World Cube Association

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World Cube Association
AbbreviationWCA
Formation18 October 2004 (2004-10-18)
FoundersRon van Bruchem, Tyson Mao
TypeSport Association
HeadquartersLos Angeles, California, USA
Membership
Free
Official language
English
Ethan Pride, Callum Goodyear, Saransh Grover
Staff
Board of directors, 10 committee leaders and 131 delegates (excluding candidates)
Websiteworldcubeassociation.org

The World Cube Association (WCA) is the worldwide non-profit organization that regulates and holds competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, commonly known as twisty puzzles (a subcategory of combination puzzles). The most famous of those puzzles is the Rubik's Cube. The WCA was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States in 2004.[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."[2] In 2017, they started work to become a non-profit organization and on November 20, 2017, the state of California accepted the initial registration of the World Cube Association.

The organization is run by the board members. It assigns different teams and committees as well as delegates who can organize official competitions. The presence of a delegate is required to make the competition official. As of June 2022, more than 160,000 people from around the world have participated in WCA competitions[3] and over 7,500 competitions have been held.[4]

Board

Current board members

As of February 23, 2021[2]
Member Country Board member since
Ethan Pride Australia July 2019[5]
Callum James Goodyear United Kingdom September 2020[6]
Saransh Grover India September 2020[6]
Blake Thompson United States July 2022[7]
Somya Srivastava India July 2022[7]

Former board members

Member Country Term
Gilles Roux France October 2004 – November 2008[8]
Ron van Bruchem Netherlands October 2004 – July 2018[9]
Masayuki Akimoto Japan September 2005[1] – January 2012
Tyson Mao United States October 2004 – August 2013[10]
Sébastien Auroux Germany July 2012[11] – February 2014[12]
Tim Reynolds United States July 2012[11] – December 2014[13]
Natán Riggenbach Peru September 2013[14] – August 2015[15]
Olivér Perge Hungary March 2015 – February 2016, July 2017[16]
Pedro Santos Guimarães Brazil March 2015 – July 2018[9]
Ilkyoo Choi South Korea September 2013[14] – July 2017[16]
Chris Hardwick United States July 2016[17] – November 2017[18]
Luis J. Iáñez Spain July 2016[17] – July 2018[9]
Alberto Pérez de Rada Fiol Spain November 2017[18] – November 2019[19]
Chris Wright United Kingdom September 2018[20] – September 2020[6]
Bob Burton United States November 2017 - November 2021
Henrik Buus Aagaard Denmark November 2019 - November 2021

Structure of the WCA

WCA Board of Directors

The WCA Board of Directors (or simply WCA Board) is the leadership team of the WCA and its highest authority. WCA Directors are Officers of the WCA and also, have the role of Full Delegate. The WCA Board is responsible for the WCA organization as a whole. As part of their day-to-day work, they discuss issues that affect the WCA and advise the committees. The WCA Board oversees that the applications to hold WCA Competitions meet fair conditions to give all the world similar chances to compete, and finally approves and announces the competitions accordingly. After competitions, they read reports from the WCA delegates about competitions to be up to date on the WCA activity worldwide and take part in the discussion of any incidents that occur.

The Board is also responsible for helping WCA fulfill its mission: “more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.” This means spreading cubing to new communities and countries and working together with the Senior Delegates to open up cubing to even more people.

WCA Teams, Committees and Councils

WCA Communication Team

The WCA Communications Team (WCT) is in charge of overseeing and supporting the communications of the WCA with the community and the general public. This includes answering general requests that are submitted via the WCA website and maintaining the WCA's social media accounts. The team responds to multiple emails a day from all around the world regarding starting cubing competitions in new areas, what to do for your first competition, big media requests about competitive speedcubing, and many other issues. Many requests are also forwarded to the appropriate WCA Team or Delegate if they are regarding a particular competition or region.

WCA Competition Announcement Team

The WCA Competition Announcement Team (WCAT) is responsible for approving and announcing WCA Competitions and ensure such announcements adhere to WCA quality standards. They review and announce competition submissions to the WCA.

WCA Disciplinary Committee

The WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC) investigates a variety of situations and proposes solutions including punishments when necessary. Among other topics, these situations could be serious violations of WCA regulations or community issues. They deal with many instances of cheating, general conduct, or disputes in the way that Delegates and organizers run events. They are also responsible for issues that may occur in the WCA internally.

They can be contacted by WCA officials or community members to be made aware of possible violations at WCA competitions. Initial contact with the team is usually through emails or directly from any competitor or Delegate. If the Team Leader agrees that this case falls under the WDC's jurisdiction, a WDC case is initiated. The team attempts to correspond with everyone involved, to get all sides of the story, and to provide an independent report for the investigation. Once the case is closed and the decision made, they inform all relevant persons of any actions and make a public announcement, if necessary.

WCA Ethics Committee

The WCA Ethics Committee (WEC) ensures that all the procedures followed by the WCA Staff and External Staff abide by its Code of Ethics, and to perform independent investigations if the conduct of any of these members is not compliant with the code. Such investigations can be requested by any Registered Speedcubers, for whom the WEC is a confidant. This committee also functions as the board of appeal if anyone involved disagrees with a decision made by the WCA Disciplinary Committee.

WCA Financial Committee

The WCA Financial Committee (WFC) is responsible for everything regarding finances within the WCA. As an Advisory Committee, they manage the finances and accounts of the WCA by an approved annual budget proposal, which is also their work to provide regularly. Similarly, the Financial Committee pays invoices and taxes that are directed to the WCA, after consultation and with permission of the WCA Board. Every quarter, they report and advise the WCA Board on all finances of the WCA, to give them a summary of the scope of financial possibilities and options that the WCA has. The leader of the WFC is the de facto Treasurer of the WCA.

WCA Marketing Team

The WCA Marketing Team (WMT) is responsible for managing WCA relationships with external partners as well as working closely with the WCA Brand. They are currently seeking help with WCA Merchandise, the WCA Gear Team, Sponsorships, & Contracts.[21]

WCA Quality Assurance Committee

The WCA Quality Assurance Committee (WQAC) is responsible for supporting and promoting continuous quality improvement within the WCA, as well as worldwide application of quality standards to ensure consistent high quality of processes, WCA Staff, Regional Organizations, Competition Organizers, and Competition Staff.

WCA Regulations Committee

The WCA Regulations Committee (WRC) was founded to support the WCA Board in maintaining the WCA Regulations in 2011. Over the years, their area of responsibility has been broadened, so that they handle all issues which are related to the application, the improvement, and the development of the WCA Regulations today. They support Delegates on any kind of procedural matters happening at competitions and decide on unresolved and uncovered incidents. The WRC regularly publishes WCA internal reports to help all Delegates and improve their knowledge of the Regulations. This includes regulation changes based on feedback from the WCA staff and the community, while also taking into account their insights and reports of incidents that occur during WCA competitions. New versions of the Regulations are published periodically. Another part of their work is to encourage members of the WCA community to create and maintain translations of the Regulations.

WCA Results Team

The WCA Results Team (WRT) is responsible for managing all data in the databases of the WCA, most importantly competition results and personal data.

The most time-consuming regular task of the WCA Results Team is posting results of WCA competitions to the WCA website, once the Delegate of the competition has sent them in. They rigorously check if the results were submitted correctly and if so, transfer them into the WCA results database. This work of the Results Team assures the data quality of the databases of the WCA. Each such posting procedure is ended by creating a public post on the WCA website – these are the posts that you can see on the front page of the WCA website! Apart from posting competition results, the WCA Results Team is also responsible for making corrections to competition results if necessary and they are in charge of administering all WCA profile pages. This includes for example changing user data, like dates of birth, according to verified requests and managing profile picture requests.

WCA Software Team

The WCA website is a huge open source project on GitHub.[22] They bring continuous improvements to the website very frequently, to allow all of the community members to easily access and enjoy WCA content. Recently internationalization was implemented, so now people can use the WCA website in their native language. Other important milestones are the development of the registration system, and especially payments. The team keeps an eye on the website all the time to ensure it is permanently available and they react as fast as possible whenever something is wrong.

The Software Team develops new software for various tasks within the WCA whenever needed. Thus, they created an app simplifying translating the website, to engage more people translating into their language. On 21 August 2012 the WCA Workbook assistant has released,[23] which is used by all Delegates to submit the competition results to the WCA Results Team. The Software Team also updates the official WCA Scrambler, TNoodle, according to data provided by the WCA Regulations Committee if changes are needed. Additionally, they maintain and develop administrative tools for various Delegates, Committees, and board members on the WCA website.

WCA Advisory Council

The WCA Advisory Council (WAC) is responsible for building and maintaining bilateral communication between the WCA Community and the WCA Staff. It establishes communication channels between the WCA Community and the WCA Board, providing direct feedback from Registered Speedcubers about the WCA's operations. Members of the WAC include both staff and community members.

Current Teams, Committees and Councils Members

Members are correct as of April 27, 2022.[24]

Member Country Task
Rui Reis Switzerland Communications Team Leader
Chenxi Chan China Communications Team Senior Member
Lauren Clement United States
Ryan Simpson United Kingdom
William Gan Wei Ren Malaysia Communications Team Senior Member and Competition Announcement Team
Katie Kauppi United States Communications Team
Mattew McMillan
Mikela Elleby Jørgensen Denmark
Mohammad Siwom Chowdhury Bangladesh
Tianyu Zhao China
Yash Budhiraja India
Zongwei Sun Unknown
Wilson Alvis Indonesia Competition Announcement Team Leader
Henry Savich United States Competition Announcement Team Senior Member
Chris Martin Competition Announcement Team
Mason Langenderfer
David Edwards Australia
Modest Podzolkin Ukraine Competition Announcement Team and Results Team
Sebastiano Tronto Italy Diciplinary Committee Leader
Lorenzo Vigani Poli Diciplinary Committee Senior Member
Christopher Morris United Kingdom
Arthur Garcin France
Jules Desjardin Diciplinary Committee Senior Member and Regulations Committee
Blake Thompson United States Ethics Committee Leader
Enzo Mattos Brazil Ethics Committee Senior Member
Georel Ulangkaya Philippines
Eoin Dowling Ireland Ethics Committee
Patrick Ponce United States
Stone Amsbaugh
Debapriya Roy India
Lakshay Sharma
Daniel James Executive Assistants Team Senior Member, Results Team Senior Member and Software Team
Thaynara Santana de Oliveira Brazil Executive Assistants Team Senior Member
James Molloy United Kingdom Financial Committee Leader
Chris Wright Financial Committee Senior Member
Edward Hollingdale Australia
Pratik Poojary India Financial Committee
Saransh Grover Marketing Team Leader
Hargun Singh Tikku Marketing Team
Hariprasad CM
Aidan Blackett United Kingdom
Bob Burton United States
Bradley Sampson
Tine Kalač Slovenia
Meenakshi Muralidharan India Marketing Team and Software Team
Daniel Vædele Egdal Denmark Quality Ensurance Committe Leader and Competition Announcement Senior Member
Nitin Subramanian United States Quality Assurance Committee Senior Member
Tristan Steeves Quality Assurance Committee
Bertie Longden United Kingdom
Nevins Chan Pak Hoong Malaysia
Deni Mintsaev Russia Quality Assurance Committee and Software Team
Iván Brigidano Pérez Spain Regulations Committee Leader
Lucas Garron Germany Regulations Committee Senior Member
Antonio Kam Ho Tung Hong Kong Regualtions Committee
Han Wu Taiwan
Oleg Gritsenko Russia
Pedro Miranda Moreira Brazil
Sébastien Auroux Germany Results Team Leader
Jacob Ambrose United States Results Team Senior Member and Software Team
Callum James Goodyear United Kingdom Results Team
Sam Spendla
Sukesh Kumar India
Timo Norrkniivilä Finland
Gregor Billing Germany Software Team Leader
Finn Ickler Software Team Senior Member
Alexandre Henrique Afonso Campos Brazil
Jonatan Kłosko Poland
Duncan Hobbs South Africa Software Team
Kerrie Jarman Australia
Kevin Matthews Canada
Oscar Di Lenarda France
Richard Jiankun Peng China
Louis Meunier United States
Zachary Miller Advisory Council Leader
Emma Dixon Advisory Council
Kit Clement
Logan Day-Richter
Zeke Mackay
Abhijeet Ghodgaonkar India
Annika Stein Germany
Baha Alshwaiki Jordan
Ekaterina Kaneva Russia
Gennaro Monetti Uruguay
Hongyuan Fu China
Ivan Ros Godia Spain
Marcus Laurantzon Sweden

WCA Delegates

WCA Delegates are members of the WCA who are responsible for making sure that all WCA competitions are run according to the mission, regulations, and spirit of the WCA. This means that a WCA Delegate needs to be present at every competition for it to be considered official. The WCA has four different types of delegates: WCA Senior Delegates, WCA Delegates, WCA Junior Delegates, and WCA Trainee Delegates. Beyond the duties of a WCA Delegate, a WCA Senior Delegate is responsible for managing the delegates in their area and should also be contacted by the community for regional matters. They are available to mentor the delegates in their area – especially when new communities are being developed. New delegates are listed as WCA Trainee Delegates at first and need to show their ability to manage competitions successfully before being listed as a WCA Junior Delegate. WCA Trainee Delegates will delegate their first competitions alongside more experienced delegates to get the hang of all responsibilities connected to delegate a WCA competition. WCA Junior Delegates can be promoted to a WCA Delegate after at least 1 year of successful work as a WCA Junior Delegate.

All acknowledged WCA Delegates, Junior Delegates and Senior Delegates can be found on their official Website.[25]

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 many issues, largely due to the lack of any regulations. After the World Championship, 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 has held competitions in more than 100 countries.

Events

Currently, the WCA offers competitions in 17 events. Not all of them are offered at every competition, but they are usually all offered at national, continental, and global championships. The events are:[26]

Additionally, some events have had their official WCA event status removed. They are:[27][28]

Some events also formally held unofficial status at WCA events and no records were ever kept of them.[29]

  • 3x3x3 No Inspection
  • 3x3x3 Speed Blindfolded
  • 3x3x3 Three in a Row
  • 3x3x3 Team Solve
  • 3x3x3 Blindfolded Team Solve
  • 2x2x2 Blindfolded
  • Clock Blindfolded
  • 3x3x3 Siamese Cube
  • Rainbow Cube
  • Rubik's Snake
  • Mirror Blocks
  • Rubik's 360
  • 2x2x2 One-Handed
  • Magic One-Handed
  • Face-turning Octahedron

World Championships

Every two years starting from 2003, the WCA holds the Rubik's Cube World Championships. The Championship ultimately determines the world champion of the puzzle. Every official event is held at the Championship. The Rubik's Cube World Championship requires extremely careful planning by several volunteers, as well as a large financial commitment to reserve the venue and make necessary preparations.[2] The latest championship was held in Melbourne, Australia from 11 to 14 July 2019. The 2021 World Championship was to be held in Almere, Amsterdam from 28 to 31 December 2021, already delayed from its initial July dates due to the COVID-19 pandemic, before being ultimately canceled by the association in August 2021. The next championship is to be held in Seoul, South Korea TBD.

Championship Year Host Date(s) Nations Puzzles Events 3x3 Winner Average Ref
I 1982 Hungary Budapest 5 June 19 1 1 United States Minh Thai 22.95[note 1] [30]
II 2003 Canada Toronto 23–24 August 15 9 14 United States Dan Knights 20.00 [31]
III 2005 United States Lake Buena Vista 5–6 November 16 9 15 France Jean Pons 15.10 [32]
IV 2007 Hungary Budapest 5–7 October 28 10 17 Japan Yu Nakajima 12.46 [33]
V 2009 Germany Düsseldorf 9–11 October 32 12 19 United Kingdom Breandan Vallance 10.74 [34]
VI 2011 Thailand Bangkok 14–16 October 35 12 19 Poland Michał Pleskowicz 8.65 [35]
VII 2013 United States Las Vegas 26–28 July 35 10 17 Australia Feliks Zemdegs 8.18 [36]
VIII 2015 Brazil São Paulo 17–19 July 37 11 18 Australia Feliks Zemdegs 7.56 [37]
IX 2017 France Paris 13–16 July 64 11 18 United States Max Park 6.85 [38]
X 2019 Australia Melbourne 11–14 July 52 11 18 Germany Philipp Weyer 6.74 [39]
XI 2021 Netherlands Almere Cancelled - 11 17 - - [40]
XII 2023 South Korea Seoul Upcoming - 11 17 - - [41]
  1. ^ The 1982 World Championship used a Best Of 3 method to determine the winner, so Minh Thai's winning time is actually a single time.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "New WCA board member". World Cube Association. September 24, 2005. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  2. ^ a b c "About the WCA". World Cube Association. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  3. ^ "WCA database export". World Cube Association. Retrieved June 12, 2022. See in table "Persons".
  4. ^ "All Past WCA Competitions". World Cube Association. Retrieved June 12, 2022. All WCA Past Competitions (Might Take a Moment to Load)
  5. ^ "Changes in the Board of Directors – July 2019". World Cube Association. July 1, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
  6. ^ a b c "Changes in the Board of Directors – September 2020". World Cube Association. September 1, 2020. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  7. ^ a b "Changes in the Board of Directors – July 2022". World Cube Association. July 1, 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2022.
  8. ^ "Gilles Roux retires as member of WCA Board". World Cube Association. October 15, 2008. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  9. ^ a b c "Changes in the WCA Board". World Cube Association. July 1, 2018. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
  10. ^ "Tyson Mao retires as member of WCA Board". World Cube Association. August 1, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  11. ^ a b "Tim Reynolds and Sébastien Auroux in WCA Board". World Cube Association. July 28, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  12. ^ "Sébastien Auroux retires as WCA board member". World Cube Association. February 24, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  13. ^ "Tim Reynolds retires as WCA Board Member". World Cube Association. December 19, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  14. ^ a b "New WCA Board Members". World Cube Association. September 19, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  15. ^ "Natán Riggenbach resigns from the WCA Board". World Cube Association. August 5, 2015. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  16. ^ a b "Changes in the Board of Directors (WCA Board)". World Cube Association. July 1, 2017. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  17. ^ a b "New WCA Board Members". World Cube Association. July 4, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  18. ^ a b "Changes in the Board of Directors – November 2017". World Cube Association. November 10, 2017. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  19. ^ "Changes in the Board of Directors (November 2019) | World Cube Association". www.worldcubeassociation.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  20. ^ "Changes in the Board of Directors – September 2018". World Cube Association. September 2, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  21. ^ "WCA Marketing Team Appliances & About". World Cube Association. Retrieved May 29, 2021.
  22. ^ "WCA Github Repository". World Cube Association. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  23. ^ "WCA Workbook Assistant versions". World Cube Association. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  24. ^ "WCA Teams, Committees, and Councils | World Cube Association". www.worldcubeassociation.org. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  25. ^ "WCA Delegates". World Cube Association. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  26. ^ "WCA Regulations". Retrieved May 1, 2021.
  27. ^ "WCA Regulations History". World Cube Association. Retrieved May 1, 2021. WCA Updated Regulations Page
  28. ^ "World Cube Association Competition regulations, history of changes". Retrieved August 28, 2021. Final version for 2007: Article 9a/d
  29. ^ https://github.com/thewca/worldcubeassociation.org/issues/96
  30. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 1982". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  31. ^ "World Rubik's Games Championship 2003". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  32. ^ "Rubik's World Championship 2005". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  33. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2007". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  34. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2009". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  35. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2011". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  36. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2013". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  37. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2015". World Cube Association. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  38. ^ "World Rubik's Cube Championship 2017". World Cube Association. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  39. ^ "WCA World Championship 2019". World Cube Association. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
  40. ^ "WCA World Championship 2021 Cancellation". World Cube Association. 6 August 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  41. ^ "WCA Championship 2022 and 2023 Hosts Announcement (June 2021)". World Cube Association. 28 June 2021. Retrieved 22 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links

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