Tyrone’s resident cube master Zac Jamison recently returned from a Rubik’s Cube competition in Severna Park, Maryland.

“The competition was fun, it was a lot smaller than the last one that I went to, it was a lot less stressful to be in the presence of 100 others than it is to be in front of 300,” said Jamison.

Going into the competition, Jamison hoped to reach the finals in the 2x2x2.  Unfortunately, this time his average for five solves was six seconds, not quite good enough to make the finals.  However he did manage to secure himself a spot in the second round of the 3x3x3 with a 16.19 second average of 5.

Zac placed 42nd out of a 102 competitors in the first round of 3x3x3, 46th of the 48 in the second round, and 34th out of 90 in the 2x2x2 with a 5.60 average of 5.

In competitions, there are two types of cutoffs, hard and soft. Solves that exceed the hard cutoff are counted as DNF, or Did Not Finish. Soft cutoffs on the other hand, are counted, but if they are exceeded, the competitor does not get to finish their average. He placed 31st out of 41 in the 5x5x5, but was not able to finish his average, due to exceeding the soft cutoff.

He also exceeded the soft cutoff for 3x3x3 one handed, so he did not get an average in that event, but he still placed 48th out of 54.

In the Square-1, he placed 26th out of 44. And lastly, but certainly not least, he placed 17th out of 74 other competitors in pyraminx.

Jamison got to try many new products from multiple cube manufactures, his favorite being the Weilong GTS M, a $50 cube that comes with magnets placed inside the pieces to help slightly correct rough turning. He was also lucky enough to secure himself a couple of cubes for free.