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My wife asked me to write about our 6-year-old's cubing hobby for an application form

JChandlerKim

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Mar 14, 2017
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2017KIMJ03
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The UCLA Department of Mathematics has a "Math Circle" for gifted young mathematicians and my wife and I thought our son might wish to be considered for the program. Part of the application is writing about any evidence of our son's propensity for such things, so I wrote about his cubing hobby. I tried to make it sound as impressive as possible, but maybe I went a bit overboard? :)

Chandler uses the full CFOP method on the 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube, which he solves in about 30 seconds. He has an insatiable appetite for new algorithms and new variations, and has memorized close to 100 of them. He seems to have a deep understanding of the mechanics of the cube, and is constantly trying to come up with his own algorithms or methods to carry out certain functions. He loves going to speedsolving competitions and conversing with usually much older competitors about systems and techniques.

His abilities in 3x3x3 cubing have carried over to other puzzles. He can solve the 2x2x2 blindfolded (using the Speffz letter scheme and the Old Pochmann method), and has also mastered the 4x4x4 (including fixing its parity errors) and the pyraminx.

His WCA Profile can be viewed at https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/persons/2017KIMJ03 and our family’s cubing videos are at https://www.youtube.com/mu6cube
 

JChandlerKim

Member
Joined
Mar 14, 2017
Messages
19
Location
SoCal
WCA
2017KIMJ03
YouTube
Visit Channel
speed solving and mathematics have pretty much nothing to do with each other, I myself love both speedsolving and mathematics but my cubing "career" hasn't effected my math knowledge at all.

Yes, I've heard that said and you're probably right, but I'm just hoping that they'll just be impressed enough that someone so young has shown dedication to anything really, and not be too picky about how relevant that ability is...! Here's hoping!

Try to teach him stuff that relate to cube theory such as commutaters, inverse scramble, conjugates, pretty moves, insertions and NISS. Most of those have to with FMC.

Edit: I meant group theory but I guess cube theory also works...

I would love to be able to, but I really don't have a mathematical mind! I even had to learn how to solve the cube at the ripe old age of 43 just to be able to get him started...! These are amazing suggestions, but so daunting!

(Yes but half the time they don't know that)

My point exactly, hahaha. Thanks!
 
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