A demonstration at a school

[pjk]

I did a 3-hour long demo at a local middle school the other day. I basically had a table in the gym and hundreds of 7th/8th graders came in an watched me cube, asked questions, etc. It was part of a 80's social that the school had. They handed out gift bags to all the students, which had a keychain cube in it, so around 600 of those were distributed. I handed out slips of paper with links to solving methods, etc.

I noticed that they found the 3x3 most interesting, because I could have it solved within their attention span. If they asked me to solve the 5x5, by the time I had it done the person that asked me to solve it would already be gone. They also liked the 7x7, simply because it was so big and they thought it was impossible, and their attention span seemed to last with it because of its size. Overall, it was a good day. I did learn a lot about 7th/8th graders interest in these puzzles. There were only 2-3 kids who actually seemed to be interested enough to go out and try it. I'm hoping those 600 keychain cubes will bring more interest to speedsolving though.

Anyone else have any experience teaching a mass of 7th/8th graders or similar?

 

[Hepheron]

yeah a couple years ago at my middle school, though the fad ended a couple months later. But it did spark large attention.

 

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Sounds awesome dude

I haven't tought kids about cubing like that, but a few months ago i did a "presentation" at a primary school in from of the entire school (1st grade through to 7th). I used a cube as part of my presentation, and the kids really loved it.

 

[SparkZer00]

yeah a couple years ago at my middle school, though the fad ended a couple months later. But it did spark large attention.

lol and our tech teacher set up a comp and I came in first and Hepheron came in with a very close second We only did one solve thoguh which was a bummer, I got lucky with an ell...

 

[IamWEB]

This past Friday, while we were having an award ceremony, someone saw my cube and asked to get it out. It was pass amongst a few people in our row, and then handed back for me to solve. Each time I did it they were more amazing, and more and more people around were watching. I was trying to look focused on who was speaking, but everyone was so interested. One of my teacher's was smiling and I laughed I learned later that another teacher was watching me pretty much the whole time.

This took place during the last 10-15 minutes of school, and we're all 9th Graders. I got a few questions, such as "How do you do it so fast?", "Do you even know what you're doing" (asked while I was solving it), "You could teach me how to solve it?", and someone said when Thanksgiving break was over they would come back and be able to solve one too.

Compared to you guys, I'm not so fast time-wise, but the speed I execute the beginner's method (Fridrich is practice-only, not good enough to show off yet ) to non-cubers is entertaining, so yeah. =)

 

[Hepheron]

yeah a couple years ago at my middle school, though the fad ended a couple months later. But it did spark large attention.

lol and our tech teacher set up a comp and I came in first and Hepheron came in with a very close second We only did one solve thoguh which was a bummer, I got lucky with an ell...

but we both sucked back then

 

[Cronus616]

yeah when i brought my revenge to schoo llast year it started a huge fad and lots of kids started bring all of their cubes. by the end of that year, pretty much every kid there could do or knew someone who could do the beginner method

 

[*LukeMayn*]

lol sounds cool.
About 2 months ago I did a solve by these people then one said "o.O you should go to a competition or something" lol...... if only I could..........

 

[Bryan]

For Show-N-Tell, my daughter brings in items that start with a certain letter. On "N" week, she brought in a note that I left her when I was at the MN Open (she had gone to bed before I got home). anyway, the teacher saw it and said my daughter should bring in me for "C" week, so I'll be doing a demo for a bunch of Kindergartners sometime...

 

[EmersonHerrmann]

Talent show last year -.- a 2 minute OH solve and a 37 second speedsolve (it was dark and the spotlight sucked)...I'm doing BLD this year (I sohuld bring my own personal light xD)

 

[*LukeMayn*]

Talent show last year -.- a 2 minute OH solve and a 37 second speedsolve (it was dark and the spotlight sucked)...I'm doing BLD this year (I sohuld bring my own personal light xD)

lol compare your OH times one year ago to now O.O

 

[FU]

i've done quite a few demonstrations (at least ten?) locally as well, at various shopping malls (along with a few other cubers), and i share similar experiences. people seem to be fascinated by the big cubes most, the most common question - "can you solve that?" *while pointing to a 4x4 or 5x5. i will reply yes, but often reject to do a demonstration becuz I know they would be gone by the time i had completed the puzzle.

other common questions include
How do you solve it so fast?
Is there a trick to it?
Where can I learn to solve the cube?
etc.

i think i have a standard answer for every standard question by now...