Pete Fecteau, San Francisco Artist, Turns Nerdy Rubik's Cubes into Fine Art

Ready, set, cube

​In the '70s, Rubik's Cubes were nerds' weapons of choice, and in the late 2000's, speedcubing -- and its crazy cousin, blindfolded speedcubing -- became (sorta) cool.

But S.F. artist Pete Fecteau is turning Rubik's Cubes into large-scale mosaic art, and young wannabe-nerds (we mean that affectionately) are invited to join.

The goal? A 16-square-foot Rubik's Cube mosaic of the Golden Gate Bridge's two towers, in gradient hues of yellow, orange, blue, red, and white.

It's part of the inaugural Bay Area Science Festival, which kicked off its first iteration last Saturday and runs through Sunday, Nov. 6. It's co-hosted by UCSF and the Science and Health Education Partnership -- and by spreading the joy of science to kids, it's surely a nightmare for the minds at The Daily Show.

Fecteau's done other, much larger Rubik's mosaics -- including a 4,242-cube of Martin Luther King, Jr. which was record-holding for a while.

Considering even this smaller-scale mosaic is a bit cost-prohibitive -- 400 cubes at about $5 to $10 each -- Sunday's your best chance to dabble in the art and pick up some knowledge about algorithms, spatial reasoning, and pixels.

Sunday's installment of the Bay Area Science Festival runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at AT&T Park.