Just organized a school cube club... any suggestions?

[Jhong253]

Just organized a school cube club -- but somehow the attendance is very low -- only couple other students besides me. Many I tried to "recruit" resist, saying that they are not interested.

How did you guys get interested in cubing? Any suggestions in terms of how I should get people interested more?

 

[Kit Clement]

Get one or two of your friends really interested in cubing, and it makes it that much easier to spread interest, if people see quite a few people cubing around school from class to class (or in class =p), it sparks more interest.

 

[Nuber Cuber]

I started a small fad at my school by cubing. After I started, I got my friend into it immediately. Then as people saw us they were interested in learning how to solve. If I wanted to, I probably have at least 10 people who be willing to start a club. So I guess my advice is, tell people it doesn't take a genius to solve a cube, and tell them if they have one to go home and look up how to solve online.

 

[Brett]

Bring it to school everyday and if you have a sub in a class without much work to do, play with it, and allow others to join in. (this is how I started cubing, personally)

Or bring an 'exotic' puzzle in, like a Megaminx, and explain how they would also have a chance to solve that.

 

[nitrocan]

This is how it happened for me:
We were 4 people to start with because people thought it would be boring, but they saw that the other clubs were totally lame and we were having so much fun, they switched.

 

[Jhong253]

Idk, I brought my cubes to school, got the whole school interested and stuff, but no one seems to have the will to even try to learn it. I DO tell them that pretty much anyone could solve a cube, but they all say no I can't, no thanks, so on and so forth.

Any other suggestions? Just simply cubing at school and trying to get interest that way doesn't seem to work very well here in my school.

 

[cookingfat]

Do you have a school forum or intranet that you could post an article on? Have you tried putting up enticing posters to try and get people interested? Tell them that a 4 year old could solve this in just over a minute, so there's no reason why they can't.

My friends (I'm 27) are just not interested at all, so I know what you mean, I've offered to loan a cube to my best mate so he can learn, but all he says is he hasn't got the patience. I don't wanna force anyone to do it, but I actually don't have any cubing friends at all to share my experiences with, so it would be nice to share an interest with someone I know.

What about scraping up some cash to get a prize to give away. Perhaps a free Rubik's cube to the first person in the club to get a sub-1 or something. Kids need incentives to do new things lately. In this day in age, there are many more hobbies and interests that they might find more interesting than speedcubing, however if they do start, hopefully they'll get the bug and start the quest for a sub 30 solve.

I dunno, just some suggestions.

 

[flee135]

I just started a club myself, but I haven't had a meet yet. First one is next Friday. I'm a little nervous about having the problem you are now with few members. I already know a few who said they would come, but I don't know how many I'll have in the end.

I've shot a video for a clubs video, which will show all the different clubs available in the school. I expect to have most members after the video airs. If your school doesn't have that, but it happens to have video announcements, try to advertise through that. Seeing you solve it live could spark interest (maybe solve before announcements are finished, depending on how fast you are). Tomorrow, I will also post fliers around the school to spread the info about the club to more people. I will also get my friends aware and ask them to spread the news to their friends, and hopefully get more people interested that way.

I'm not sure if this will be successful or not, but it seems to be working so far. Good luck with your own club!

 

[qinbomaster]

i've personally never tried this, but people are apparently very impressed if you have a stack mat timer--not just the little digital one, but the entire $120+ shebang and i'm sure that if you go out into the hall and race each other it will make speedcubing look exciting.

you could also have people doing foot solves too XD that might be a bit weird tho.

probably the best thing to do is to make it look like organized and highly competitive--which it is of course--and idk, get like edison cubes and put flashing LEDs in them or something

 

[flee135]

i've personally never tried this, but people are apparently very impressed if you have a stack mat timer--not just the little digital one, but the entire $120+ shebang and i'm sure that if you go out into the hall and race each other it will make speedcubing look exciting.

Not really. As long as you have a solved cube in your hands before people lose interest, so probably sub-minute would be good, sub-40 would be better, sub-20 would be best.

probably the best thing to do is to make it look like organized and highly competitive--which it is of course--and idk, get like edison cubes and put flashing LEDs in them or something

LEDs instead of stickers. Haha, I like that.

 

[fanwuq]

Hi, I also made a cubing club.

Many people are very interested in the cubing club. Many wanted to learn. But only I come everyday to cube. If no one else cubes, you get to have all the cubes to yourself to try relays and multiBLDs,

I cube in class, OH in hallways, throw cubes over people while running through the hallways, BLD in homeroom, etc. So people are always interested.
Give a nice mathematic explanation of why the cube is unsolvable if you pop and put it back together wrongly. Show them different methods. Do crazy fingertricks, sub-20 solves...
Make sure you have no enemies or they fear you and would not mess with your cubes.

 

[Jhong253]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. See, my school has audio announcements every morning, a video show that shows what has been going on around the school for the week, and stuff. I tried the audio announcements for two weeks, only 2 people showed up. I'm going to give the video a shot -- I wish I could do the BLD... that would really get some ppl.

I do carry around the cube, and since I get times from 16sec (lucky) to 30 (horrible), people in my school just freak out when they see me. I'm organizing the Indiana Winter Open, and I announced that to the school.

See, what happens is that people just love to watch me, nothing else. They don't want to learn, they lose interest as soon as they try to get one layer.

I wonder how this thing will work out... the audio announcement didn't work, the announcement about an official competition coming up didn't work, especially when I did say on both that a 6 year old could solve a cube in 37 seconds and that anyone can solve the cube under a minute.

I'm going to try that flier idea -- thanks flee -- and that speedcubing race thing as soon as I get donations to the club -- thanks ginbomaster . Believe it or not, there are total 2 people in my school of 1800 that can solve the cube... me and a kid that averages about a minute. So I don't know how that race will work out, I don't want to make him feel bad cuz he's the one of two that ever showed up.

So... I'll give those new suggestions a shot, and get back with the results on that... Any other clever ideas out there? Oh, and the guys that started new clubs or already have clubs, how did you guys get donations? My town isn't really filled with places willing to donate to some cube club.