SCU IV: Don't Be Blinded by the Solstice 2026

Date: Jun 20, 2026
City: Santa Clara, California, United States
Venue: Santa Clara University
Address: 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053
Details: Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation (SCDI Building, 3rd Floor, Room 3302).
Contact: Organization team
Organizers: Abhimanyu Singhal (अभिमन्यु सिंघल), Calvin Nielson, Robert Alan Marks, and West Coast Cubing LLC Treasurer
WCA Delegates: Abhimanyu Singhal (अभिमन्यु सिंघल), Calvin Nielson, Robert Alan Marks, and Sherry Tao (陶心仪)

: Download all the competition's details as PDF here.

Information

This competition is organized in partnership with West Coast Cubing and Speedcubeshop. Note that it is taking place right before FMC World 2026, and one can register for the Santa Clara University location of FMC World 2026 for free here.

Current SCU students may register for a reduced fee or $3.00 by sending Professor Marks (rmarks@scu.edu) an email from their @scu.edu account prior to registering with this site.
If we run ahead of schedule, we will start first round events no more than 20 minutes early, so please show up at least 20 minutes before your first event.

Events

Competitor limit: 20

Number of times bookmarked: 13

Registration period: Online registration opened and will close .
Registration requirements: Create a WCA account here if you don't have one.
If this is not your first competition, associate your WCA ID to your WCA account here.
Register for this competition here.
There is a competitor limit of 20 competitors.
The base registration fee for this competition is $10 (United States Dollar).
The registration fee has to be paid through Stripe here once registered.
If your registration is cancelled before you will be refunded 75% of your registration fee.
Registrants on the waiting list may be accepted onto the competitor list until .
If you are a registered competitor you may change your registered events until by contacting the organization team.
No on the spot registrations will be accepted.

Lunch is NOT included with the registration fee for this competition. Competitors will be given the option to purchase a group lunch for an additional fee. Arrangements will be made after registration closes, but before the competition date.

All competitors (of any age) must complete and sign Santa Clara University's release of liability form.
One form must be submitted for each competitor.
The form can be submitted by:
(1) Preferred: emailing a scanned in and signed copy to Robert Marks (rmarks@scu.edu) as soon as possible. (You can even submit it before registration opens.)
(2) Bringing a signed paper copy of the form to the competition.
(3) If you forget, blank forms will be available at the competition, but they must be completed before you can participate in the competition.
If you are a minor (under age 18), your parent or legal guardian must complete the form.
If you are a minor, you must be accompanied by an adult at the competition.

Adding/Dropping Events

-When registering, please carefully select the events you intend to compete in; i.e., don't simply select all of them unless that is your intention. Depending on how many competitors there are for each event, we may be able to accept additional competitors for certain events.
- Competitors may update their registration BEFORE registration closes by contacting the organization team. It is also acceptable to not show up for any event you do not wish to compete in, although it is not encouraged.
- Competitors may not add events after registration closes.

Waitlist: PLEASE CHECK THE COMPETITOR TAB ON THE LEFT-HAND SIDE TO SEE HOW MANY COMPETITORS HAVE BEEN APPROVED

If Registration fills up, we will place competitors on a waitlist. In order to get on the waitlist, you must register and pay. You are not on the waitlist until you pay the registration fee. If you do not make it off of the waitlist, you will be fully refunded. If a competitor drops out, the first person on the waitlist will replace them. People can be replaced up until the registration close date indicated above.

In a catastrophic event where the competition will be compromised and cancelled, a full refund shall be offered to all competitors, in contrast to the typical 75% registration refunds.

We will update this page with the waitlist if needed.

By car:

Parking is available in the Main Parking structure adjacent to the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation (SCDI) building. Parking in this garage is free on weekends, no permit is required. Should the main garage be full, other campus parking can be used for free as well. There are a few types of spaces you should avoid, including those marked "Reserved" and "Tow-Away". There are several types of spaces labeled for campus residents, but I don't believe there are any in the Main Parking structure. These are detailed on the university website here. I believe most of the spots in the Main Parking structure are labeled either B, E, or F, and those are fine.

By public transportation:

The Santa Clara Caltrain station is very close to the main entrance (Palm Dr./Franklin St.) to campus, just across El Camino Real.

By plane:

San Jose Mineta International Airport is very close to the venue.

Food:

We are not including lunch with the registration fee this time because some competitors may not be present at that time; i.e., depending on the events they register for. There will be an option to join in on a group lunch for an additional fee, and details will be provided after registration closes. No one is obligated to join the group lunch and we have scheduled a 2-hour lunch period so everyone has ample time to get food. Our intention is for the pace of this competition to be fairly relaxed.

All competitors must submit a complete and signed copy of Santa Clara University's release of liability form.
One form must be submitted for each competitor.
The form can be submitted by:
(1) Preferred: emailing a scanned in and signed copy to Robert Marks (rmarks@scu.edu) as soon as possible. (You can even submit it before registration opens.)
(2) Bringing a signed paper copy of the form to the competition.
(3) If you forget, blank forms will be available at the competition, but they must be completed before you can participate in the competition.
If you are a minor (under age 18), your parent or legal guardian must complete the form.
If you are a minor, you must be accompanied by an adult at the competition.

While anyone is welcome to register for this competition, it is not especially intended for new competitors.
In particular, note that this competition does not have the very popular 3x3x3 cube speed solving event.
If we did, we could probably attract over 100 competitors on a weekend, and the space we've reserved simply doesn't have that capacity.

That being said, it is possible that one could, within a month or two time frame, learn how to compete in certain events for this competition, and competitors do not need to participate in every event, only those that they select during the registration process. But please be aware that this competition only features blind-folded solving events, which have the highest rates of unsuccessful (DNFs) attempts among WCA events. Even if you learn to do this successfully at home, don't be discouraged if you are unsuccessful in competition since it is perfectly natural to be nervous during competition, especially your first one.

Most important, if you haven't been to a competition before or if it's been a while and you could use a refresher, we ask that you be familiar with the WCA regulations for any event in which you intend to compete.
These can be found here:
https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/

If you prefer to start out in a more conventional manner, i.e., in a 3x3x3 cube speed solving event, you can likely find other competions in the Northern California area as well as Southern California, Nevada, and Hawaii that will have this event here.

Want to stay connected with the West Coast community? Join the West Coast Cubing Community Discord Server! Speak with other competitors from NorCal, SoCal, Nevada, Hawaii, and Tijuana and keep in touch with fellow competitors and meet new ones! Find out about competition discussion as it happens in real time, and even announcements for competitions before registration opens!

Click here to be directly taken to the Discord Server!

We also have a NorCal Cubing Community Facebook group!

This competition is in partnership with West Coast Cubing, LLC

This competition will be sponsored by SpeedCubeShop! They will not be selling puzzles onsite.

Use code "WCC" for 5% off all orders at SpeedCubeShop?

Time limit

If you reach the time limit during your solve, the judge will stop you and your result will be DNF (see Regulation A1a4).
A cumulative time limit may be enforced across rounds (see Regulation A1a2).

Format

The format describes how to determine the ranking of competitors based on their results. The list of allowed formats per event is described in Regulation 9b. See Regulation 9f for a description of each format.