The Rubik's cube is going from the rec room to the championship stage.
Nanaimo is hosting British Columbia's first-ever speedcubing provincial championship this coming Friday through Sunday, Aug. 16-18, at the Beban Park Social Centre.
Approximately 150 speedcubers are registered to compete in the 13 different events, including the main event, the classic 3x3x3 cube.
"The idea for a provincial championship was floating around for quite a while 鈥� having a competition that is titled the B.C. championship that would entice the best of the best in our province to come out," said Heewon Hwang, a trainee delegate with Speedcubing Canada.
Anyone who has fiddled with a Rubik's cube knows how tricky it is to solve, but the speedcubers coming to town this week will make it look easy. B.C.'s current record holder Ethan Rusnak, for example, who will be one of the favourites at provincials, boasts an average solve time of 6.98 seconds.
Competitors will take turns solving at the front of the room. They use their own cubes, but tournament officials do the scrambling based on a computer-generated sequence of twists, and all the competitors in a group get the same series of scrambles.
"A lot of competitors, just varying by their skill level, they tend to have different solutions for the same scramble because they might see different things during inspection, they might have preferences for what kind of turns they're more comfortable with," Hwang said.
Cubers get 15 seconds to inspect their cube after it's been scrambled, then they set it down before picking it up to start the timer and their solve.
"I think it's definitely a cool thing to watch鈥�" Hwang said. "Once you get on to the semifinals and finals a lot of the top competitors are solving at the same time."
In addition to the 3x3x3, some of the other events include 2x2x2 cubes, 4x4x4, 5x5x5, 6x6x6, 7x7x7, as well as 3x3x3 one-handed and 3x3x3 blindfolded. Competitors who excel at multiple puzzles are known as 'all-rounders' and approximately 10 competitors are registered for all 13 events.
Most of the 150 competitors aren't likely to be in contention to win, but will look to improve their personal best times in competition, and will enjoy the social aspect of meeting new people and re-connecting with speedcubing friends they've met at past events.
"Generally people are looking out for each other, celebrating when anyone gets a good time because we all see the struggle that each of us go through and the practice that we go through and we appreciate the dedication that comes with breaking a mental barrier, breaking a time barrier, all of that," said Hwang.
The Rubik's cube was invented in 1974, 50 years ago, but continues to fascinate puzzlers and inspire the sort of competitions like the one coming up in Nanaimo.
"It's just a cube with three squares by three squares by three squares and it seems so simple, but there's billions and billions of combinations to it," Hwang said. "Every time you scramble the cube 鈥� if it's not in a competition 鈥� then it's a unique scramble that nobody has ever gotten before, just statistically, and every time you solve it it's a different solution that no one else has seen before."
The competition goes Friday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Saturday from 9 a.m.-6 p.m., and Sunday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
