Message #3809

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Time for another speedsolving contest!
Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2017 21:21:08 -0800

Dear Cubists,

It’s been far too long since our last speedsolving contest so I would like to hold another one soon. This time I thought I would throw in a twist and not announce the particular puzzle in advance and only say that it will not be a cube, simplex, nor very large or small. Macros will be allowed though maybe we should require that they be created during the contest. This way you will want to practice with a wide variety of puzzles so that you’re ready to attack whatever it turns out to be. These are just my thoughts and am happy to change it if potential participants prefer something else.

The last time we conducted the contest over the Yahoo Instant Messenger which turned out to be a lot of fun but nobody seems to use that platform anymore. I guess some things like this are done over Steam or Twitch these days. If one of those platforms is popular here I’m willing to try it out though I’ve never used either one. Still another possibility is a YouTube live-stream. I’ve not used that either, but I have a channel, so it’s somewhat familiar. If nothing else, we can certainly do it without any live platform. I could email the scramble file to the list but Yahoo email delivery is very unpredictable. I could also just upload the file to a predetermined URL at a predetermined time. The last time we decided that a reasonable time for everyone was 11 AM Pacific time on a Saturday. Perhaps November 25th or any Saturday in December? Please reply with your level of interest and your opinions on the dates and other details. Feel free to message me privately too.

Best of all, this time there will be a very special prize of your very own signed & numbered physical 2x2x2x2! How does that sound? And speaking of the physical puzzle, I’m proud to announce that it’s now in a reproducible form, including even by people who would like to build their own. I have created a Shapeways product that you can order here <https://www.shapeways.com/product/965KNUESR/melinda-s-2x2x2x2>. Note that it’s still not public, so please don’t share it outside our community just yet, but you can order from there if you like. The price there currently has no mark-up. If you like, I’ll even send you a completed puzzle for $99 which is less than the printing cost alone. Just send me a private email if you would like that. Of course you may want to wait and see if you can win one for free first. It’s up to you.

Happy puzzling!
-Melinda