TNoodle-WCA-0.13.2 is now available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
The following changes have been made since TNoodle 0.12.0:
This new release fixes a bug occurring in specific browsers with TNoodle 0.13.1, where the generated zip file would miss its extension.
Both TNoodle 0.13.2 and TNoodle 0.13.1 are current versions of the scramble program, and either can be used to generate scrambles for a competition.
Please remember that official competitions must use a current version of the official scramble program. This is always available from:
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
TNoodle-WCA-0.13.1 is now available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
The following changes have been made since TNoodle 0.12.0:
Please remember that official competitions must use the current version of the official scramble program. This is always available from:
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
The application deadline has been extended for the following committees/teams:
WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC)
WCA Communication Team (WCT)
WCA Ethics Committee (WEC)
WCA Financial Committee (WFC)
Dear WCA Community,
With 2017 coming to a close, we wanted to use this opportunity to say thank you and wish you the very best for the New Year! We have experienced great developments in 2017 that we would like to share with you.
The following WCA teams/committees are seeking new members to help them with their missions!
WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC)
WCA Communication Team (WCT)
WCA Ethics Committee (WEC)
WCA Quality Assurance Committee (WQAC)
WCA Software Team (WST)
WCA Financial Committee (WFC)
Dear WCA Community,
The WRC would like to inform you about the new version of the regulations, which is going into effect January 1, 2018.
You can review all changes in this comparison on GitHub. If you do not want to open all the individual changes, you can click on “Files changed” to see the complete files of the regulation and guidelines. All changes and additions are marked green and removals are red.
Most important changes for competitors:
Other important changes:
Dear Community,
We are happy to announce that we have four new Committee/Team Leaders.
Hippolyte Moreau will lead the new WCA Ethics Committee (WEC) and Gregor Billing will lead the new WCA Quality Assurance Committee (WQAC).
Lauren Clement will replace Linus Frész as the leader of WCA Communication Team (WCT) and Lorenzo Vigani Poli will replace Daniel Sheppard as the leader of the WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC). Both Lauren and Lorenzo were already working as a member of their respective committees.
In total we received 17 applications for the 4 positions. We appreciated the high turnout and the quality of the applications.
All new leaders were selected by the Board and approved in a voting among the current Committee Leaders and Senior Delegates, following our Motion about WCA Committees and Teams.
We thank Linus and Daniel for the great work they have done for the WCA, and wish the new leaders best of luck in fulfilling their new duties.
The new Leaders will be promoted immediately. The candidacy documents of those applicants willing to make them public can be found here if you are interested in viewing them.
Alberto Pérez de Rada Fiol,
on behalf of the WCA Board of Directors
Dear WCA community,
The WRC was informed by several community members that the puzzles Kaijun Lin used for both his current world records in 4x4x4 Blindfolded and 5x5x5 Blindfolded had an overlay sticker. According to Regulation 3l2, such puzzles are not allowed in blindfolded events.
We have investigated in this case and received a confirmation by the WCA Delegates of the competitions that they checked the puzzles and decided the logos are not distinguishable by feel. Accordingly, they did not grant extra attempts, which could be used to replace the affected results now. For these reasons, we have decided to keep the results.
Dear WCA Community,
At Longhorn Cube Day 2017 a competitor [under 18 years old] used an invalid puzzle with an overlay sticker during the third round of 3x3x3 Blindfolded. This incident has generated special attention as it affects a single result of 17.35 seconds, which would be the new 3x3x3 Blindfolded World Record.
The WCA Regulations require that puzzles must be approved by a WCA Delegate. Unfortunately, this was not done before the round, so the delegates of the competition decided to grant the competitor provisional extra attempts for this round. The WRC has now decided that the provisional extra attempts should replace the original attempts. The results will be changed from DNF, DNF, 17.35 to 29.40, 21.78, DNF.
We are very sorry for the competitor. However, we would like to remind that the WCA Regulations require every competitor to be familiar with the Regulations and to only provide puzzles that comply with all Regulations. As the Regulations were broken in the original attempts and there are valid replacement attempts, we believe this is the correct decision. This decision is also consistent with several precedents at other competitions and it would be unfair to treat this incident differently only because it involves a potential record-breaking result.
Kind regards,
Laura Ohrndorf, on behalf of the WCA Regulations Committee (WRC)
Dear WCA Community,
We are proud to announce the appointment of three new Senior Delegates to the World Cube Association!
For Asia East we received an application by Baiqiang Dong (董百强). After deliberation, the Board decided that Baiqiang fits the requisites for the appointment and he was elected. Baiqiang Dong (董百强) has accepted the new position.
For USA East & Canada we received applications by Dave Campbell and Tim Reynolds. After deliberation, the Board decided that both fit the requisites for the appointment. After a vote, Tim Reynolds was elected and he has accepted the new position.
For USA West we received applications by Kit Clement, Shelley Chang, and Shonathon Collins. After deliberation, the Board considered that all three fit the requisites for the appointment. After a vote, Kit Clement was elected and he has accepted the new position.
The new Seniors will be promoted immediately. The candidacy documents of those applicants willing to make them public can be found here if you are interested in viewing them.
We greatly thank the six applicants for their willingness to help the WCA and the Speedcubing community even more than they currently do now. Good luck to the new Senior Delegates in their roles!
(Posted by Lauren Clement on behalf of the World Cube Association)
Dear WCA Community,
There will be four appointments of new WCA Committee/Team Leaders. Daniel Sheppard and Linus Frész are stepping down as Leaders of the WCA Disciplinary Committee and the WCA Communication Team, respectively. Daniel and Linus have deployed great work as Leaders, and we want to thank them for all their hard work and dedication all this time.
The World Cube Association will also be adding two brand new Advisory Committees: the WCA Ethics Committee and the WCA Quality Assurance Committee. The Ethics Committee will have the role to ensure that all the procedures followed by the WCA Staff and External Staff abide by its Code of Ethics. Also, our large growing rate makes a Quality Assurance Committee necessary, with the role to support and promote continuous quality improvement within the WCA, as well as worldwide application of quality standards to ensure consistent high quality of processes, WCA Staff, Regional Organizations, Competition Organizers, and Competition Staff.
Dear WCA Community,
Another anonymous election took place among the voting members of the WCA for director positions. We hereby inform you on the results and the corresponding changes in the WCA Board of Directors.
We are happy to announce that the WCA Board has two new members: Bob Burton and Alberto Pérez de Rada Fiol, and Chris Hardwick is stepping down from being in the Board of Directors. We thank Chris for his work for the WCA and our community. He has served on the WCA Board since July 2016 and has put in a lot of time and effort to develop the WCA. He will still remain leader of the WCA Financial Committee and a WCA Delegate for Georgia, USA.
These changes have become effective starting November 9th, 2017.
All three candidates gave permission to publish their application documents which can be viewed here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/199Gr_MmpepvFwx36vVtpb_fnTnB-rfDR?usp=sharing
The WCA Board of Directors are looking for an organization team to host South American Championship 2018!
Please discuss with the delegates in your country whether this is something you are willing and able to pursue. Organizing a competition of this size takes a significant amount of time and effort before and during the competition.
If you are interested, then send your application documents to Pedro Santos Guimarães at pedrosino@gmail.com. The application period ends on December 31st, 2017.
Dear WCA Community,
On the 25th of October, 2017 Red Bull announced the Red Bull Rubik’s Cube World Championship. It will be a series of qualifier competitions in specific countries, and the winners will qualify for a final competition in Boston, USA. More information can be found here: https://www.redbullmindgamers.com/rubiks
In light of this news we feel it is important to address everyone who works for the WCA, has competed at our competitions before, or is simply interested and supportive of the WCA and what it stands for. There are already a lot of rumors spreading around within our community, and as the leaders of the WCA, we feel obliged to inform you about our view on the matter and our position on the future.
Red Bull has teamed up with Rubik’s Brand Ltd. to create their own speedcubing competitions around the world. These competitions were announced without the knowledge of the WCA and they use different regulations, events and formats. Therefore the WCA will not announce these competitions, and will not recognize the results of these competitions.
Members and staff of the WCA are free to compete in these Red Bull competitions. The WCA will not sanction anyone who wishes to enter the competitions. We will still welcome anyone to our competitions, and will treat everyone equally and friendly. We also expect from our members to stay friendly towards any competitor in the Red Bull competitions.
All staff of the WCA are expected to be loyal to the WCA mission and to defend and protect the WCA’s integrity. There is currently insufficient information on the Red Bull competitions to determine whether this is something the WCA can and will support or not. We will inform our staff further once we have more information. For now feel free to ask questions on the delegate group or to the board.
We would like to comfort everyone by saying that the WCA is here for all of you, and we welcome anyone to join us, regardless of age or proficiency in speedcubing. We provide a spectrum of different events and different variants, with the freedom of choice in any brand or puzzle to compete with. We continue to grow, and are set to have more than 1,000 competitions in 2018 worldwide, in around 90 countries. We are also an independent organization, and will work to stay independent.
The WCA is very proud of what it has achieved in more than a decade, and we will focus on maintaining and improving our work. We believe that keeping our goals and missions, and protecting our values is a core necessity in moving forward. As we think that this is not a destination, but rather a journey, we do believe that it is crucial to keep ourselves updated on the current issues and to learn and adjust to the demands and needs of our community.
As a growing organization, we put continuous effort in becoming more professional and achieving a higher quality standard. We are in the final steps of becoming a non-profit organization. We are also looking for cooperations with companies and sponsors to give all people across the globe access to WCA competitions. Additionally, we are considering the help of external parties which could help us get better and more appealing media coverage and reach out to people outside our community. The WCA will be glad to work with any other party to achieve its goals, if the conditions are right for the WCA and its members.
We are looking forward to further developments. We are proud of the people who contribute to the WCA and we will work tirelessly to represent the WCA and its members.
Kind Regards,
WCA Board of Directors
TNoodle-WCA-0.12.0 is now available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
The following changes have been made since TNoodle 0.11.5:
Please remember that official competitions must use the current version of the official scramble program. This is always available from:
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles/
Dear WCA Community,
Some members of the community expressed their interest in reading the applications of the recent election of the WCA Board of Directors. The WCA Board has decided to publish the candidacy documents with the permission of all the candidates. We thank the members of our community for raising this question, and we believe that by publishing this, we move towards being a more transparent organization as a whole.
Please see the link below to view the application documents.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4YmiWSbLbGWMjctbkxuNHF0R28
Dear WCA Community,
The WCA Board of Directors are accepting applications for Asian Championship 2018 and European Championship 2018.
Please discuss whether this is something you are willing and able to pursue with the delegates and organization teams in your country. Organizing a competition of this size takes a significant amount of time and effort before and during the competition.
If you are interested, then send your application documents to Olivér Perge, pergeoliver@gmail.com (Asian Championship), or Ron van Bruchem, rbruchem@worldcubeassociation.org (European Championship).
The application period ends on August 31, 2017
Please include in your application documents at least the following information:
When would you like to hold the competition?
1.1 number of days of the competition
1.2 overlap with holiday periods of schools
1.3 overlap with national holidays in the country
Where would you like to hold the competition in your country?
2.1 city should be interesting to visit for travellers with opportunities for sightseeing
2.2 ease of international, national, and local travelling
2.3 availability of hotels/apartments in varying price ranges
2.4 venue should be able to accommodate stage, audience, tables to practice, and side rooms
2.5 technology, like internet, video streaming, lighting, and sound equipment, should be available
2.6 number of competitors and spectators that can be hosted
What would the organization team and staff look like?
3.1 core team members
3.2 experience of the core team
3.3 involvement of other parties
3.4 quantity and quality of local volunteers (guideline is 80-120 staff)
3.5 required support by foreign delegates
What will be the overall budget for the competition?
4.1 cost (venue, stage, equipment, decoration, website, badges/lanyards/giftpack, prizes)
4.2 income (registration fees, sponsoring, local government)
You can assume 20K EUR sponsoring from a central sponsor via WCA (for calculation purposes, this is not yet confirmed!). Local sponsors may be Rubik partners or preferably not in puzzle business.
Here is an example document with a non-exhaustive list of topics that need to be arranged and budgeted for a large competition:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1w6uxOHrr40of1R4-NjU1vy7fVJXRHiRZBn53Hc-IOk8
The two Directors Olivér Perge and Ron van Bruchem will lead the process of selecting the winning application. The Board of Directors will vote and may consult with other members of our community before voting.
We are looking at a competition that is focused on three things:
1) Will our members have a great experience together?
2) Will our members have a good opportunity to set personal times, in a fair competition where the best will win?
3) Will our sponsors be happy and will this promote our community well?
Kind Regards,
Linus Fresz
on behalf of the World Cube Association
Dear WCA Community,
An anonymous election took place among the voting members of the WCA for the position of directors of the WCA. We hereby inform you on the results and the corresponding changes in the Board of Directors.
We are happy to announce that the WCA Board has a new member: Olivér Perge. Pedro Santos Guimarães was reelected as Director and Ilkyoo Choi will end his term in the Board of Directors. These changes have become effective starting July 1st, 2017.
We thank Ilkyoo for his work for the WCA and our community. He served in the WCA Board since 2013 and put up a lot of time and effort to develop the WCA. Ilkyoo made great contributions to the WCA and helped the WCA grow all around the world. He will still remain the WCA Delegate for Republic of Korea.
Dear WCA Community,
The World Cube Association made the next step towards becoming a non-profit organization and formed a new committee: the WCA Financial Committee (WFC).
The WFC consist of the following members:
Treasurer: Chris Hardwick (US)
Committee members: Chris Wright (United Kingdom) and James Molloy (United Kingdom).
The team is currently building up and doing the necessary research to handle their designated tasks. Some software adjustments were made by the WCA Software Team to accommodate the needs of the new committee. The new email address is finance@worldcubeassociation.org, which is the default, public and official email address of the WCA Financial Committee.
The WFC is responsible for everything regarding finances within the WCA. This includes an annual budget proposal, managing finances and much more. To read about the WFC’s full description of responsibilities, please take a look at our By-Laws:
1. The WCA Financial Committee is an Advisory Committee of the WCA with the following rights and duties:
1.1. Creating an annual budget proposal for the WCA.
1.2 Managing the finances and accounts of the WCA in accordance with the approved annual budget proposal.
1.3 Paying invoices and taxes that are directed to the WCA, after procuration by the WCA Board of Directors.
1.4 Reporting and advising on a quarterly basis to the WCA Board of Directors on the finances of the WCA.
1.5 Reporting on a periodic basis to external organizations on the finances of the WCA, based on all applicable legal requirements.
1.6 Appointing and supporting financial auditors based on all applicable legal requirements.
2. The Leader of the WCA Financial Committee is the Treasurer of the WCA.
Best regards,
Linus Fresz, on behalf of the World Cube Association
Dear WCA Community,
With this message, we inform you on a change regarding the countries that the WCA recognizes. This change may affect some of you who are currently registered for these countries.
In the current situation, the WCA uses a list that is maintained on a public Wikipedia page, extended with some sovereign areas. There are many inconsistencies on this list: some countries are just states or provinces of another country, some areas are countries but were never accepted as countries because of local geopolitical reasons.
In the new situation, the WCA uses a list called the “WCA List of Recognized Countries”. This new list is based on the UN charter and defines all countries that are eligible to be represented by a competitor in WCA competitions. This change also involves an update of the relevant regulations, so that inconsistencies between the Regulations and the recognized countries will be resolved.
A significant number of countries on the previous list were not officially recognized countries and some territories were equivalent but treated differently. This leads to changes for some of our community members. These changes affect competitors from Aruba (now part of the Netherlands) and Puerto Rico (now part of the United States). Unfortunately, all former National Records of Aruba and Puerto Rico will not be recognized anymore.
Some countries were renamed:
If you are affected by this and would like to get more information, please contact the WCA Communication Team via communication@worldcubeassociation.org and we will give you a bit more detail behind the changes.
Dear WCA Community,
We hereby inform you about the WCA’s endeavor to become a Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation! Our association is on its last stages to become legally constituted and we would like to have feedback from Organizers and regular Staff of WCA Competitions, as well as other highly involved members of the WCA Community. As necessary for a Nonprofit Organization, the WCA has developed its own Bylaws. Bylaws are defined as a rule or law established by an organization or community to regulate itself, as allowed or provided for by some higher authority. In other words, the Bylaws are the WCA’s operating manual.
You are kindly requested to read thoroughly all the Articles of Incorporation before proceeding to comment and give feedback. Please login and authenticate yourself before commenting or suggesting. Non identificated comments will be disregarded and removed. This is a matter of the highest importance for our future as a Nonprofit Organization. When the Bylaws get approved, they will become our initial constitution documents.
Best regards,
Linus Fresz, on behalf of the World Cube Association
Dear WCA Community,
We are excited to announce a brand new committee: the WCA Communication Team (WCT).
The WCT consists of the following members:
* Linus Fresz (Germany, Team Leader)
* Lauren Klemz (US)
* Matthew McMillan (US)
* Thaynara Santana de Oliveira (Brazil)
Some internal changes have been made by the WCA Software Team in order to accommodate our new necessities in communications. Important to mention is that anyone can reach us via the email address communication@worldcubeassociation.org. This is the default, public, and official email address of our new team.
Our goal is to work with all WCA Committees to improve the WCA website and increase the communication of the WCA in the near future. Another important step is to gain better connections to the community, which we want to accomplish via social media accounts. We are aware that different countries use different social media networks, so we will try to add more social media accounts to reach communities in all countries in the near future. These channels will be used to create knowledge and content about the WCA for our community and the general public.
Please take a look at our official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WorldCubeAssociation/
Best regards,
Linus Fresz, on behalf of the WCA Communication Team
TNoodle-WCA-0.11.5 is now available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles
The following changes have been made since TNoodle 0.11.3:
Please remember that official competitions must use the current version of the official scramble program. This is always available from: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles
TNoodle-WCA-0.11.3 is now available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles
The following changes have been made since TNoodle 0.11.1:
Please remember that official competitions must use the current version of the official scramble program. This is always available from: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/scrambles
Our friend and fellow cuber François Courtès died in the evening of September 7, 2016, from a cerebrovascular accident. He was 45 years old. It is very sad news.
In our In Memoriam: François Courtès fellow cubers express their feelings and bring back memories about François. He will be missed by many of us.
