Magnet cube should not be legal for BLD events

[Weston]

When putting magnets into a cube, one has to take care that the orientation of every pair magnets is correct. If you put a pair of magnets in reversed, then in many unsolved positions, some of the magnets will be repelling while others are attracting. This makes the solved position of the cube have a large amount of tactile feedback, while other positions of the cube have less tactile feedback. This means that if magnets are inserted "improperly", then if someone is solving BLD they know that if the magnetic "clicks" in their current cube state are "weak", then they can determine that the cube is not solved.

 

[Coolster01]

Interesting, yeah I think I agree with this.

 

[Berd]

If you're magnetic cube is popping then you're doing it wrong.

 

[Weston]

If you're magnetic cube is popping then you're doing it wrong.

I don't recall saying anything about popping.

 

[Berd]

I don't recall saying anything about popping.

I'm not sure what you mean then?

 

[bobthegiraffemonkey]

This suggests that incorrectly made magnetic cubes could potentially give some advantage, but I think at most you could tell if it wasn't solved if you really practiced trying to judge how it feel and take a large pause to examine the turning at the end of an attempt to check. You couldn't tell for definite that it was solved since presumably more than one state would have the same configuration of magnets as the solved position. This doesn't apply to correctly made magnetic cubes though.

Also:
1) it doesn't allow you to determine the exact state of the cube
2) uneven magnetic interactions will make the cube perform much worse than a similar cube with correct/no magnets
3) you can tell the difference between different stickers if they are chipped a little, if you practice that sort of thing and take a while to check them during the solve, and slightly chipped stickers are allowed (generally speaking). Presumably because using such clues to get information about the current state of the puzzle is both slow and would look very suspicious.

In short, I really don't see this being an issue: I don't think any sane person would try to get an advantage this way, they would have to be really slow to get an advantage, they wouldn't get much of an advantage, and it would probably look obvious that they were doing something they shouldn't.

However, maybe there's something important that I missed, and I've not actually tried a magnetic cube.

 

[Weston]

This suggests that incorrectly made magnetic cubes could potentially give some advantage, but I think at most you could tell if it wasn't solved if you really practiced trying to judge how it feel and take a large pause to examine the turning at the end of an attempt to check. You couldn't tell for definite that it was solved since presumably more than one state would have the same configuration of magnets as the solved position. This doesn't apply to correctly made magnetic cubes though.

Also:
1) it doesn't allow you to determine the exact state of the cube
2) uneven magnetic interactions will make the cube perform much worse than a similar cube with correct/no magnets
3) you can tell the difference between different stickers if they are chipped a little, if you practice that sort of thing and take a while to check them during the solve, and slightly chipped stickers are allowed (generally speaking). Presumably because using such clues to get information about the current state of the puzzle is both slow and would look very suspicious.

It would look suspicious unless done skillfully. I don't see why it has to look suspicious. Judges also aren't always directly looking under the folder at the cube while it's being solved.

1. So? That doesn't mean that it can't give you a big avantage
2. Thats opinion. In events like MBLD, who cares if a cube turns a little worse?
3. Chipped stickers are technically disallowed.

 

[Jaysammey777]

So since I can make one side looser than the rest, should we ban all cubes that can have adjustable tensions from bld?

Edit: As well 3J is a regulation already in place and can ban this at delegate discretion if the puzzle is not correctly magnetized.

 

[Weston]

So since I can make one side looser than the rest, should we ban all cubes that can have adjustable tensions from bld?

That is another problem with current BLD regs.

 

[Jaysammey777]

That is another problem with current BLD regs.

See my above post with the edit, 3j bans this.

 

[Daniel Lin]

tbh the regs are just there for the sake of being regs. Anyone can easily cheat using chipped stickers or loose tensions if they want, it's not like a judge is going to actually enforce it

 

[AlexMaass]

I think that this possible abuse could possibly be prevented by testing magnetic cubes when they are used for bld, if they are uneven it should be possible to easily distinguish that its not solved

 

[4Chan]

Hay Weston!

I won't divulge too much of their private information, but during legislation, BLD cheating was tested by the WCA Regulations Committee (WRC), and was definitely taken into account during their deliberation on magnetic puzzles.

Laura even tested her own combination of magnets for this, and this has definitely been considered by the upper committees.

 

[Loiloiloi]

I'm all for strict enforcement of the rules. Thankfully in recent times we haven't had too many people cheating fast times and I think we should try our best to keep it that way. BLD in my opinion is one of the events that is easier to cheat in, and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe a WR came from cheating 3 times in BLD. So yeah, strict regs is fine for BLD in my opinion.

Edit: Ninja'd by the Tran Man himself. Well, I guess if the WRC has concluded this to be unlikely.

 

[AlexMaass]

I'm all for strict enforcement of the rules. Thankfully in recent times we haven't had too many people cheating fast times and I think we should try our best to keep it that way. BLD in my opinion is one of the events that is easier to cheat in, and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe a WR came from cheating 3 times in BLD. So yeah, strict regs is fine for BLD in my opinion.

Edit: Ninja'd by the Tran Man himself. Well, I guess if the WRC has concluded this to be unlikely.

btw it was a lot more world records than that, and also was a few thousand USD worth of prize money from worlds

 

[Loiloiloi]

btw it was a lot more world records than that, and also was a few thousand USD worth of prize money from worlds

From BLD alone?

 

[AlexMaass]

From BLD alone?

yeah he did all 4 BLD events

 

[Weston]

Hay Weston!

I won't divulge too much of their private information, but during legislation, BLD cheating was tested by the WCA Regulations Committee (WRC), and was definitely taken into account during their deliberation on magnetic puzzles.

Laura even tested her own combination of magnets for this, and this has definitely been considered by the upper committees.

Thats great to hear. As long as this was/is being discussed, then thats enough for me.

 

[FastCubeMaster]

btw it was a lot more world records than that, and also was a few thousand USD worth of prize money from worlds

Which worlds?

 

[AlexMaass]

Which worlds?

worlds 2007 lol