More than 80 Rubik’s Cube solvers converged on downtown Anchorage over the weekend for the Up in the North tournament, where more than half the competitors were first-timers.
Amelia Muhlbauer of Anchorage solves a 7x7x7 cube while Isabella Wight of Anchorage practices on a 3x3x3 during the Up in the North 2023 Rubik's Cube competition Saturday, April 1, 2023.
She registered for all eight categories, spending nearly 10 hours at the Egan Center on Saturday competing in a range of cube shapes, styles and complexities. The morning started with the main event, the 3x3x3 competition. Siblings fidgeted in front-row seats. Parents snapped photos from behind a line of tape on the conference room carpet. Each cuber solved five cubes per round. Their fastest and slowest times were tossed out, and the remaining speeds were averaged to determine the rankings. The top 75% of cubers advanced to round 2, where the top 16 would move on to round 3.
“More than half of the competitors here have never been to a competition. They’ve only ever seen it on YouTube or Netflix,” Martin said. He credits the recent growth in popularity, especially among neurodivergent youths, to the 2020 Netflix documentary “The Speed Cubers.” The extra pressure of the event motivated him to move fast, he said: “I did a lot better than I did at home because it’s a competition.” He hoped to advance to the second round of the 3x3x3 contest “but even if I do make it, I’m going home. I’m hungry.”
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