Bellingham Fall 2024
- Date
- Oct 19, 2024
- City
- Bellingham, Washington, United States
- Venue
Western Washington University
- Address
- 516 High St, Bellingham, WA 98225
- Details
Viking Union MPR (6th floor)
- Contact
- Organization team
- Organizers
- Ethan Davis and Pacific Northwest Cubing
- WCA Delegate
- Peter Preston
- Download all the competition's details as PDF .
- Information
-
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This competition is recognized as an official World Cube Association competition. Therefore, all competitors must be familiar with the WCA Regulations. If you are new to competing, please refer to the Competitor Responsibilities tab.
All students of Western Washington University may register free of charge! Please pay for your registration as normal, then contact us with a picture of your student ID to receive a full refund.
- Events
- Main event
- Competitor limit
- 80
- Number of times bookmarked
- 24
- Registration period
-
Online registration opened and will close .
- Registration requirements
-
Create a WCA account here if you don't have one.
If this is not your first competition, associate your WCA ID to your WCA account here.
Register for this competition here.
There is a competitor limit of 80 competitors.
The base registration fee for this competition is $25 (United States Dollar).
The registration fee has to be paid through Stripe here once registered.
If your registration is cancelled before you will be refunded 100% of your registration fee.
Registrants on the waiting list may be accepted onto the competitor list until .
If you are a registered competitor you may change your registered events until by contacting the organization team.
No on the spot registrations will be accepted.
Any spectator can attend for free.
Your registration is not considered complete until after the registration payment has been made. Please note that even after payment, registrations need to be manually approved before appearing on the competitor list. If the competitor limit has been reached before your payment was completed, you will be placed on a waitlist. For more information on the waitlist, please refer to the waitlist tab, which will be manually kept up-to-date as more people register.
By registering, competitors agree to the information in the Competitor Responsibilities tab. This tab details the responsibilites of all competitors at this competition. Not abiding by these responsibilities can result in disqualification.
Competitors will be accepted from the waitlist in the order that they paid. If you wish to delete your registration, please let us know here. You will receive a 100% refund if you cancel before the registration deadline.
ALL COMPETITORS MUST READ THIS TAB BEFORE REGISTERING.
Before the competition, you will receive a card/nametag with personalized information detailing your events and what group you will be competing in for each event in an email. We will be relying on competitors to help by judging whenever they are not competing. Judging is very easy and is a great way to make time fly!
We will provide a judging and competitor tutorial after lunch, right before the start of 3x3. This will allow anyone with questions about how to judge or compete to be properly prepared when they are expected to help or compete!
We will need help judging for the second/final rounds of events as we can not assign staff for those in advance. Spectators are encouraged to learn how to judge; you do not need to know how to cube in order to be a judge. Having enough judges ensures that we stay on schedule and are able to leave on time.
For those of you new to cubing, WELCOME!
We wanted to let you know this event is perfectly fine for cubers of any age and experience. We just ask you know a couple things before coming to compete!
First, please be familiar with the WCA Regulations, found here:
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/
This video will explain most of what any cuber competing for the first time will need to know, however, it is still required that they are familar with the full set of regulations above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPL3eV-A0ww
If you have any questions after this video, we will be having a new competitor/judge tutorial the morning of the competition. That would be the perfect time to ask those questions and clear up any confusion.
If you are stoked to compete and ready to sign up, head over to the registration tab, click register, and fill out the information it asks for. This will help you get set up the WCA's system and one step closer to your first official solve!
Frequently Asked Questions:
Q: Do I use my own cube to compete?
A: Yes! You are responsible for your own hardware in order to compete. Please refer to section 3 of the WCA Regulations for more information on what puzzles are okay to use in competition. If you have any questions, please reach out!
Q: What is the competition like?
A: Competitions are a ton of fun! Competitions are a great opportuity to meet new cubers, make new friends, and be able to compete and get official times recognized by the World Cube Association. Competitions can be as social of an event as you would like them to be. The communitiy is extremely welcoming and you can always sit at any table and strike up a conversation with another cuber. They are great places to try new cubes as well, just in case you are looking to get a new main cube! Once you walk into the venue, you will most likely see your nametag at a check-in table. If you are a first-timer, you will be asked to verify your information on your registration (name, DOB, country). Once you grab your nametag, go ahead and find a seat and start cubing! There will be a competitor/judge tutorial, which can be found on the schedule. After that, we will begin with the first event and will be calling events up by group. Your group numbers can be found on the back of your nametag. After you compete in an event, you will most likely also be expected to help judge another group (typically the following group). Competitions are very self-sufficient, so we rely heavily on the assitance from other cubers and parents like you! Your assisgned helping groups should also be listed on the back of your nametag. Once you are done competing in your event, you can go back to your table and continnue to socialize! To see if you made it to the next round of an event, you can check your results.
Q: How do I find results?
A: For the day of competing, WCA Live will have all of the results manually entered throughout the day. Once on WCA Live, scroll to the competition in question and you're good to go! After the competition, official results will be posted typically within a few days to a week after the competition happens.
Q: How do I get a WCA ID?
After official results are posted after the competitions (see question above), you will receive an email with information on your WCA ID.
Q: Why am I not on the registration list yet?
A: Make sure you pay you registration fee in order to be eligible to be placed on the competitor list. If the competitor limit has been reached by the time your registration is completed, you will be placed onto a waitlist, which is listed in the order of when competitors pay. If you are not advanced from the waitlist before the waittlist closes (date found on Register tab), you will be issued a full refund.
Q: What is the typical age of competitors at these events?
A: All ages are welcome, but in general competitors are between 10 and 20 years old. Don't let this stop you though! Everyone can and should cube!
Q: Are there age divisions?
A: Nope! All cometitors compete in the same groups.
Q: Is there anything else I should know before attending my first competition?
A: Yes! Attending your first competition can come with a lot of nerves, so try and focus on having fun and meeting new people. If you aren't as fast as Max Park or Feliks Zemdegs, just remember that all cubers faster than you have been at your speed at some point! I also point people to Mats Valk's WCA Profile since he started competing whe he averaged well over a minute and now averages 6-7 seconds. People often do slightly worse in competition than at home too, so don't beat yourself up if you don't do as well as you had hoped! Once you lock in your first set of results, you'll have new personal records to break and goals to achieve at every new competition! If you plan on bringing any of your own puzzles, we highly rercommend marking them somehow (sharpie mark under a center cap or something similar) or keeping them in a box/bag. It happens far too often that many cubers bring a bunch of puzzles, put them on a table unattended, and accidentally take someone elses' puzzle, thinking it was theirs. It's easy to lose track of a single puzzle, especially since so many of them look the same at first glance!
This competition uses a system that is relatively new to the PNW and applies to everyone for the entire schedule!
We’re using a system where you as a competitor will be sitting at the same station for all 5 of your solves and judges will be both running and judging. Here's how it works:
Running judges is a modified version of the stationary system that combines the roles of running and judging into one.
When the competitor’s group is called, the competitor goes up to that stage’s “pick-up” table and collects their scorecard.
Competitor goes to any open solving station with their scorecard and puzzle.
If there are no open stations, please wait a couple of minutes or see a Delegate to see if there are open stations at other stages. A station may open up as competitors from the previous group finish.
Competitor makes sure they have the correct numbered cover at their station.
Runner/judge takes the cube covers to the scramblers.
Runner/judge takes the next available scrambled puzzle to the corresponding competitor based on the number on the cube cover and proceeds to judge their attempt.
Runner/judge may not be judging the same competitor each time
If there are no scrambled puzzles available, runner/judge waits in line for the next scrambled puzzle
After the attempt, runner/judge takes the solved cube and competitor scorecard in the cube cover to the scramblers.
Repeat this process until all competitors in the group have completed all their attempts.
You can find all of the below information on your nametag as well as on competitiongroups.com.
Upon checking in, you will receive a nametag and lanyard for holding your nametag. Your nametag will contain a lot of very important information that will help guide you through your day as a competitor. While the exact nametag you receive will differ from the one shown below, the general format and information should be similar.
The front of your nametag will have your name, WCA ID (if you have one) and your competition ID on it. See the example below:
In this case, we see:
- the competitor's name is Chris Tabar
- the competitor's WCA ID is 2017TABA02
- the competitor's ID # for the competition is 3
The competitor ID is an important piece of information. It will be used as your signature when approving your solve times, when judging, and when scrambling. Keep in mind though this number changes for each competition.
Next, we have the back of your nametag. This will contain information on the events you're competing in, such as the stage/room and the group, and then information on where you'll be helping. ALL competitors are required to assist with running the competition and you will see which jobs you've been assigned to here.
In the above example, there are three columns - Event, Competing, and Helping. Let's take those one by one:
Event - the actual event, such as 3x3, 5x5, etc.
Competing - This is the one you care about most! The information in this column tells you which stage or room you're competing in and which group, usually with the first letter of the name of the stage or room, such as (B) for Blue. If the competition has only one stage or room, there may just be a number in this column.
Helping - This column tells you when you are assigned to a job helping with the competition. The first letter tells you the job you'll be doing - (J) for Judging, (R) for Running, (S) for Scrambling, the number tells you which group you'll be helping with.
Looking at the highlighted entries, let's look at the row for "OH".
Under the "Competing" column, we see "B2". This means the competitor is assigned to the (B)lue stage, group 2, for competing. You should listen to the announcements for each event and proceed to the drop-off table when "group 2" is called.
Under the "Helping" column, we see "J3". This means the competitor has been assigned a (J)udging role for group 3 for the OH event. Whatever your assigned for an event, when the group is called, proceed to the competition area and begin helping.
Confused by all of this? Don't worry! There will be a tutorial before the competition going over the nametags and how everything works. And the delegates and organizers will be more than happy to answer any questions you might have!
Food is allowed in the venue and there are many local and fast food options in town.
Parking info: The 7G lot in the northeast part of campus is reserved for this competition and will have signs. Parking in this lot is free for the day of the competition.
Venue Location: Viking Union 6th floor Multi-Purpose Room (MPR)
This competition will be sponsored by TheCubicle! They will be providing gift-card prizes for this competition. They will not be selling puzzles onsite.
This competition is also sponsored by Diansheng! They will be sending puzzles to give to competitors in the FTO unofficial event. They also make the best FTO right now, so consider buying one if you want to get into FTO!
Below is a link to the waitlist for this competition. If you get off the waitlist, you will receive an email indicating that your registration was approved. The waitlist is in the order in which we received payment for your registration. Registrants on the waiting list may be accepted onto the competitor list until Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 8:00 PM PDT. After this point, if you are still on the waitlist you will receive a full refund of your registration fee. There will be no exceptions for moving up on the waitlist.
Link: TBA
An unofficial round of FTO will be held during lunch! If you'd like to participate, sign up at this link.
This competition will also hold unofficial events. The results will be recorded through Cubing Contests, and will then be added to the rankings.
Live Results
Event Details
Rules
Time limit
If you reach the time limit during your solve, the judge will stop you and your result will be DNF (see Regulation A1a4).
A cumulative time limit may be enforced (see Regulation A1a2).
Cutoff
The result to beat to proceed to the second phase of a cutoff round (see Regulation 9g).
Format
The format describes how to determine the ranking of competitors based on their results. The list of allowed formats per event is described in Regulation 9b. See Regulation 9f for a description of each format.