Blog Post #4: An Introduction into the world of Speedcubing

 

Hi Everyone! 

    Welcome back to my blog; I hope you have had an incredible two weeks and that you're just as excited as I am to watch the Super Bowl this weekend. (cough cough GO RAMS cough cough). It's been a while since you've heard from me last, but I can assure you all I have not stopped practising solving the Cube, and in fact, my fastest solve time has now been lowered to just over 10 minutes! I promise you next week I'll post another solve video with hopefully another personal best so stay tuned for that. 

    This week I wanted to do something different with my genius hour. As I always do, I spent the first 15 minutes of my hour warming up my hands and my solving skills by practising various algorithms with the hope that I could perform them more comfortably. After my practice session, I put the Cube away and turned to Youtube to watch Why We Cube | A Speedcubing Documentary. Before my genius hour project, I always knew about the speedcubing community as clips of speedy solves always came up on my Instagram feed or my For You page. These videos were entertaining, as they were more than just people solving the classic 3x3 Cube. These clips also included people solving the Cube one-handed, blindfolded, even with no hands. (yes, people have learned how to solve the Cube with just their feet!). These videos always interested me, but I never explored them further as I didn't have a reason to... Until now. 

    While working on my Movie Trailer, I stumbled across this documentary and immediately thought this would be a great way to spend one of my Genius Hours. So after I put the Cube down, I grabbed some movie snacks, and away I went falling down the deep rabbit hole called speedcubing. Why We Cube is a documentary about the competitive world of speedcubing and how it affects the lives of many people who participate in this rapidly growing sport. It follows the experiences of four speedcubers, each with their unique role in the cubing community. It shows how they've influenced the community and how the community has impacted them. To say I was blown away by the scale of this community would be an understatement. It never occurred to me that this community spans the entire world and across all age groups. The level of dedication these people devote to solving the Cube is remarkable, and I am genuinely in awe of the skills these people possess. Overall I loved this documentary, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever had any interest in cubing (I've linked the documentary here in case you can't find it). 

    Overall I'm feeling pleased about my progress for my genius hour project! My progression week to week is very encouraging, and seeing my times drop every week motivates me to keep working hard to achieve my goal by the end of the course. One thing that I am nervous about, though, is hitting a plateau with my solving skills. I'm scared that once I get to around the 2-minute mark, it might be hard to keep bringing my times down. Thankfully this hasn't happened yet, but it is in the back of my mind as I get closer to the halfway point of this project. Well, that's all from me this week! Thank you for reading my blog post today, and I hope you all have a fantastic and restful weekend. Until next week my friends, happy cubing! 

Luca D'Amico