You next time.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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