'Speed cubers' flock to Hilton Head for national Rubik's Cube championships

Around 500 of the premier speed cubers in America, and some from abroad, are at Hilton Head Island Beach & Tennis Resort on Friday through Sunday for the 2015 Rubik's Cube national championships.

Anthony Brooks of Dallas is one of them. His specialty is the standard Rubik's Cube, known in competitive circles as 3-by-3.

There are six cubes in the sport, from 2-by-2 to 7-by-7, and a host of ways to solve them, including blindfolded.

Brooks recently finished third in the 3-by-3 at the World Championships in Sao Paolo, Brazil. On Thursday, he insisted one does not have to be brilliant to be a top speed cuber.

"What we're doing comes through practice," Brooks, a junior international business major at the University of Texas at Arlington, said while repeatedly solving a Rubik's Cube.

"When I solve the cube and someone sees me solve it, it's not because I'm a genius. ... It's because we've put in a lot of work into solving this, and anyone could do it."

Two-time national champ Weston Mizumoto, seated next to Brooks, says it took four years to become one of the world's best at one-handed solving.

"The algorithms are pretty much in muscle memory at this point, "Mizumoto replied when asked how on earth he solves a Rubik's Cube one-handed, much less in under 10 seconds.

Mizumoto said he's "almost never" thinking about what he's doing, but rather "what I'm going to be doing."

Mizumoto will be a senior at Stanford University, where he's majoring in computer science and engineering.

He and Brooks say their favorite thing about speed cubing is the camaraderie at competitions and the numerous friendships developed.

Vincent Sheu, co-organizer of national competition and a former world record-holder in the 2-by-2 single-solve, at 0.96 seconds, is pursuing a law degree and a master's degree in computer science at Stanford. He says he never gets tired of solving.

"People will ask you, 'So doesn't it just get boring? Isn't it the same thing over and over again?'" he said. "And I would answer to that, 'No, it doesn't. Because every single time you solve, it's something different.'"

This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 7:45 PM with the headline "'Speed cubers' flock to Hilton Head for national Rubik's Cube championships."