The City of Pitt Meadows played host to a speedcubing event over the weekend, which brought together competitors from across Canada and the United States.
Competitors from as far away as Oregon, and Washington States, gathered for the Pitt Meadows Spring Open 2024 at Pitt Meadows Secondary, a competition to solve the Rubik’s Cube, and the many variations there are of the popular retro-1980’s puzzle, in as little time as possible.
Karsen Oun of Pitt Meadows, who organized the event, and Shawn Yang of Maple Ridge were the local competitors to look out for. There were 120 people registered to compete.
Oun placed fifth in the 3x3 speedcubing event with a single fastest time of 7.54 seconds and an average time of 8.25 seconds. He tied with Michele Cavezza from Langley with the same average time. However Cavezza came fourth because he had a faster single time of 7.01 seconds.. Oun’s best time in the 4x4 event, his other competition was 49.52 seconds.
Yang had a record average for the 3x3 competition of 9.58 seconds with his best single time being 8.03 seconds, placing him in 14th. And, his best single for the 2x2 competition was 2.15 seconds.
There are 17 events in total, within the organization, including the traditional puzzles, but also puzzles that were pyramid shaped and those with 12 sides, races done blindfolded and solved with the fewest moves. The competition in Pitt Meadows included five of them.
Representatives from the World Cube Association, (WCA), a non-profit agency that governs competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, and Speedcubing Canada, an organization that promotes and supports the speedcubing community in this country, helped Oun organize the event and were on hand helping to make sure all rules were followed.
According to Speedcubing Canada, since the WCA was founded in 2004, more than 100,000 individuals from across 140 countries or more, have competed in official WCA competitions – including more than 4,700 competitors representing Canada. Almost 200 official WCA competitions have been held in Canada across seven provinces.
WINNERS:
3x3 Cube final:
1st (and winner of entire competition since 3x3 was the main event): Sameer Aggarwal (average of 6.23)
2nd : Luke Jankowiak (average of 7.39)
3rd : Kenny Zhong (average of 8.14)
2x2 Cube final:
1st : Sameer Aggarwal (average of 2.05)
2nd : Dilshawn Sidhu (average of 2.59)
3rd : Jimbo Cai (average of 2.66)
4x4 Cube final:
1st : Sameer Aggarwal (average of 27.82)
2nd : Jonathan Truchot (average of 32.11)
3rd : Jose Miguel Valdes Rodriguez (average of 35.11)
Pyraminx final:
1st : Jacob Kotai (average of 2.75)
2nd : Ash Chen (average of 2.87)
3rd : Tripp Peters (average of 2.92)
Square-1 final:
1st : Sameer Aggarwal (average of 5.85)
2nd : Mihir A. Rai (average of 11.47)
3rd : Wesley Haas (average of 12.39)
• First, second, and third place winners received gift cards from Canadian speedcubing store Cubing Out Loud.
