Rubik's Cube Competition at Columbia High School, 3/17/18

Columbia High School's Cubing Club is sponsoring an "unofficial" Rubik's Cube Competition at CHS on Saturday, March 17, 2018. We anticipate 3 categories of competition -- 3x3 cube, 3x3 one-handed, and 2x2. 

The competition had to be re-scheduled from March 10th due to the storms. We did issue a date of March 24 but that date conflicted with a number of events (March on Washington, SOPL Maker Day).

Rubik's Cube does have serious mathematical underpinnings -- the math is called "Permutation Groups" and CHS does cover some of the topics in Group Theory in our Advanced Topics course. The CHS Robotics Club has supported both the investment in computers and Rubik's Cube to create a platform for our students to (a) learn the math; (b) code for solutions to a cube; (c) build a platform to solve it. This is a "joint venture" of the Robotics Club, the Math teachers, and the Achieve Foundation.

In the past our Robotics Club received support from the company that built a robotic arm to solve a Rubik's Cube "one-handed" -- and that robotic arm was on display at Liberty Science Center and now it has gone around the world for exhibitions. 

If you are interested in watching or competing, please show up on Saturday, March 17. Registration is at 9AM and competitions start at 10AM. At lunchtime we hope to have some discussions on the math and  coding and such exotica as "algorithms".

Anyone wishing to compete -- please visit this site to sign up:https://tinyurl.com/ycm5cr54


I am reminded of watching Cornell basketball players doing Rubik's cube on T.V. several years ago when they made it to the NCAA tournament.  And they talked about their chances of winning as being NOT  "a null probability space".

https://sports.theonion.com/cornell-drains-fun-out-of-cinderella-run-by-explaining-1819571400


We had a great event on Saturday and many of the kids participating were elementayr and middle school kids. We are in a great position to host an official event next year! A big thanks to the student organizers -- all members of the CHS Robotics Club -- who spent the day creating "scrambles" for the cubes, judging events, maintaining the score sheet standings, helping with the set-up and take-down. 

As mentioned in the first post, we intend to move forward with a joint program of building a robot that can solve the cube with our math and coding instructors. 



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