Since 2020, the Southwest Arkansas Education Cooperative on the UAHT Hope campus has been host to Rubik’s Cube-solving competitions.  Teams and soloists capable of turning a cube of scrambled color tiles into orderly one-color-per-side beauties joined this year’s meet Wednesday from as close as Spring Hill, Fouke and Genoa Central (Texarkana, Arkansas) and as far as Junction City and Cossatot River (Wickes). 

With SWAEC Student Enrichment Specialist Chad Morris performing as the jocular master of ceremonies, the event began with a face-off among the junior high teams of up to eight to see which could solve 25 scrambled cubes the soonest.  First place was Junction City with a time of three minutes 17 seconds and second was Cossatot River at three minutes 30 seconds.

Just before the junior high team competition, Morris explained the thought process the students engage in as they work with their cubes. “In about a 30-second time period, they'll go through close to 50 to 100 different algorithms to figure out, where do I go from here? There's two main algorithms that they'll use, but if those don't work out, then they have another one. It's pretty cool, pretty intense, nice to see their thinking.”  At times one competitor may get to a point in their cube work in which they realize a teammate may know that particular combination of colors better and then switch cubes with that teammate, Morris said.

In the high school team competition, first place was the team representing Cossatot River with a time of three minutes 28 seconds.  Fouke was second place with four minutes 11 seconds.

The solo competition allowed entrants to attempt a solution against a timer as many as three times.  Among the junior high soloists, Jason Herrington of Dierks was first with a time of 15.933 seconds, with Reagan Williams of Junction City placing second at 18.004 seconds.

In the senior high soloist competition, first place went to the one everybody liked to watch, Riley Dunn of Cossatot River with 13.499 seconds.  Second also went to a Cossatot River student, Kevin Aguilar with a time of 21.602 seconds.

After the competition, Morris explained how the Rubik’s Cube competition achieves educational as well as life-skills goals for the students.  “The main thing with my job is, how do I create problem solvers? That's what we need in our future generations. They're going to have to be good problem solvers, and this is a great way to showcase those talents. When you have a time of, what was it, 13 seconds, and the other one had a time of 21 seconds, I can't put my shoes on that quick. So the problem-solving ability there. It just shows you their future is just real bright.”