World Cube Association

The official logo of the World Cube Association

The World Cube Association (WCA) is an organization that regulates and holds Rubik's Cube competitions. It was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States.[1] The goal of the World Cube Association is to have "more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair conditions".

Its current board members are:[2]

Member Country
Ilkyoo Choi South Korea
Natán Riggenbach Peru
Ron van Bruchem Netherlands
Olivér Perge Hungary
Pedro Santos Guimarães Brazil

Its former board members are:[3][4][5]

Member Country
Masayuki Akimoto Japan
Gilles Roux France
Tyson Mao United States
Sébastien Auroux Germany
Tim Reynolds United States

As well as these board members, the World Cube Association also assigns delegates who can organize official competitions. The presence of a delegate is required in order to make the competition official. Currently, over 31,000 people from around the world have attended WCA events.

History

In 1999, the first modern age speedcubers found each other on the Internet via Rubik's Games, a computer game with an electronic version of the Rubik's Cube. Chris Hardwick from Raleigh, NC founded the Yahoo! Group "Speedsolvingrubikscube" and the Unofficial World Records, a place where cubers could post their personal best times. Ron van Bruchem started speedcubing.com together with his friend Ton Dennenbroek, an avid puzzle collector.

Because the cubers were living all over the world, they wanted to organize a competition at which they could all meet. In 2003, under the guidance of Dan Gosbee, they organized the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Toronto. This first modern-age Rubik's Cube competition was a huge success, but there were lots of issues, due to the lack of good regulations. After the World Championship, Ron van Bruchem and Tyson Mao started organizing competitions in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as at Caltech in the United States. In 2004, they started the World Cube Association, which today organizes competitions in over 50 countries.

Events

Currently, the WCA offers competitions in 18 events. Not all of them are offered at every competition, but they are usually all offered at national and global competitions. The events are:

Additionally, some events have had their official WCA event status removed. They are:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ New WCA board member
  2. ↑ "WCA Organisation". Retrieved 19 September 2013.
  3. ↑ Gilles Roux retires as member of WCA Board
  4. ↑ World Cube Association • View topic - Tyson Mao retires as member of WCA Board
  5. ↑ World Cube Association • View topic - Sébastien Auroux retires as WCA board member

External links