• Video by Charles Borla Arizona Daily Star

The Square-1 has a similar silhouette to the standard Rubik's Cube, but its pieces lack uniformity both in shape and size, creating a jagged puzzle when scrambled.

Solving a Rubik’s Cube is usually as far as most people get.

But for those gathered Saturday at the University of Arizona campus to compete in the 2023 AZ Speedcubing Summer, completing the popular mechanical puzzle within seconds is considered, well, just average.

Saturday’s competition, an official event organized by the World Cube Association in conjunction with AZ Speedcubing, was the first in Tucson since December 2022. It drew 125 participants from five countries .

Isaac Enright exults after just beating the two-minute time limit in the Megaminx competition at the Arizona Speed Cubing Summer 2023 in the University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Center on Saturday.

“I really enjoy having that involvement in the cubing community,” said Mia Sponseller, a 19-year-old incoming junior at the UA.

“I just really love competing, and a big part of having a good competition is the delegates who help run the competition. [We] do a lot of the organizational work ahead of time and the day off to make sure the competition runs smoothly,” said Sponseller, a junior delegate of the WCA and an organizer of Saturday’s event.

Founded in 2004, the World Cube Association hosts “twisty puzzle” competitions across the world, a term often used by the WCA to describe “mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces.”

The organization is volunteer led from top to bottom, with over 100,000 unique competitors from 140 countries having competed in events around the globe.

Those who reached the podiums at the end of the day Saturday were set to take home gift cards to SpeedCubeShop, the event’s sponsor.

But that’s not what most participants are out for. The all want to be faster.

“My friend brought his Rubik’s Cube to school and showed me how to solve it and I’ve just been kind of fascinated ever since,” said Jameson Warner, 15, a first-time competitor. “He told me about today’s event and I thought, ‘I should sign up for that.’ I’d like to get a sub-10-second 2x2 time and a sub-30-second 3x3 time today.”

Alex Stanbridge uses the relative quiet of the hall outside the competition room to get in some last-second practice for Round 2 of the 3X3 for the Arizona Speed Cubing Summer 2023 at the University of Arizona Student Union Memorial Center. A hundred or so competitors from the Southwest were in town for at the World Cube Association contest.

The first, and most popular event of the day was the the 3x3x3 cube, in which all but two of the day’s competitors participated. For non-cubers, the 3x3x3 cube is most commonly known as the Rubik’s Cube. Each event consists of two groups, red and blue, which competitors are placed in ahead of time. Each of the six events have at least two rounds and scoring is based on the times of puzzlers’ solves.

For example, the first round of the 3x3x3 event is based on an average of competitors’ five attempts, or Ao5 for short. The top 48 times from each group will advance to the second round, which from there only the top 12 from each group will advance to the final round.

These are not traditional head-to-head competitions, rather it’s based on the individual and how well they do.

Speedcubers will wait for their time to compete depending on their group. From there organizers will take their cubes, which participants provide themselves, and scramble them using a computer program.

Once a competitor is called to a table, they sit down in front of what is called a Stackmat, which is a timer that is used to start and stop the speedcuber’s attempt. The participant gets up to inspect the puzzle at first, before setting it down on the mat and resting their hands on two pads towards the front of the mat.

Once they lift their hands off the Stackmat, the timer begins, and is only stopped once they bring their hands back to their original position. Times are recorded by both the mat and the digital reader towards the front of the table, so both the participants and spectators can watch.

“[I] built a Lego robot that would solve Rubik’s Cubes and I learned how to solve it, too,” said Matthias Braley, 16, also a first-time participant of speedcubing competitions. “[My favorite] is the 3x3, it’s the one I’ve practiced the most on.

“My average is 18 seconds.” The current world record on the 3X3 is held by Max Park with an official time of 3.13 seconds.

Other events throughout included for the 6x6x6 and 2x2x2 cubes, as well as three twisty puzzles with some very unique qualities.

The Megaminx puzzle is a 12-sided, multicolored puzzle. The solved state is just like a standard Rubik's Cube, with each side being a complete color.

“The Megaminx is definitely my favorite,” said Sponseller, who is ranked no. 103 in the nation with a best time of 46.52 seconds. “It’s very similar in the way that you build it and solve a 3x3x3, it’s just very daunting at first.”

The Megaminx is a dodecahedron-shaped puzzle, meaning that is has 12 mult-colored sides. Due to its added dimensions, the Megaminx has a total of 50 arrangeable pieces, as opposed to the 20 movable pieces on a standard Rubik’s Cube. Each star-shaped side represents a color, and the solved state of this puzzle is just like a Rubik’s Cube.

“It’s a little dauting at first, because it’s a little hard to understand the concept of how to solve one,” said Sponseller. “Ultimately, it’s a lot more like a normal puzzle than a Rubiks Cube-type puzzle.”

The clock puzzle contains nine clock faces in a 3x3 grid on either side of the puzzle. It's considered solved when all clocks point towards the twelve o'clock position.

With the CubingUSA Nationals set for later this month in Pittsburgh, delegates Jake Roberts and Ivan Vanek will be getting some much-needed practice in the five and six events they each are competing in Saturday, respectively.

Upcoming WCA-sanctioned events in Arizona include Bring the Heat AZ 2023 in August, as well as Intents Cubing Grand Canyon 2023 in September.

Results of today’s event were to be submitted to WCA Live, which you can find here.

“Anyone can become a speedcuber, our community has a lot of diverse traits,” said Sponseller. “You just have to be determined enough to put that effort into solving a Rubik’s Cube the first time. It’s daunting to a lot of people, but once you learn the process and see the steps broken down it becomes a lot easier.”

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