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, 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!

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 NOT allowed in the venue.
There are plenty of great food options a 5-10 minute walk away from the Greater Tacoma Convention Center.

Venue Location: Ballrooms A & B

IMPORTANT: Parking is NOT free and is $12 for the day at the main parking garage. You must pay using the Flowbird app or at a kiosk. You can find a map here and more information here. Please give yourself extra time to find parking before your scheduled events.

We recognize that our previous event, Tacoma Summer 2024, had an incident where 11 cars were broken into near the venue. We have been informed that for this next event, there will be security guards in the public parking areas to ensure the safety of our attendees and their vehichles.

This competition will be sponsored by TheCubicle! They will be providing gift-card prizes for this competition. They will not be selling puzzles onsite.

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 TBD. 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: TBD