MANSFIELD siblings Vivian and Harvey Knight are both excited to be heading to the Victorian Championships for Speedcubing on May 31 at the Belgrave Convention Centre.
Harvey a grade six student at Mansfield Primary School is no stranger to the competition having competed in his first world Speedcubing competition in March 2024.
In 2023 Harvey was given a traditional 3x3x3 Rubik's cube for Halloween.
He soon mastered the beginner solve method before upgrading to a magnetic speed cube and learning the algorithms for the more advanced and faster CFOP method, which includes the Cross, F2L (first two layers), OLL (orientation of last layer), PLL (permutation of last layer) steps.
There are even more advanced methods to master.
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Harvey can now also complete the pyraminx, master pyraminx, skewb and 5x5x5.
According to his mother Helen, her son is expecting a megaminx in the mail to add to his growing collection.
His passion has spilled over to his younger sister who loves speedcubing just as much.
Harvey taught her how to cube, and the pair now do it together.
Vivian a year five student was looking for something for her Mansfield Primary School camp which was different.
She quickly mastered the 3x3x3 and did a one minute solve while doing the splits as part of her act.
This will be Vivian’s first time at a competition.
“I am going more for the experience,” she said and is looking forward to helping out as a cube scrambler and a runner.
For Harvey, it will be a different experience.
“I am really confident, first time I was nervous and now that I have done it, I know what to do,” he said.
“I get to do something that no one else can do,” said Vivian.
Both Vivian and Harvey are passionate about their sporting activities which include swimming, running and gymnastics.
According to Harvey cubing “calms you down” and uses it between swimming races to deal with nerves.
His mother Helen is a great advocate for cubing which has a positive impact on the brain and helps with reaction times.
She would recommend it to other parents for their children as a “affordable and portable game.”
With a family road trip planned to follow the competition, both Vivian and Harvey will have their cubes with them in the back seat.
The Melbourne competition will attract more than 300 competitors representing Australia and other countries.
Harvey loves that it is so inclusive, with just one open category that allows any age group, gender, or background to compete.
“Speedcubing is definitely not a hobby you can stereotype as appealing to a particular type of kid or adult,” said Helen.
At any official event there are delegates from the World Cubing Association (WCA), competitors, runners, scramblers, and judges.
All official times are recorded by central computers to determine who goes through to the next round and finals.
In each event you get five attempts and an average score.
“They rank you by taking your worst time and your best time creating an average out of the three middle times which determines your place; however, your fastest time is still your pb,” Harvey said.
The competition events begin with the competitor’s cubes being given to the scramblers.
“The scramblers will give everyone the same scramble and then the runners take those out and look at the station number, which is what table you’re on, then they give it to the judge who puts it on the table in front on you,” Harvey said.
“They’ve got a stopwatch, and they only start it once you say then you have 15 seconds to inspect it and if you go over 15 seconds then that’s a two second penalty and if you go over 17 seconds it’s a DNF (did not finish or disqualified) and then you put your hands on the timer and start to solve,” he explained.
Harvey is competing in: 2x2x2 – personal best is 2.08 seconds, 3x3x3 – personal best is 23.87 seconds, Pyraminx – personal best is 7.35 seconds and Skewb – personal best is 37.07 seconds.
Vivian is competing in: 2x2x2 – personal best is 28.06 seconds and 3x3x3 – personal best is 43.65 seconds.
