There are 18 official WCA events, 2×2 through 7×7, 3×3 One-Handed, 3×3 With Feet, 3×3 Fewest Moves, 3×3 Blindfolded, Megaminx, Pyraminx, Skewb, Square-1, Clock, 3×3 Multiple Blindfolded, 4×4 Blindfolded and 5×5 Blindfolded. Championships of all sorts usually have all of these events, just so a champion could be made. I participated in all 18 events at this competition, just to increase my overall rankings. Actually, I didn’t even know how to solve a 4×4 and 5×5 blindfolded at the time, but still participated as I was planning to learn them just before the first day of the competition, but couldn’t grasp the concepts and ended up skipping them altogether.

My flight was on the day before the competition, my mother had to go to Aerocity that day and dropped me at the airport along the way, I met 3 people I had planned to stay with, in the hotel, 3 of us had the same flight, whereas the 4th one has a different flight with roughly the same timings. I put my Magnetic cubes into someone else’s check-in bag at the last moment, as I forgot magnetic material wasn’t allowed in the cabin, and all I had was a backpack and no check-in baggage too.

We met up at Mumbai Airport after both the flights had landed, took a cab to the hotel and made ourselves comfortable. 6 people were staying together, 2 had already checked in which just made our task easier.

After that, we all just practiced the whole day and a friend came to our hotel in the evening to meet us.

The next day, we left IIT at 7:15 in 2 cabs, 3 people in each.

The first event was FMC, which started at 8, we reached the venue at 7:30, but lost our way, the people in the other cab had no such problem, as one of them had been to the venue the previous day too for the staff rounds, we reached the main hall where it was supposed to be done with barely 5 minutes to spare.

It went okay-ish, the next event was Megaminx, which is my main event, hence I was really nervous during it.

The only thing worth mentioning was that I got a 53.27 second solve, which is my official best time, but messed up the average.

In 6×6, I got a 2:36 solve, which is actually my best ever solve by 13 seconds.

Nothing eventful happened that day, except for a few National Records.

All the mainstream events were on the second day, my first event was 3×3 Blindfolded, my first two attempts were unsolved, so I went safe on the last one, and got a 3:27 success, which got me into second round too.

A big letdown that day was in 2×2, I had done a lot of 2×2 solves the previous 2 days just to improve as it’s my worst event by far in terms of rankings, however I didn’t break any official best time, neither did I make it to the second round so I could get another chance.

I performed sub-par in Skewb too, I got a 6 average when I actually average 3.9 seconds, and was placed 22nd, when I was hoping for top 5.

The 2×2 Asian Record average was also broken that day.

The next day, we almost missed FMC Attempt 3 and reached 2 minutes before it was originally meant to start, but something extremely weird happened, we had started the attempt, but they stopped us in between as someone had gotten the scramble of attempt 3 in attempt 2, FMC had to be restarted all over again, and around 30 minutes were wasted due to this, we got an extra scramble and redid the whole attempt. I still DNFed the attempt, due to writing a move wrong in the final solution, causing me not to get a mean, I have been hoping to get an FMC mean since 4 competitions.

Next were the round 2s of Pyraminx and 2×2, and after that Skewb round 2, I got a decent-ish average but missed out going to the finals by 2 ranks, 12 people went to the finals, I was 14th.

After a few events, there was lunch, but as I was doing MBLD, I had to miss it, but had other events I wasn’t competing in, as free time, after MBLD, there were Megaminx Finals, in which I came 3rd, it really was an amazing feeling for me, podiuming at my first ever championship.

I didn’t have any event after that, so I went to eat after that, and came back at the time of the final few events, as for prizes, I got 2 puzzles, cash and a few coupons.

Even though it was organised horribly, the competition still was a lot of fun!

It was a whole new experience for me, A mix of excitement and fear, meeting a lot of new people, and travelling alone.

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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

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I’d be 25 years old, living in my 3 room apartment in San Francisco.

I wake up, tap my head 2 times which changes my TV into a window.

Looking at where the iconic Golden Gate Bridge once used to be, I step into a chamber which undresses me, cleans my body thoroughly and dresses me up with fresh clothes, all in just a minute while I watch people going through the San Francisco – Marin County Ice Bridge, which is used by standing on a raised and enclosed  platform that houses a person at a time, on a long strip of ice with water on top of it, with water coming out of pumps behind it which push the platform at a great speed, completing the one-mile journey in just under 10 seconds, with one platform arriving at the departure point every time it drops someone off at the arrival point, through a travellator type of system in which it actually goes through the bottom of the strip, thus creating a cycle.

I press a button which makes a sandwich while I wait for the person shooter to arrive at my floor, to go from the 62^nd floor to the parking of the building the sandwich gets cooked in that time, using radiation 100 times stronger than your typical microwave, while still being safe, to cook the food.

I strap myself in, while devouring the sandwich, as I get to the parking using the person shooter, which relies on one basic principle, magnetism.

I get to my hovercraft, which is a car-like structure that hovers above the ground, using the magnetic roads. I tap my big toe to the sole of my shows to register my toeprint to unlock the hovercraft, step inside, reply “Googleplex” to the inbuilt assistant’s “Where to?” and strap myself in while brewing up some coffee, and enjoy a book.

After 10 minutes, I get notified that I’ve arrived at my destination; I step out onto the Googleplex Ice Strip and go through to my desk, tapped my finger on the fingerprint scanner embedded into my watch, which brought up a hologramic screen with the blueprints of Google’s new phone which I was heading the design of, I had to perfect a few minor issues with the design to make it final for the next team meeting scheduled for 3 hours after that.

I started tinkering with the modular parts, trying to figure out ways to improve it.

By the end of 3 hours, I had completed and almost perfected it.

After a seemingly normal day of work, I stepped back into the hovercraft, turned the couch into a bed which could be used for a nap and headed towards home.

30 minutes after we had arrived, I woke up, went back to my apartment, and stepped back into the chamber to change into my night suit.

Went towards my room, lied down on the bed, tucked myself in by pressing a button, and tapped my head twice again.

The TV switched off itself when it detected I’d slept.

Now to wake up tomorrow for my 26^th Birthday

Picture Credits – MKBHD

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It’s a novella written by George Orwell in 1945.

George Orwell decided to create a political satire and thought of using animals instead of humans, almost every Major character is associated with a political figure.

The plot is there is a farm known as the Manor Farm owned by Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones didn’t care enough for the animals so the animals decided to overthrow him and start a revolution which aimed to make animals independent, led by an old boar, named Old Major.

Three days after the meeting, Old Major died and two pigs, claiming that pigs are the smartest of all animals led the matter into their own hands, named Napoleon and Snowball.

A few days later, they manage to overthrow Jones and establish their rule on the farm, however a few weeks later, Jones returned again but lost the battle.

Napoleon and Snowball never seemed to agree on anything.

Snowball decided that there should be a windmill and made plans, initially Napoleon opposed him but after overthrowing him, he claimed that the windmill was his idea and Snowball stole it.

Then Napoleon appoints Squealer, another pig as his spokesperson.

They started working on the windmill.

Halfway through it, it was destroyed by an outsider, Squealer presented fake proof that Snowball did it and everything bad that happened was attributed to Snowball, whereas Napoleon was credited with everything good.

The story continues on how the pigs tell lies for power and money and is a description of what humans actually are doing.

In the end, the pigs unite with humans, the ones they were against at in the beginning, just because they offered money.

It is in the form of a metaphor, where animals are used in place of humans.

It goes on to show what Hunger for power actually does to someone.

It is a great novella, capturing what happens in real life and adding a different feel and background to it.

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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.

Excited for it, I paid the money and joined the classes, there were supposed to be 8 classes, 2 per week and each class would be for 2 hours after school.

On the day of the first class, me and my other classmates who had registered for it went to the junior computer lab after eating a bit.

We were first given a small introduction of scratch and were told we would make a shooting game where we could move horizontally and shoot bullets vertically; I could easily make that one and was in fact the first one to complete it. It was fun and i thought we would make another advanced game in the next class.

Next week, we made a game where we had to manoeuvre a car on a circular racing track and pass through hurdles

In the next class, we had to make apple drop where we had to move a bowl, catch the good apples and the game would be over if we caught a rotten apple. It was confusing and I needed some help to completely configure it. But once done, it was fun to play.

We also made a game in which was like a classic platformer with 6 levels.

In the next class, we made a snake game where we had to collect food and if the snake touched its tail the game would stop.

Then finally, there was our test in which we had to make our own game and were told the one who made the best game would get a special certificate, I made a game which was like brickbreaker but had another paddle instead of the bricks(one paddle on top and one on bottom).

When the class ended, they told us they were going to give the certificate to the one who makes the best game in level 2.

I was kind of disappointed because they told us we were going to make jetpack joyride but we didn’t; also because they said they would give a certificate to the one who makes the best game but they didn’t do so, But it was fun anyway

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1. Austin Evans – His videos are usually short and straightforward and full of positive vibes, covers all the important features about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Technology.

Austin Evans

• Marques Brownlee – Otherwise known as MKBHD, makes great videos on everything new in tech, which are usually full of all the specs and are fun to watch.

Marques Brownlee

• Unbox Therapy – He usually tries out different things like special edition phones and weird tech.

Unbox Therapy

• C4ETech – The person who runs the channel is Indian, thus providing a different point of view, the channel is relatively small but growing fast, everything new in India usually comes here first.

C4ETech

• GadgetsToUse – It is a channel that is almost entirely in Hindi, thus it’s more convenient to view, usually does video on the new technology fads instead of new hardware.

GadgetsToUse

• iGyaan – Another channel based in India, usually makes lists for cool tech under a specific price point and phone reviews.

iGyaan

• Jonathon Morrison – Is more or less, the same like MKBHD, but a complete different view.

Jonathon Morrison

• EverythingApplePro – usually makes videos on apple products, as the name implies, but sometimes other tech too.

EverythingApplePro

• PhoneBuff – makes videos on drop tests and speed tests on just about every phone.

PhoneBuff

That’s it for this list, hope you enjoy these channels!

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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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