# Bay Area Cubing (California)



## Das Cubing (Dec 15, 2013)

Hello! I am from the California bay area and I am looking for any cubing communities in this general area. If anyone can reffer me to a site or something like that, that would be awesome. Thanks!


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## Dene (Dec 15, 2013)

CubingUSA is the best site for finding American cubers, but speedsolving.com itself is the best place to be.


Anyway, there are tons of cubers around that way, so don't worry about being the only one


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## TheNextFeliks (Dec 15, 2013)

There are comps there a lot. Cubingusa.com.


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## Coolster01 (Dec 15, 2013)

Pick me! Pick me!


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## Ranzha (Dec 15, 2013)

Hello! I live in San José, so I feel a little obligated to post.

There are WCA-official competitions around here all the time! The closest one at the moment is Bay Area Speedcubin (BASC) 2 for the 9th of February. Coolster posted the link, but here it is again: http://www.cubingusa.com/basc2/
I'm one of the organisers the competition, and I'd like to extend an invitation to you. There are also seasonal competitions at Berkeley, and perhaps Stanford (cough cough) will host competitions again someday.

Around the area there are a bunch of cubers of all ages and skill levels. Many of them are and have been very influential in the community (e.g. Lucas Garron, Vincent Sheu, Shelley Chang, Jeremy Fleischman, Lars Petrus), and many of them are ridiculously experienced (e.g. Edward Lin, Richard Apagar, Justin Adsuara, Chia-Wei Lu, Riley Woo, the Berkeley FMC crew).


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## cubingawsumness (Dec 15, 2013)

I live around there too . Although I've only been to 3 comps, I agree with everyone else that there are a lot more comps within 2 hrs of each other in this area than there are in most other parts of the country.
And like Ranzha said, BASC 2 is in February. Hope to see you there!


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## Das Cubing (Dec 15, 2013)

*Cubing clubs in the Bay Area?*

I am a cuber from the bay area and I am looking for cubing clubs around here so I don't feel like a loner. I have checked the Stanford cubing page and it was last updated in 2009. If anyone knows if they are still active, please tell me. Otherwise, please tell me any clubs in the bay area.

Thank you! :tu


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## Ruben (Dec 15, 2013)

Unfortunately I don't know of any rubiks clubs here in the Bay Area. Here in the South Bay, i'm one of very few speedcubers, so I don't have anyone whom I can cube with.However I did get my friends into cubing but they only know the beginners method. Which region of the Bay Area do you live in?


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## Das Cubing (Dec 16, 2013)

Ruben said:


> Unfortunately I don't know of any rubiks clubs here in the Bay Area. Here in the South Bay, i'm one of very few speedcubers, so I don't have anyone whom I can cube with.However I did get my friends into cubing but they only know the beginners method. Which region of the Bay Area do you live in?



I live almost in between San José and San Francisco


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## cubingawsumness (Dec 16, 2013)

Compared to the rest of the country, the bay area has a lot of cubers and competitions. There are comps every few months at Berkeley, and until recently, at Stanford. A group of cubers are starting to organize comps as well, and their first one was in August. Take a look at the WCA competitions feed for upcoming comps (ie. BASC 2 in February  ).
Interestingly, virtually the exact same thread appeared yesterday.


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## Kit Clement (Dec 16, 2013)

https://www.facebook.com/bayareaspeedcubin


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## Ranzha (Dec 16, 2013)

Another Bay Area thread! I'll repost what I posted there:

Hello! I live in San José, so I feel a little obligated to post.

There are WCA-official competitions around here all the time! The closest one at the moment is Bay Area Speedcubin (BASC) 2 for the 9th of February. Coolster posted the link, but here it is again: http://www.cubingusa.com/basc2/
I'm one of the organisers the competition, and I'd like to extend an invitation to you. There are also seasonal competitions at Berkeley, and perhaps Stanford (cough cough) will host competitions again someday.

Around the area there are a bunch of cubers of all ages and skill levels. Many of them are and have been very influential in the community (e.g. Lucas Garron, Vincent Sheu, Shelley Chang, Jeremy Fleischman, Lars Petrus), and many of them are ridiculously experienced (e.g. Edward Lin, Richard Apagar, Justin Adsuara, Chia-Wei Lu, Riley Woo, the Berkeley FMC crew).


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## Ruben (Dec 18, 2013)

I can't wait for the Feb. 9th competition, it'll be my first and I'll be bringing my novice-cuber friends, who are also looking forword to participating.


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## Ranzha (Mar 10, 2015)

[superbump]

So BASC 5 just happened. It was huge; I just finished the scorecard checking last night.

What would you like to see from Bay Area Speedcubin' competitions? I will not be able to attend any BASC competitions from June through mid-August, so I'm not certain about the other organisers' plans for a possible summer competition.

Personally, I'd like to have more opportunities to get FMC means. This past competition was a true struggle to schedule, and we'll never do it that way again. However, it is very difficult to fit three super-quiet FMC attempts into a one-day comp while still holding the ever-chaotic 3x3.

Questions for BASC 5 competitors:
- What do you think of the heat system we used?
- What do you think of the schedule?
- Should we run a demonstration of how to compete at each competition? Should we make a video (or video series) to send to competitors regarding the basics of competing?
- How should we go about capping registration? Should we employ a waitlist? How do we keep it fair for all competitors?
- What events would you like to see at BASC 6?
- How do we get more competitors involved with helping out without risking the integrity and efficiency of our competitions?


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## AlGoreRhythm (Mar 10, 2015)

_Questions for BASC 5 competitors:_ 
-_ What do you think of the heat system we used? _ It was great, I was glad I didn't have to be listening one-hundred percent of the time as long as I knew which heat was going on.

_- What do you think of the schedule?_ ON a two-day comp like this, It was definitely a good idea to have some of the lesser-practiced events on one day and the more popular events on the other, so that most people only had to attend one day. 

_- Should we run a demonstration of how to compete at each competition? _ Yes, that would help a lot of first-time competitors.

_-Should we make a video (or video series) to send to competitors regarding the basics of competing?_ I think a few videos like that already exist, maybe you could just send those?

_- How should we go about capping registration? Should we employ a waitlist? How do we keep it fair for all competitors?_ The idea of paying to secure your spot is good. Maybe set up a way of being able to register for separate days (for 2+ day comps). Limiting it to 150 on day 1 and 150 on day 2 would be good, because even though 150 people registered, there were other people who wanted to register for maybe just day 1, which was not very crowded. Sorry if I rambled there, just an idea...

_- What events would you like to see at BASC 6?_ Pyraminx, 3x3 (of course), PLEASE 2x2 THIS TIME PLEASE!!

_- How do we get more competitors involved with helping out without risking the integrity and efficiency of our competitions?_ Maybe offer a prize for the most helpful volunteer, but make it not a very big prize, so that people who feel it's not worth it won't help out, but people who are willing to take the chance will be dedicated and working as hard as they can. Again. just an idea, hope that made sense.


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## Ranzha (Mar 10, 2015)

AlGoreRhythm said:


> _- What events would you like to see at BASC 6?_ Pyraminx, 3x3 (of course), PLEASE 2x2 THIS TIME PLEASE!!



No.

Thanks for your responses; we try so hard to keep on schedule that we feel we need to make our cutoffs super strict. What do you think of our cutoffs?


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## TMarshall (Mar 10, 2015)

The heat system worked great, u know its great when were over an hour ahead of schedule on 3x3 
I think the 2-day thing worked well
I think the video might work well, and then maybe loop it a couple times on the projector
NO 3x3 FOR BASC 6 please, how about just side events, no cubic puzzles? and try for 3 rounds of skewb


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## AlGoreRhythm (Mar 11, 2015)

Cutoffs were good. Maybe bump it up to 20 seconds for Pyraminx? A lot of people had trouble with it, and I know that's kinda the point, but still.
Loved having clock at this competition, although trying out the Rubik's Brands made me realize how bad the LingAo is...


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## Ranzha (Mar 11, 2015)

AlGoreRhythm said:


> Cutoffs were good. Maybe bump it up to 20 seconds for Pyraminx? A lot of people had trouble with it, and I know that's kinda the point, but still.
> Loved having clock at this competition, although trying out the Rubik's Brands made me realize how bad the LingAo is...



We agree about raising pyra cutoffs; it would've let 13 of the 17 people who didn't get an average to get one.

The only hard part to holding clock is getting people to scramble it quickly and accurately, especially after the scrambling notation change, though the new scrambling notation is more intuitive.


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## molarmanful (Mar 12, 2015)

I live in the Hillsborough-Burlingame-San Mateo Area, and I started a Rubik's Cube Club (with me as the president) at San Mateo High School. We are thinking of hosting a cube competition, but we can't do it until 1) we get timers and displays, 2) we know there will be enough participants, 3) we get a WCA delegate. Any ideas, help, suggestions, etc.?


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## TMarshall (Mar 12, 2015)

I don't what to do with the timer issue, I think your best bet would be to to try to convince your parents with a plan on how you will pay them back, hopefully through the money you make at the comp. For the delegate, I believe we have 2 in the bay area, and so you should just contact them and talk to them about it. And don't worry about competitors, you'll have enough. I go to Carlmont High School, and I know some fast cubers that go to Sequoia and Burlingame High, maybe we can do a Sequoia district comp


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## molarmanful (Mar 12, 2015)

TMarshall said:


> I don't what to do with the timer issue, I think your best bet would be to to try to convince your parents with a plan on how you will pay them back, hopefully through the money you make at the comp. For the delegate, I believe we have 2 in the bay area, and so you should just contact them and talk to them about it. And don't worry about competitors, you'll have enough. I go to Carlmont High School, and I know some fast cubers that go to Sequoia and Burlingame High, maybe we can do a Sequoia district comp



Cross-school competitions would be cool.


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## Riley (Mar 12, 2015)

molarmanful said:


> I live in the Hillsborough-Burlingame-San Mateo Area, and I started a Rubik's Cube Club (with me as the president) at San Mateo High School. We are thinking of hosting a cube competition, but we can't do it until 1) we get timers and displays, 2) we know there will be enough participants, 3) we get a WCA delegate. Any ideas, help, suggestions, etc.?



The best way to get started on the comp hosting path would be to first go to a lot more competitions and help out there (judging/scrambling/running). Berkeley just announced their next comp, so there's that. You're gonna need a lot of competition experience if you want host a comp.

(Also I go to Burlingame. We should totally have a inter-school mini unofficial comp  )


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## TMarshall (Mar 12, 2015)

I was referring to Riley in my previous comment  Hey Riley, how big is the BHS cubing club (I'm pretty sure I heard that its actually quite big)


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## Ranzha (Mar 12, 2015)

BASC has 9 sets of timers/displays/mats. We could totally arrange timers.

About number of competitors: if you host it, everyone will come. Going into BASC 5, I seriously doubted we'd ever get close to 150 people paying for spots.

Boy was I wrong.


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## Riley (Mar 13, 2015)

TMarshall said:


> I was referring to Riley in my previous comment  Hey Riley, how big is the BHS cubing club (I'm pretty sure I heard that its actually quite big)



We have about ~16 active members.


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## molarmanful (Mar 13, 2015)

Riley said:


> We have about ~16 active members.



Wow, we only have 10...


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## Riley (Mar 13, 2015)

molarmanful said:


> Wow, we only have 10...



That's still a lot! My club the first year had like 1 person. Lol.


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## molarmanful (Mar 18, 2015)

Okay, I've been thinking about the inter-high school competition. Several questions:

Which high schools are participating? Or should it just be high-school-hosted-and-anyone-can-come?

How will we get the timers from Ranzha?

Official or unofficial?

Volunteers?


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## Ranzha (Mar 18, 2015)

molarmanful said:


> Okay, I've been thinking about the inter-high school competition. Several questions:
> 
> Which high schools are participating? Or should it just be high-school-hosted-and-anyone-can-come?
> 
> ...



I would go to the comp and help out.


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## TMarshall (Mar 18, 2015)

I would be willing to ask a couple of my friends at Carlmont to help out, and I think high school hosted but anyone can come would be best. Also, I would approach Riley and maybe have him be the head organizer, if you can. Me and a person at Sequoia, Simon, both have helped out with staff at BASC, so we both have some experience too. For a venue, I could possibly talk to some administrators at my school about using the gym, but I would prefer to do that once all this competitions stuff becomes a little more substantial/official. However, the schools with cubing clubs would most likely have an easier time using the school as a venue, so that would be either molarmanful or riley. Or, we could use a totally separate venue. Also, I could ask a couple of my cubing friends that aren't on BASC staff, but attend comps for help if we needed more help. Sorry if this is a bit rambly


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## molarmanful (Mar 19, 2015)

The vice principal at San Mateo is interested. Perhaps we could use our gym.

Just wondering, which high schools besides SMHS and BHS have cube clubs?


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## Ranzha (Mar 19, 2015)

Leigh High School in San Jose has one. 

Stanford is going to have a comp next month!


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## TMarshall (Mar 20, 2015)

I'm still considering making a club at Carlmont, maybe next year


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## molarmanful (Mar 26, 2015)

Okay, about the competition... 
I'm setting the tentative date at April 12 or 19. Both are Sundays. Which is more preferable?
The tentative location is in the SMHS gym.
It is tentatively official, and Ranzha can provide timers, help judge, etc. If Ranzha is a WCA delegate, then he can act as delegate. Otherwise, we'll need a delegate.
It is tentatively called the Bay Area Inter-High School Cube Competition. It's for cubers in high school to come together and compete, trade, share knowledge, etc. Of course, spectators are encouraged and volunteers are needed.
This is mostly tentative, and is subject to change.
Suggestions?
Once this is all not tentative, we need to spread the word.


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## TMarshall (Mar 26, 2015)

Ranzha isn't a delegate, but we have 2 (Shelley Chang and Jeremy Fleischman) in the area


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## dbax0999 (Mar 26, 2015)

molarmanful said:


> Okay, about the competition...
> I'm setting the tentative date at April 12 or 19. Both are Sundays. Which is more preferable?



The Berkeley competition is on April 12th, so I imagine you'll get a much better turn out on the 19th.


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## Ranzha (Mar 26, 2015)

There is a Stanford competition on the 19th (gasp!).

I'm not a delegate. You can see the list of delegates here: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/delegates
In California, there are five delegates. The three in the Bay Area are Shelley Chang, Jeremy Fleischman, and Vincent Sheu. The two in SoCal are James Hamory and Michael Young.

Limiting competitors to only high schoolers is problematic, since anyone can compete at a competition: https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/regulations/#article-2-competitors
Where the focus of the Inter-High School competition could be on the winning high schools, as far as the WCA is concerned the competition functions as normal. If you'd like to recognise only the winning high schools, that's fine, but the WCA results will reflect overall standings.


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## ketchuphater999 (Mar 26, 2015)

STANFORD!

enough said


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## molarmanful (Mar 28, 2015)

Well... As long as the date is on a Sunday that most (if not all) people can come on. No later than May?

I was thinking that the it was high school hosted, but not exclusively for high schoolers. That being said, anyone can come, and anyone has a chance to win, but it will be hosted at and by high schools.


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## Ranzha (Mar 28, 2015)

molarmanful said:


> Well... As long as the date is on a Sunday that most (if not all) people can come on. No later than May?
> 
> I was thinking that the it was high school hosted, but not exclusively for high schoolers. That being said, anyone can come, and anyone has a chance to win, but it will be hosted at and by high schools.



I would ask about facility availability at schools, check delegate availability, and choose a date where they coincide.


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## molarmanful (May 12, 2015)

Okay, it's May now (obviously). I'm thinking that we should host the competition on May 31st because it's the Sunday right after high school finals week, so it would be a nice way to relax and end the school year (for high schoolers). What do you all think?


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