I went to my first competition, Mathsoc Open 2017 before I knew brands other than Rubik’s even existed, and I made the classic newbie mistake, buying a Rubik’s Speedcube.

The normal Rubik’s Cube costs around ?400 whereas the speedcube costed ?1000 and included just an improved normal one with a set of screws, washers, a screwdriver and some lubricant to make the cube faster.

I thought it was godly until I tried some other cubes which were much better at half the price of mine.

My averages at the competition were around 50 seconds for 3×3 and 14 seconds for Skewb, remember these numbers for afterwards.

I didn’t really talk to anyone else there as I left after doing my solves on both days.

I ordered a new 3×3, 2×2 and 4×4 while returning to my home.

The 3×3 was one which was out of production, performed great and was very rare, or so it said, So I didn’t hesitate before spending ?700 on it, used it as my main for my next two competitions, and found out after my 3rd competition that it was another one advertised as the one I thought it was, that was sold for ?180 on Amazon itself too.

I felt cheated, that was the last time I ordered any puzzle from Amazon.

At my 2nd and 3rd competitions, my results were a lot better, with averages of 38 seconds and 25 seconds in 3×3 respectively.

My communication skills were a lot better in these and I made a lot of new friends at especially the 3rd one, which was held at Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida.

Between SNU and NCRO, I bought a new 3×3 and magnetized it for improved performance, but I accidently left a piece on the table where some superglue had been spilled, a piece of plywood got attached to the piece and thus I couldn’t use it in competition.

Then came my 4th competition, NCRO 2017, in which I participated in a lot of events. Including 3×3 with Feet, which was definitely a questionable choice, but I wanted to try it out anyway, one thing I can almost be certain of is, that was my first and only solve I’ll ever attempt.

I got okayish results in everything and almost got to Skewb finals but missed it as in the second round, my first solve, which could have been a 4 second solve, turned out to be a 30 second solve as my skewb went flying in the air after slipping out from my hands and all the pieces flew everywhere, top 12 people in the second round went to finals, I was 13th and missed it by just 0.05 milliseconds.

My next competition was one where I talked to anyone that would talk to me, I also applied to be on staff.

A few days later, I got a message from a member of Capital Cubing, the organization which has been organizing basically every Delhi NCR competition since 2015.

I was excited and immediately filled out the form and was accepted.

It was a whole new group of friends, some of whom I hadn’t even met before.

I was really excited for my next competition, Speedcubing ESYA, but couldn’t go due to riots breaking out in parts of Delhi.

My next competition wasn’t really that special.

Then came my latest competition, Shri Ram Cubing Challenge 2017, it was held in SRCC in Delhi University.

It had all 18 events in 2 days, which was something that hadn’t ever been accomplished before.

I was excited mostly for Skewb, I had been getting times that would have been enough for me to win Skewb, but I plus 2’d out of 2nd place and instead got 6th place, for a +2 in Skewb, it needs to be atleast 60° off and mine was approximately 62° off.

If I hadn’t gotten that +2, I would’ve gotten a 4.69 average, which would’ve put me at 2nd place, I instead got a 5.36 average.

In 3×3, I got a 14.27 average in the first round and a 13.64 average in Finals.

I performed well in other events, even better in some events than what I usually averaged at home.

That was my last big competition of the year, there was another competition, FMC Asia 2017, which was held at multiple locations in Asia with only one event, Fewest Moves Challenge. In it, you get to do 3 solves, of an hour each, in which you try to find the smallest solution to a given scramble and write it down on a piece of paper.

The first solve was my first FMC solve in over a month so I messed up and got a 51, the second one went much better and I got a 38 with a skip of the last step.

In the third one, I wrote it correctly on my rough sheet but forgot a move on the actual solution sheet, I could have gotten a 36 move solution and a 41.66 mean of 3 and would have been 3rd in Delhi, had that not been a DNF.

Now onto my goals for 2018, first of all, I’m hoping to get Skewb National Record average.

I’m also trying to get top 10 in India for Megaminx and go to Asian Championships 2018 and hopefully even get Top 3 in Skewb.

My Puzzle Collection

The post Cubing and Me – End of 2017 appeared first on Hargun Singh Tikku.

The day before the first session, A T-Shirt was delivered to us which had the word ‘Gurbani’ written on it in Punjabi.

Initially, What I thought was that they would teach us how to sing holy hymns.

Day 1

When I reached the venue, I got a folder which had that days ‘Kirtan’ or Hymn in it.

While we were waiting for some children who hadn’t reached yet, I glanced at it.

The title was ‘My Guru’, There were 3 paragraphs, they were essentially the same but in 3 different languages, Punjabi, Hindi and English respectively.

After 5 minutes, we started the session, First we were told a story about how there was a bunch of crows who were told by the king of the crows, not to eat food from a net as there would be a hunter around who would catch them.

They all sang about it, telling others not to eat from a net, but one day when the hunter came, They all went to eat the food while still singing about how they do not have to eat the food, what it signified was that we shouldn’t just memorize things if we do not know the meaning,

It is useless until we implement it.

We first sang the hymn and then were told the meaning of each line one by one.

We discussed how there is god in all of us, we shouldn’t speak bad to one another, how we understand what/who is good and what is bad, and more topics along the line of that.

Day 2

We were given another sheet, which had the topic ‘Who Am I’.

We discussed about, who really we are, how we are defined and we should always do good deeds, personality development, etc.

Then we played a game where we were randomly divided into teams of 4 and we were given 2 sheets of paper and had to tell how many planes we could make with those 2 sheets in 3 minutes, almost every team except two, said 4, one said 6 and another one said 2.

We divided the 2 sheets into 2 parts each and everyone took a part and made a paper plane, when asked everybody said they could have made more in the time, with this we were taught not to underestimate ourselves.

We were also taught how to work with limited resources by being given just 2 sheets of paper.

Then we were all supposed to choose anyone from our team who would go forward.

We didn’t know at the time that the one we send would be flying a plane we made, so we sent the smallest kid in our team.

This signified trust on others in your team.

Day 3

The topic was ‘Succes/Luck’

We discussed on how What you sow is what you reap, and everything that has happened to me, good or bad, is because of me doing something equally good/bad earlier.

Day 4

The topic was ‘addiction’.

We talked on how addiction for almost anything is bad and everything should be used in a controlled way.

Day 5

I was absent this day as it was a cousin’s birthday, so I can’t tell you anything about this day.

Day 6

First we revised what we had learnt in the last session, which I did not understand because I wasn’t present then.

The last topic was relationships, how important it is to be in a good friend circle.

Then certificates were distributed, Everyone got a participation certificate.

Overall, it was a really nice and philosophical experience.

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It was a Rubik’s Brand one.

I had gotten countless bad quality cubes that broke apart after 2 months or so, before.

That day, we went to a small trip to a resort and I brought my cube with me, downloaded the guide on how to solve it from the internet and tried learning it.

I could only do till the middle layer, and I was slow at that too at first, taking about 3 minutes for the first two layers

On the return trip, I learnt to solve the yellow cross too.

The next day, I downloaded the file which had the tutorial and learnt to solve the yellow corners too, It was permuting those around that confused me, after a week, I took a look at the tutorial again, tried to solve it while reading the algorithms and I finally did it!

I ran to my parents and showed them that I had solved it (Technically not a solve as I was looking at the tutorial too). I did that 10 more times, and then All of it was basically Muscle memory, took me 5 minutes per solve in the first week, that went down to 3 minutes in a Month, I kept practicing  but it didn’t go down too much, only dropped to two minutes.

I stopped doing it because of my Exams and only did an occasional solve here and there.

I then quit cubing completely and forgot the algorithms for the last layer in a week.

After an year, I started doing it occasionally again with a speed of 2 minutes.

Then, for my 11^th Birthday, I asked my massi to buy me a Rubik’s Pro Pack, which had a Rubik’s “Speedcube”, a stand, Lubricant, springs, a screwdriver and some washers.

I still being a beginner at cubing thought that this was really good, what I didn’t know was that I just wasted a 1000 Rupees on a bad cube.

It still, however was a significant upgrade from my old one.

Right after it got delivered, I opened it up, took all the center pieces out and tried to open the core, which was in the shape of a ball, because the tensions were too loose and all the springs were housed within that core, It’s been over 3 months since I got it and I still haven’t been able to open it up.

I then lubed the whole cube and put the center pieces back and assembled it.

I could solve in under a minute on it right after assembling it.

I didn’t even know of any other cube companies or any methods other than the beginner’s one.

One day, I was searching on how to improve my speed and I came upon the World Cubing Association, I hadn’t even known there was an association for it.

I looked for a competition near me and was sad to know that a Big competition a.k.a Cubing Complexity 2016 was about to happen the next day and registrations had been closed.

I saw that another competition was going to Happen in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi in Mid-January.

I told my parents about it and thought I would register around the end, in case I bought any other type of cube.

I used to bring my cube to school in late December because there were sports day practices all day and since I wasn’t a part of that, I needed something to keep me busy.

I was just sitting outside, just like every non-participant was and solving my cube with an average of a minute.

A person from 8^th grade was sitting behind me and he asked for my cube for a minute. I gave it to him to see how fast he solved it.

I shuffled it for him and gave it to him and he solved it in under 20 seconds, I asked him the method he uses.

He said he uses Fridrich method/CFOP.

I asked him about the cubes he has and he named them, Gans, Valk 3, Thunderclap, Weilong GTS etc.

He told me about a website that has everything cubing related about an Indian Cubing webstore too.

I wanted the Skewb because I was just curious as to how it even turned.

So I bought the ShengShou Skewb and it was great out of the box.

I tensioned it a bit according to my liking and then it was super smooth and turned well.

I learnt to solve it the next day by the easiest method, which involved only one algorithm. It was supposed to be the easiest method and it was to solve the cube in the 25-50 second range, but I was already averaging 15 seconds, from that day.

I then registered in the competition for 3×3 and the Skewb.

Just before competition day, I lubed both of my cubes again.

I had a PTM in school on that day too and there was an intro session, compulsory for all to be held at 1:30 p.m. and the 3×3 was to be started at 2 p.m.

We reached there at 2:05 and somehow made it.

My Heat started 2 minutes after we reached there, had I been 5 minutes late, I wouldn’t have been able to compete in it.

My times were okay-ish, I got a DNF(Did not Finish) because I took 3 seconds extra for inspecting the puzzle.

Here are my times –

I didn’t do that good in 3×3.

Skewb competition was the next day, so me and mummy just ate a Samosa and Muffin each at the canteen and went back home.
Day 2

The events started at 10 a.m. but Mine was at noon so me and papa left home at 11:00 a.m.

We reached there when the megaminx round was getting over (it was just before the skewb).

I did some solves in the waiting room and calmed myself as I really had to do well in it because I was hoping Skewb would be my main event in the future.

I was in the first heat, so I submitted my puzzle and waited for my name to be called.

Here are my times –

I was sad to know that I hadn’t been placed in the final round though, there were some really great cubers including one who solved the skewb in 2.xx seconds.

It was a great Experience for me.

That is how my Hobby turned into a passion.

I now have 4×4, a good 3×3, 2×2 and an awesome skewb.

Here are my PBs(Personal Best) as of now on each –

4×4 – Average – 2:30

Single – 1:34

3×3 – Average – 36 seconds

Single – 25 seconds.

2×2 – Average – 7 seconds

Single – 4 seconds

Skewb – Average – 8 seconds

Single – 5 seconds

My times have dropped drastically in a month, by learning new methods and new techniques.

I earlier didn’t even know there were competitions and now, I just register myself for every WCA recognised competition I see.

I have 2 of them upcoming in the next month.

Here is my WCA ID.

I will probably be starting a Youtube channel about cubing too soon!

The post Me and Cubing appeared first on Hargun Singh Tikku.

This time, I went there by Metro, after all, learn from your mistakes.

I took a seat and opened my laptop and we started revising what we did last day. I did all the experiments I did yesterday, but made the code for them myself. This continued till the break, after it, it was a whole different story. We were given some printed cubeecrafts and we had to cut and fold them to make cartoon characters. I was given Spongebob squarepants. It went great for the first 20 minutes and I was able to make the torso and above, including putting LEDs into its eyes. But then it started dismantling, so I took another one and tried to program it and make it in less than 30 minutes. It worked out great and the last day was a great experience too. As a bonus I got a super Mario cubeecraft for home and made it the next day.

Overall this whole experience of these 3 days was awesome and I would love to go to another one of these sessions any day.

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Again it took me an hour to reach there. But this time I also had my own laptop. When I went inside, they asked me to download some softwares, namely Arduino, Bit by Bit and node.js I downloaded them and they gave each one of us a small box which had a breadboard, an Arduino Nano, LEDs, buzzer, resistors and connecting wires. We had to open the Bit by Bit software and create an account, and then we could open the appropriate menu and make whatever we like using the kit we were given, first I tried to make a program in which 4 LEDs would blink simultaneously. The code failed so I just sticked with the simpler ones, like making a single LED blink.

Then I tried making a code all by myself for a buzzer beeping, 3 LEDs blinking all due to a light sensor i.e. LDR. It was fun too.

I also had some connectivity issues between my laptop and he breadboard but they got solved after some time.

Next day’s blog coming.

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So on 8^th Oct, the first day of the session, I left the house 45 minutes before it started, even though the location was around 10 Kms away, still I got late for it. (Thanks Delhi Jams!)

In haste I forgot to bring my laptop for the session which was an integral part of it.

Thankfully, they had a spare laptop which was not being used by anyone at the time, so I was able to use it.

The one hosting the session was Dr. Gaurav Gandhi, who is a friend of my dad too, he greeted me and I took a seat among the 15 children present there.

First we were introduced to “The Internet of Things” which means anything that is electronic and has the power to remotely talk to anything. We were then told to open a website which had many apps we could deploy with different types of microprocessors, including Raspberry Pi, Intel among various others. We had to use Raspberry Pi. I made a ‘Clap Switch’ which already had a code programmed so that whenever the decibel rate passes over 50% of its maximum rate, a LED would flash. Then we had a small break and after that we were free to play around with Raspberry Pi and clear our doubts.
We were also told to log on to code.org to play their Hour Of code, in which we have to try and play 20 levels of Angry Birdsand Plants vs.Zombies using coding. I completed it the fastest.

It was definitely fun, especially for me, and a Great Learning experience, mostly due to Dr. Gaurav Gandhi and his knowledge in this field.

Next day’s blog incoming!

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Me and my sister then went to the hotel buffet while our parents got ready. There wasn’t much in the buffet, just Idli-Sambar, sandwiches and omelettes. I just took a plate of idli-sambar. Our parents came for breakfast too and we booked a cab to take us to the international airport. We went to the ground floor and transferred all our luggage into the trunk of the Tata Indigo. In 40 minutes, we reached the airport. We found the Check-in counter for Scoot and came to know that Scoot Airlines is the only airline in the world to have an all-787 fleet, so that meant I was about to sit in a Boeing 787 for the first time in my life. The airport even offered free wifi for travelers, in sessions of 30 minutes each device.

We then went to the immigration counter and from there, to the duty-free area. We wen upstairs, to the area where all the aerobridges were and just played multiple games of Uno! And Guess Who. In an hour, we could see our plane through the windows, it was twice as big as any other plane present at the airport. In another 20 minutes, we boarded the plane and there was a civil war between the four of us as to who would sit on the window seat during take off, in the end, I won because of my stubbornness. The airplane just stood there for the next 20 minutes and then it went to the runway. It started moving really fast and gave me a tickling sensation in my stomach. We just played and chatted away. Then, me and my sister started feeling hungry so we ordered Super chicken Cup noodles for SGD 5.  They weren’t that good, but still filling. The next 5 hours were just whiled away as there wasn’t anything to do and onboard Wifi and in-flight entertainment were paid. Then we could see some bright lights under as at approximately 10 ‘o’ clock, Singapore time. There was an announcement that we were above Singapore and due to some reason the air traffic control couldn’t let the plane land, so we were in the air for another hour. Then we touched down on the runway and it took another 5 minutes for the plane to stop. There were many planes bigger than the Boeing 787 even including an Airbus A-380. In the aerobridge the air-conditioning was very cold so I rolled down my sleeves to make it a full-sleeved shirt, there were big ads of HSBC on the sides of the Aerobridge. We then saw the waiting area where you could wait for your flight while sitting in an air-conditioned room. We then went to the immigration area, the took me and my dad into a closed room with our passports. The room was filled of Punjabis, and they were being taken to a smaller closed part. I got scared as to why we were being taken here, the reason they gave was that there were a lot of people with the surname “Singh”, but it was just because it was the first flight from Amritsar to Singapore and it was filled with Punjabis, after 10 minutes, me and my dad were called, they just took a fingerprint of him and I just stood there, then some airport staff sent me to a corridor and on it’s door was written “Authorized Personnel only, Strictly no Entry unless asked to”, then I was really scared and went through the corridor thinking why they were doing this, when I reached the end of the corridor, it was just the other side from immigration, I went and found my mom and sister and narrated to them the whole incident. We just sat there for 20 minutes and then, the same uncle who was sitting with me on the train was in the airport, he had also come from the same flight in which we were, but he was with his friends this time, they asked me to change their network to roaming and I did so, after another 20 minutes, my dad came and we went out of the airport to find my dad’s friend, Dhiraj chachu in whose home, we would be staying for 2 nights. We sat in his car and went to his home, with the sea on one side of the road and the city on the other, we saw the docks where Dhiraj Chachu worked and we also saw Marina Bay Sands which is one of the best hotels in the world and has an infinity pool on its roof, there were 2 big underpasses on the way to his home, after 20 minutes, we reached there, we went from the lift to the 7^th floor and went inside his house, our parents just chatted away, then we ate dinner which had Scrambled Eggs, rotis, dal and Brinjal. For desserts, we had Ice Cream and Phirni which we got from Amritsar for Dhiraj Chachu and his family. We then slept 5 minutes after we lied down on the bed.

Next Day in the next blog!

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I spent much of my free time browsing good hotels in Singapore, we even planned to go to Marina Bay Sands for one night, but as we were going for only 6 days and we had so much to cover, we wouldn’t be able to spend a whole day relaxing at the hotel and it wouldn’t be worth it then.

Me and my sister also searched up the best tourist attractions in Singapore and shortlisted Universal Studios Sinagpore, Adventure cove waterpark and ScienceCenter Singapore. As we had to go from Amritsar, because the airlines hadn’t started flights from Delhi yet, we also booked train tickets for Swarna Shatabdi Express. We packed all the clothes and necessities for our weeklong trip (including Amritsar) by 23 May. Our train was to depart from Delhi at 7:20 a.m. on 25 May, so we got ready by5:30 and reached the New Delhi Railway station at 6:20, because “Better be an hour early than a minute late”. We browsed the nearby shops in the meanwhile. Our train reached the station by 7 ‘o’ clock and we went to our seats when the doors opened. The seats were so that, our parents were sitting together on a two seater and me and my sister were sharing a three seater with an uncle aged around 55(watch out for him, he appears later in the blog too!). We just relaxed for some time. Then me and my sister started playing Lep’s World on my phone, which is a game like Super Mario Bros. and we were trying to conquer the world 4-5(2 weeks later, we are at 6-5J). After 1 hour, we were served tea and coffee. And after another hour, we ate breakfast, my mom, dad and sister chose cheese omelette and I ate cutlets, the cutlets were stuffed with boiled and mashed potato and some peas and were very average. After 2 hours we reached Ludhiana and we bought a plate of Cholle Kulche which were very spicy and extremely satisfying. Then after another hour passed, we could see the river Beas which is one of the five rivers that pass through Punjab and it was right under us, our train was on an iron bridge which made a lot of noise when the train moved. Then I just closed my eyes and tried to sleep. After another hour, we reached the Amritsar Railway station and we gathered our luggage and got an Auto Rickshaw to first have lunch at All India famous Amritsari Kulcha, more popularly known as Chungi Kulche wala as it is situated right by a Chungi(police post). The taste was not that good compared to the last time we ate there and the ambience could be given 0/10 if it was rated as the cloth which covered the small eatery had many holes and had dirty water falling from the top. To add to it, there were flies and mosquitoes waiting to eat either from the plates or from your skin, which didn’t go well for me as I have a phobia of insects and reptiles (I really love most mammals though). Then we went to our hotel which was a 20 minute drive from the kulcha shop. The hotel was named Royal Vitana and was a new property. The reception was on the 3^rd floor and the lift could go straight to any floor, including where the rooms are and anyone can access the lift so that was a compromise on the safety too. The rooms were really spacious with a queen-sized bed. There was also free wifi in the hotel. We relaxed for 2 hours and while my parents slept and my sister was playing some solo games, I started reading Mrs. Funnybones by Twinkle Khanna for the second time as I was feeling bored and there wasn’t anything special to do by myself. Then we ordered cream chicken and some naans from the hotel restaurant as we were feeling hungry and weren’t in the mood to go out. The food arrived in 20 minutes. The cream chicken was cold and had a taste like kaju curry ( by that I mean it just tasted like cashewnuts). We then went outside as we had to go to Golden Temple too. We halted an auto rickshaw and told the driver our destination and just enjoyed the view. There was construction going on in that part of the city, from the town hall to the golden temple, many things were being renovated and some new things were being built. We went inside the golden temple, took a round and then stood in the queue for entering the main shrine in the centre of the sarovar. The queue was really long and it took us 20 minutes to o inside, there were many fishes in that area of the sarovar but when the lights in the sarovar were switched on, they all swimmed away. We went inside and prayed and then came out of the other way, we then drank some Amrit(holy water) and came out of the gurudwara. We then had to go to the house of a friend of my dad. We took an auto rickshaw again and reached there in 30 minutes. We had dinner there and my parents were talking to their friends. We left their house at 11 p.m. and they specially dropped us to our hotel. We then just changed our clothes and slept.

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The next day I told my mom that I wanted to eat Chinese Oats for breakfast and she made it for me. While it was cooking, it had an aroma of Manchurian. It was ready in a couple of minutes. I tasted it and it was just like Manchurian, even tastier. Then today morning, we went to a park and when we came back I asked my mom to make a packet of Italian Oats. I asked my mom if she was making pasta as there was a spicy pasta aroma but she told me that it was the Oats. I am writing this blog while eating the Oats and they taste like Red Sauce Pasta.

I will surely buy many more packets of Safola Masala Oats the next time I go to buy grocery.

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