WCA Regulations - July 2015

Announced by Kit Clement on

A new version of the Regulations and Guidelines is going into effect July 1, 2015. The scramble program will be updated soon to accommodate these changes.

The current Regulations are always available from https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/

For an exact list of changes from 2014 to 2015, view differences on GitHub.

Summary of changes:

  • Stickerless puzzles are permitted. ( #177 | 580ea35, a4e289c)
  • Competitors may be given tentative extra attempts during incidents with an unclear outcome. ( #245 | dd7527e)
  • A recommended standard procedure for giving extra attempts is described. ( #228 | 45cf5a5)
  • Competitors may DNS an individually scheduled attempt and still be eligible for future attempts. ( #263 | 3711345)
  • Competitors must not compete with the intent of intentionally poor results or a DNF. ( #203, #225 | ba0308c)
  • Newer competitors may be given an extra attempt for their inexperience in a competition. This only allows a full extra attempt, and does not allow ignoring individual penalties. ( #251 | 65c3e7e)
  • Organizers may enforce the use of an object to prevent a Square-1 from being altered in transport to the timing station. If used, competitors must remove this object during inspection, and the organization team must make it clear that such a tab is being used. ( #192 | 3dc5d83, 1946e9a)
  • It has been explicitly clarified that the Board has the ability to modify results when the WCA Regulations have not been observed. ( #262 | 5b002e0)
  • O-rings and padded battery compartments for timers are strongly recommended. ( #235, #243 | 67ab825)
  • Competitors must not reset the timer until the end of the attempt, and it has been explicitly clarified that judges must not write down times from memory. ( #206, #218, #222, #230 | e5a4879, fb14ded)
  • Competitors are allowed to use a clock during FMC to keep track of time. ( #217 | afea552)
  • It has been explicitly clarified that competitors don’t need to turn in their solution on an FMC sheet ( #215 | a0382d7).
  • The organization team may require stronger measures to ensure correct scrambles. ( #214 | 9d7c310)
  • Pyraminx must require at least 6 moves to solve (rather than 7), matching the number of moves in the current Pyraminx world record solution. ( #213 | 49c8503)
  • Cameras are explicitly permitted as long as the competitor is not interacting with them ( #178 | c24c70d, 04cdc58, 8699359).
  • It has been explicitly clarified that not resetting the timer before an attempt is the judge’s fault, and results in an extra attempt. ( #260 | 52a4a03)
  • The starting orientation of the clock does not specify a certain side of the clock for scrambling. ( #269 | 3cd54d8)
  • Using video evidence to recover a time that a competitor reset is not allowed. ( #270 | 718f5a0)
  • Exceptions given to competitors with visual disabilites have been further described. ( #271 | a9693fb)
  • The use of the Stackmat mat in long events has been explicitly clarified. ( #273 | 4529c5b)
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