By Matthew Sims
The Rubik’s cube is one of the most popular toys in the world and remains a challenging puzzle to solve for ordinary people.
However, speedcubing continues to take the world by storm, with its popularity skyrocketing during Covid lockdowns and the growth of competitors on Youtube.
The phenomenon is making its way to Narre Warren this weekend, with the Side N Blind Narre Warren event being held at the Foundation Learning Centre on Saturday 3 June and Sunday 4 June.
About 60 competitors will be competing in side events such as the seven-by-seven cube, Megaminx or clock puzzles, as well as special blindfolded solving competitions.
Narre Warren local and Speedcubing Australia trainee delegate Swami Srinivasan is co-organising the event after he first picked up a Rubik’s cube in late 2014 and started competing in speedcubing events in March of 2015.
“The demand for competitions has signficantly increased,“ he said.
Speedcubing Australia delegate Patrick Kleverlaan said prior to the Covid pandemic, competitions commonly attracted about 150 speedcubers, but now the popularity has increased where most competitions include more than 500 competitors.
Hailing from Cranbourne, he said he was watching one of his favourite computer science Youtubers when he became interested in solving Rubik’s cube in 2018 and has delegated almost 50 competitions since May 2021.
“It’s a very supportive community,“ Mr Kleverlaan said.
The event’s main feature will be the three-by-three blindfolded event, as well as a multi-blind event where competitors must correctly solve the most cubes while blindfolded.
Mr Srinivasan is currently the third best multi-blind solver in Australia and at 57th across the globe.
He said solving cubes blindfolded adds another degree of difficulty, with his method involving assigning a letter to each square and making moves based on a predetermined algorithm.
Mr Kleverlaan said he is fast approaching the milestone of delegating 50 events.
“I have got to travel a lot,“ he said.
While the event is open to the public, any spectators are advised to remain as quiet as possible during the event, especially during the blindfolding events.
For more information about the event, visit www.worldcubeassociation.org/competitions/SideNBlindNarreWarren2023
