Sandra Oliver is the gifted and talented coordinator for Hamburg School District. She understandably has many responsibilities attached to that title, but luckily, a lot of them are fun.
For example, her recent experience acting as a chaperone for eight of those gifted students in fourth and fifth grades that recently competed in a Rubik’s cube solving competition.
That trip to Hope took them farther than they may have been expecting, all the way to the top.
The team participated in the SWAEC/SCSC 2023 Open Invitational Cubing Competition which was held Feb. 28. This was a statewide opportunity for Rubik’s Cube solving teams to come together and enjoy the excitement of competing, as well as to meet students from other districts that shared their interest in cubing.
For those who may not be aware, a Rubik’s Cube is a three-dimensional combination puzzle that was invented in the 1970s by the Hungarian architect and sculptor Erno Rubik.
The Rubik’s Cube is made up of 26 smaller cubes that all rotate on a central axis.
There are nine colored cube faces, in three rows of three each, on each side of the Rubik’s Cube.
In its original arrangement, each side of the cube has its own color. In order to play, the puzzle must first be twisted and turned in several different directions until all the colors become mixed up.
To solve a Rubik’s Cube, the player must twist and turn the parts of the puzzle with the goal of re-aligning all the smaller cubes in the original configuration so that every side shows only one color again.
The catch is, there are among 43-quintillion possible combinations to get it back into its original configuration. How large is a quintillion? It’s a 1 with 18 zeros following it, or 10 to the 18th power.
At the opening of the April Hamburg School Board meeting the team handed out Rubik’s Cubes to the board members and the superintendent.
The students then provided a demonstration of their skills by solving their cubes for the group; Oliver said her student Sutton’s record time is four and a half seconds; her student Sam’s is six seconds.
Board President James Hartshorn asked if the time it takes to solve it depends on how it is mixed up.
Oliver said that the student’s concentration level has more to do with the amount of time it takes.
“If they’re seated and clam, all of them can do it in under 20 seconds,” she explained.
“I told them when we got started that I would do whatever they needed me to do,” which included accompanying the students to the competition and also getting the 25 Rubik’s Cubes that each team was required to bring with them to the state competition.
Each team was responsible for bringing 25 of the puzzle cubes—already solved.
This is because for the team competition, the teams are timed on how long it takes for the players—who are working as a group—to solve those 25 cubes, whose colors have been scrambled with 25 turns by players from an opposing team.
After the teams have completed the process of mixing up the cubes, each set of 25 is covered with a cloth until each team’s turn begins.
The timer is activated once the team’s turn has begun, and each team is allowed up to 10 minutes to solve all 25 cubes, but judging from Oliver’s team members’ personal record times, the 10 minutes allotted is certainly more than enough time.
For the solo competitions, each player is watched and timed as they solve a mixed-up cube on their own.
The player with the lowest amount of time taken to solve the puzzle wins first place in whichever grade group category they are competing in.
The board recognized the team for their impressive skills and of course, for winning first place in the Junior High Team Competition.
That’s correct—these fourth and fifth grade students competed with other teams that were in grades 6-8 for the top spot in the Team and Solo categories.
Oliver told the board members, “There was no category for fourth and fifth grade students,” so the team was allowed to compete with the teams made up of older students.
“We got laughed at,” Oliver said, but not for long.
The students on Oliver’s team “were really good sports. They shook the hands of everyone they beat,” she said, which was met with chuckles from the students and some board members as well.
Although the Hamburg team did not place first in the Solo category, the speed with which the students are able to solve the colorful cube-shaped puzzles is still astonishing.
Oliver told the board that some of the educational benefits of working to solve Rubik’s cubes include improvements to the students’ hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills.
Setting aside the benefits to skill-building the activity provides, the enjoyment the students get out of solving the Rubik’s Cubes is an added bonus.
