My Account
Whangaparāoa College student Aidan Lenton, 14, is heading to the world championships for competitive Rubik’s cube solving, a sport known as ‘speedcubing’.
The Year 10 student is jetting off to the World Cubing Association World Championships in Melbourne next month, after he well exceeded the competition’s one minute qualifying time with his 10 second solve.
The competition will see the world’s best cubers compete for the fastest times using a variety of different Rubik’s cubes. Each cube has its own category and there are 18 categories altogether.
Aidan will be participating in three categories. For each, he will have to complete four solves that require different manoeuvres depending on how the cube has been mixed up.
His father Mark will accompany him for the four-day competition, which will run for 10 hours every day.
Aidan is heading to the competition just one year after buying his first Rubik’s cube.
“I watched a video of a guy speedcubing on YouTube and thought it looked cool, so I bought one online,” Aidan says.
He now has a cupboard full of 70 cubes of all different shapes, sizes and difficulties. The ones ideal for speedcubing can cost from $35 to over $100 each.
“When I get bored of solving one, I can just move onto another one for a while,” Aidan says.
“I always bring a couple to school so I can solve them on the bus.”
Aidan has also attended some New Zealand cubing competitions and keeps in touch with friends he has made there.
Despite having competition experience, he says he still gets nervous before competing.
“My hands get so shaky, which makes it super hard to solve!”
