Olympic Cube (V-Cube)

[David]

I received an email from V-Cube ( I guess they decided to change the name from Olympic Cube), this is a portion of the email.

Discuss if our cubes can be official events with your friends and colleagues.
Since this one of our first priorities for this year we will be happy to start this disussion with the WCA, although the WCA didn't yet contacted us officially.

So delegates and everyone try to get the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 to be official so we can use them in competitions.

David

 

[alexc]

6x6 and 7x7 would be very cool! Not that I could do them that fast or maybe even at all. I think having them for blindfolded would be even cooler! Speaking of possible future events, I think it would really cool to have blindfolded relays, like on the UWR pages. You have a choice of how many 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, and 5x5's you would like to do. Each cube could have a certain number of points if you complete it successfully, based on difficulty. i.e., 2x2-1 3x3-3 4x4-5 5x5-9. Or something like that. So, if you do 2 2x2's, 1 3x3, and 2 4x4's (and you get them all right) you would have 15 points.

 

[TimMc]

There's no doubt that 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 would become official in WCA Competitions but as it is, people that have already received prototypes will have a clear advantage over others in upcoming competitions.

It might be worth holding off allowing these cubes in competitions for a few months after the official release date. Everyone has a different aptitude to learning so I wouldn't hold off using them in competitions for too long. But if you had a competition a week after they're released you'd expect pretty crappy results.

It's not really professional or sportsmanlike to give a newbie a 7x7x7 and expect them to be on par with an elite cuber that's had a prototype for more than 6 months.

I guess there were similar discussions about the Rubik's Cube before I was born.

Tim.

 

[David]

It would be sometime before the new bigcubes are integrated into comps but I do agree. There should be a good amount of time between the release and competition involving them. One thing is there needs to be a months notice for a competition so I doubt that would happen.

David

 

[Erik]

I think it's more complicated than it looks. We already have not a lot of time at tournaments and think about how long it takes to solve them, especially for the 'less faster' guys. If they have to do an avg of 5 which takes 10 minutes each time on a 6x6 not to mention 7x7........

 

[TimMc]

If they have to do an avg of 5 which takes 10 minutes each time on a 6x6 not to mention 7x7........

There may have to be some special "Big Cubes Competitions" where only 5x5x5 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 are used. Although, this will probably attract fewer competitors to such competitions.

I'm guessing 3x3x3 would have to be one of the most popular events in a competition... ?

Tim.

 

[Gunnar]

It might be worth holding off allowing these cubes in competitions for a few months after the official release date. Everyone has a different aptitude to learning so I wouldn't hold off using them in competitions for too long. But if you had a competition a week after they're released you'd expect pretty crappy results.

It's not really professional or sportsmanlike to give a newbie a 7x7x7 and expect them to be on par with an elite cuber that's had a prototype for more than 6 months.

Hi!

My personal opinion is that when the V-cubes are coming out, we should recognize the 6x6 and 7x7 as offical events as soon as possible. I mean, if there are competitions with those events it would rather encourage people to practice more compared to if we are holding off these cubes from the official competitions.

I have myself always hoped that the cubes would come out in time for the European Championship, which I assume will be held in the fall.

 

[TimMc]

I have myself always hoped that the cubes would come out in time for the European Championship, which I assume will be held in the fall.

AFAIK nobody has come up with standard notation or a method of scrambling the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 for WCA Rules and Regulations...

I think 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 would be "niche" like BLD events.

Tim.

 

[Johannes91]

AFAIK nobody has come up with standard notation or a method of scrambling the 6x6x6 and 7x7x7 for WCA Rules and Regulations...

Jaap's scrambler supports any size, WCA just needs to decide how many moves should be used and add it to the regulations.

 

[TimMc]

WCA just needs to decide how many moves should be used and add it to the regulations.

Do they just take the theoretical maximum bound of the fewest moves it takes to solve a cube and use that number as the number of moves to scramble it? I.e. 3x3x3 would be 26 (although WCA stipulates 25).

Tim.

 

[alexc]

As for the "less fast" people, I think that maybe you do your first solve and it has to be under a set time. If you do not get under that time, you are eliminated. If you are under that time, you are qualified to get an average of 5, with that time as your first. So, for 6x6, under 7. 7x7 under 10. Or it that too high?

 

[Johannes91]

WCA just needs to decide how many moves should be used and add it to the regulations.

Do they just take the theoretical maximum bound of the fewest moves it takes to solve a cube and use that number as the number of moves to scramble it? I.e. 3x3x3 would be 26 (although WCA stipulates 25).

I don't know how they come up with the numbers, but they obviously aren't doing it that way. I haven't heard of a proof that 5x5x5 and Megaminx can be solved within 60 moves, or that 2x2x2 needs as many moves as 3x3x3. My guess is that they just pick number that isn't too high and intuitively seems to scramble the puzzle well enough.

 

[MistArts]

I think it's more complicated than it looks. We already have not a lot of time at tournaments and think about how long it takes to solve them, especially for the 'less faster' guys. If they have to do an avg of 5 which takes 10 minutes each time on a 6x6 not to mention 7x7........

Average of 2 then?

 

[AvGalen]

I think it's more complicated than it looks. We already have not a lot of time at tournaments and think about how long it takes to solve them, especially for the 'less faster' guys. If they have to do an avg of 5 which takes 10 minutes each time on a 6x6 not to mention 7x7........

Average of 2 then?

I guess we won't be dropping highest and lowest

 

[Hadley4000]

As for the "less fast" people, I think that maybe you do your first solve and it has to be under a set time. If you do not get under that time, you are eliminated. If you are under that time, you are qualified to get an average of 5, with that time as your first. So, for 6x6, under 7. 7x7 under 10. Or it that too high?

That's actually not a bad idea.

I did the 6x6x6 on Gabbasoft. Took me about 15 minutes. Having that at every competition, over 5 would not be great.

 

[Lucas Garron]

As for the "less fast" people, I think that maybe you do your first solve and it has to be under a set time. If you do not get under that time, you are eliminated. If you are under that time, you are qualified to get an average of 5, with that time as your first. So, for 6x6, under 7. 7x7 under 10. Or it that too high?

That's actually not a bad idea.

That's actually been done in competitions.

 

[ExoCorsair]

I think it's more complicated than it looks. We already have not a lot of time at tournaments and think about how long it takes to solve them, especially for the 'less faster' guys. If they have to do an avg of 5 which takes 10 minutes each time on a 6x6 not to mention 7x7........

Average of 2 then?

I guess we won't be dropping highest and lowest

Nah, it 's make it a mean of 3 like Square-1 and Clock traditions hold.

 

[AvGalen]

I never understood why Clock was/is mean of 3. Clock only takes 30 seconds to scramble and 20 seconds to solve. Pyraminx is about the same, but that is an average of 5.

I would also like Square-1 and MegaMinx to be average of 5, but those are harder to scramble and take longer to solve so I can understand why they are mean-of-3

 

[cubetimer]

I was just reading on the Yahoo Group, and they were mentioning one other potential problem: who wants to volunteer to scramble a 7x7x7? Doesn't sound like fun. I think we should get Rubot to do it!

I've already added support for the new V-Cubes on my Rubik's Cube timer. Just hoping I get to use it soon...

I'm also hoping that when the V-Cube is released, they make enough cubes to meet demand. That would really suck if we're all just thrown onto a waiting list (haven't we waited enough already?)

 

[Kenneth]

Jaap's scrambler supports any size...

Not correct, I tried 1x1x1 and it did not work