At the Rubik’s Cube Club’s first Cubing Competition, the colorful conundrum was not kind to Cornell.

Instead, students who ventured to Ithaca from lands as far as Syracuse, Binghamton and Buffalo dominated the competition to untangle the age-old mystery box and defeated Cornell’s cubers.

The competition consisted of a number of events, some which required participants to solve the cube conventionally and others that involved maneuvering the cube blindfolded or one-handed.

Harris Karsch ’14, the club’s president, described “speedcubing” in an email as “the sport/art/science of solving Rubik’s Cubes and other so-called twisty puzzles as quickly as possible.”

Out of the approximately 40 competitors, about four or five were Cornell students, Karsch said. He added that a high school student, Kevin Zhou, won the competition.

The club is planning to host an event every semester, Karsch said. For the next event, the members hope to increase advertising and draw more students, he said.  

“We will definitely try to get more Cornell students participating. When you see a giant Rubik’s Cube dancing around Ho Plaza, you’ll know what’s up,” Karsch said.

Karsch said that the group hoped to increase participation from Saturday’s event.

“The event ran smoothly, but the turnout was less than I had hoped for, likely because it was on Easter weekend — an unfortunate consequence of me trying to pick a time between prelims and finals,” Karsch said. “We didn’t advertise nearly enough on campus.”

With the help of Prof. Ravi Ramakrishna, mathematics, Karsch and Jianneng Li ’14, the club’s founder, restarted the Rubik’s Cube Club after it had been dormant since 2008.

“[I] found Harris after seeing him posting a video of him cubing and dancing in the roommate survey thread of the Class of 2014 group,” Li said.

The club’s founders have been trying hard to recruit new Rubik’s Cube lovers since the beginning of this year.

“We pretty much cube and talk to people who are interested in the club and the competition. We also teach people who want to learn to cube,” Li said.

Although none of Saturday’s winners were Cornell students, Jianneng Li ’14, vice president of the Cornell Cubing Club, said he was pleased with the tournament.

“The event was a success, especially considering it is the first time we are hosting it,” Li said.