Well, the 2019 Garrettsville G-Men Classic is now history, but what an event. At least ninety-one participants were registered and the space at the James A. Garfield Elementary School was teeming with “cubers” and their fans.
Oh, yes, there were fans; cheering broke out at some particularly outstanding moves or rapid completions. Competition was overseen by representatives of the World Cubing Association (Ohio Delegates). There were score sheets, judges, timing devices (by Speedstacks)and competition mats(Stackmats) on the tables. The randomized cube of whatever persuasion was tipped out onto the mat from a cup sort of thing (Cubedepot, The Cubicle.us) by a referee sort of observer and the timer began and it was off to the races.
One burst of applause and cheering came as I entered, but, unexpectedly, it was not for me. It was for a young gentleman who gave me his name as Harshapaladugu, who had just been certified as holding the American record for speed in completing whichever cube it was that he had been manipulating–1.31 seconds. Mercy! Took me longer than that to whip out my notebook to write down his name (Surely you don’t think that I remembered it that long either.) Contestants were of a wide age range. Ed Frato-Sweeny took top honors in his age class (I’m not ratting him out on what age that was.) and one young chap that I spoke to owned up to being all of seven years old (He was showing me some of the various devices that were part of the competition and seemed to be amazed that I did not know their names…duh.). There were pieces and varieties of apparatus of all sorts. The standard Rubik’s Cube has a 4×4 format; there are also 2×2’s, 3×3’s, 5×5’ss, 6×6’s and others with designs that were ’way beyond square. They had names of their own too–no plain ol’ cubes for them–such as kilominx, megaminx, skewube (Not sure about that spelling but it was apparently a reference to the word “skew”), the pyraminx was something no Egyptian pharaoh would have recognized. There was even one that a kid told me was named MF3RS2M. Catchy moniker, eh? Then there were 9×9, 7×7 and combo pieces and a gear ball which was exactly what it sounds like; the faces of it were composed of little gears of different colors that had to be turned just so to produce that proper alignment.
So…it’s not enough for these folks to be able to manipulate the cubes faster than anybody without bionic fingers ought to able to manage, oh, no, they had to compete to see who could get the device properly aligned using only one hand. Maybe there was a blindfolded contest too, I don’t know; wouldn’t put it past them. Somebody asked me if I’d like to give it a shot but I declined. One time…ONE TIME…I actually got my hands on one of the cubes and through twisting, turning and pure dumb luck managed to get the thing completed as required, declared myself a winner and vowed to never touch one again. Quit while you’re ahead , I say.
The crowd at this meet was reminiscent of what one might see at a NASCAR event, I decided. Overwhelmingly male, for one thing. I understand that there were three girls–Hannah, Channae and Kayla–who could hold their own, but they were definitely in the minority. Oh, yeah, there were moms and even grandmas watching and cheering and buying extra pizza and stuff like that, but the competitors themselves were mostly guys of all ages and the majority of onlookers were guys–brothers, dads, grandpas, friends with similar aspirations. Plenty of guys with laptops and phones of many vintages communicating with other guys with laptops or playing games of one kind or another. Some guys were there in a swap meet mode, attempting to unload something outdated or pick up some cool new thing that nobody at home has. One kid had a T-shirt that said, “Keep Calm and Cube On”…that kind of thing.
“Home” was pretty widely-scattered, actually. I talked to one dad who had driven up from the Pittsburgh area and the registrations were not for just locals, that’s for sure. The Pittsburgh dad said that his family traveled all over to go to similar events; no different than someone trucking their aspiring baseball/basketball/soccer/softball/volleyball player all over the country with a so-called traveling team. They probably see mostly the same families at each one just like the athletic mavens do.
Then you do get the off-beat attender every so often. One gentleman was pretty deep into a tome with the title, ?Theological Guide to Calvin’s Institute.? Not your standard NASCAR reading, that’s for sure.
Kudos to the Garfield Elementary PTO for sponsoring this event and using the proceeds to promote other worthwhile educational activities and events.
