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 at the beginning of the day and 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=8dSuMG--wm8

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: Can I bring guests?

A: Anybody is allowed to come watch at no cost. We would like an estimate of the guest count, so you will be prompted to input how many guests you're bringing on the registration tab, but it's not a problem if more people show up unexpectedly.

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 recommend 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!

Venue

The competition will be held in the cafeteria of the school. If you are on Dennison Rd facing west towards the school, you should be able to see some double doors (marked in red in the picture below) that open outside of the school. That will be the entrance to the competition.

Travel

From the north: Coming from Bakersfield, take the 58 east and exit on the 202 exit. Turn left and stay on Tehachapi Blvd for two miles, then turn right on Dennison Rd. The school will be after the first stop sign.
From the south: Coming from Los Angeles, take the 14 north past Mojave. From there, take the 58 west and exit on the Tehachapi Blvd exit. Turn left and stay on Tehachapi Blvd for one mile, then turn left on Dennison Rd. The school will be after the first stop sign.

Food

There will be no food served at the venue, but there are many food places to stop at that are within a few miles of the venue. Downtown has restaurants a mile away, and more restaurants are about 2 miles down Valley Blvd from the venue.

Parking

There are 2 main parking lots marked in yellow on the map below. The parking is free.

This competition will be sponsored by thecubicle.com! Prizes will be given to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places.

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, April 8, 2023 at 5:00 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.

WAITLIST NOT YET AVAILABLE

The Tehachapi High School Chess Club will be hosting a chess tournament in the same room as the cubing competition, at the same time. You may not participate in any chess tournament games if your time to compete in the cubing competition is soon or if you have any competitor responsibilities.

The tournament will consist of two categories. Please read through the page to see which category is applicable to you.

Open Category
You may only participate in this category if you are not competing in the cubing competition.

Cost: $7, to be paid in cash on-site (proceeds will go towards the THS Chess Club, raising funds for new equipment)
Time Control: 5 minute base time with no incremental time bonuses (5+0)
Participant Limit: 32 (Current: 1/32)
Format: Swiss-system tournament with a currently unknown number of rounds that will be decided as we get closer to the day of the event. After the Swiss games have finished, the top 4 players will be seeded into a single-elimination bracket, with every pairing being best-of-3 games (with 2+0 time control tiebreaker if needed). The winner of the grand final will be declared the winner of the open category, the loser of the grand final will claim second place, and the winner of a third place match between the two who lost their first bracket games will claim third place.
Prizes:
1st: $1.00 x (# of competitors)
2nd: $0.67 x (# of competitors)
3rd: $0.33 x (# of competitors)
Schedule: Due to us not knowing how many people will participate, the exact schedule is currently unknown. Currently, we plan to start at 9:30 AM, take a lunch break from 11:35 AM to 12:35 PM, end the Swiss games at 2:00 PM, and finish the tournament at 3:30 PM, although exact times are subject to change. Closer to the day of the event, an email will be sent out to better detail the schedule and the chess tournament as a whole.

Cubers' Category
You may only participate in this category if you are competing in the cubing competition.

Cost: Free (included with competition registration fee)
Time Control: 5 minute base time with no incremental time bonuses (5+0)
Participant Limit: 16 (Current: 5/16)
Format: Single-elimination bracket. Each pairing is best-of-1 game, with 2+0 time control tiebreaker if needed.
Schedule: There won't be a rigid schedule due to many potential conflicts with the cubing competition. We will work around competitors' schedules to finish the first round before lunch, and further rounds will be done in a similar manner after lunch. If you aren't competing in any events before lunch, be sure to arrive at 11:00 AM or earlier if you want to compete in the chess tournament.

Casual Play
If resources and time permit, chess sets will be available for casual play. Please note that you must fulfill your competitor responsibilities, and you should be mindful to not start casual games if you will need to carry out competitor responsibilities. Casual play matches are subject to termination if we need to use a board for a tournament match or (for cubers) if we need you to judge for the cubing competition.

UPDATE: Registration for the cubers' category is closed. Registration for the open category will still be accepted on-site. In any case, we will still be having lots of opportunities for casual play, so if you do not register, you can still come and play some chess.
If you have any questions, please email the THS Chess Club President: lukehuston10 (at) gmail (dot) com

Want to stay connected with the West Coast community? Join the West Coast Cubing Community Discord Server! Speak with other competitors from NorCal, SoCal, Nevada, Hawaii, and Tijuana and keep in touch with fellow competitors and meet new ones! Find out about competition discussion as it happens in real time, and even announcements for competitions before registration opens!

Click here to be directly taken to the Discord Server!

We also have our SoCal Cubing Facebook Group and WCA Forum thread for California.