World Cube Association

The World Cube Association (WCA) is the worldwide organization that regulates and holds competitions for mechanical puzzles that are operated by twisting groups of pieces, commonly known as twisty puzzles (a subcategory of combination puzzles). The most famous of those puzzles is the Rubik's Cube. The WCA was founded by Ron van Bruchem of the Netherlands and Tyson Mao of the United States.[1] The goal of the World Cube Association is to have "more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair conditions."[2] In 2017, they started work to become a non-profit organization and on November 20, 2017 the state of California accepted the initial registration of the World Cube Association.

World Cube Association
The current logo of the World Cube Association.
AbbreviationWCA
Formation18 October 2004 (2004-10-18)
FoundersRon van Bruchem, Tyson Mao
TypeSport Association
HeadquartersLos Angeles, California, USA
Membership
Free
Official language
English
Bob Burton, Chris Wright, Ethan Pride, Henrik Buus Aagaard,
Staff
board of directors, 10 committee leaders and 131 delegates (excluding candidates)
Websiteworldcubeassociation.org

The organization is run by the board members. It assigns different teams and committees as well as delegates who can organize official competitions. The presence of a delegate is required to make the competition official. As of July 2020, more than 142,000 people from around the world have participated in WCA competitions.[3]

Board

Current board members
As of November 4, 2019[2]
MemberCountryBoard member since
Bob BurtonUnited StatesNovember 2017[4]
Chris WrightUnited KingdomSeptember 2018[5]
Ethan PrideAustraliaJuly 2019[6]
Henrik Buus AagaardDenmarkNovember 2019[7]

Former board members
MemberCountryTerm
Gilles RouxFranceOctober 2004 – November 2008[8]
Ron van BruchemNetherlandsOctober 2004 – July 2018[9]
Masayuki AkimotoJapanSeptember 2005[10] – January 2012
Tyson MaoUnited StatesOctober 2004 – August 2013[11]
Sébastien AurouxGermanyJuly 2012[12] – February 2014[13]
Tim ReynoldsUnited StatesJuly 2012[12] – December 2014[14]
Natán RiggenbachPeruSeptember 2013[15] – August 2015[16]
Olivér PergeHungaryMarch 2015 – February 2016, July 2017 – July 2019
Pedro Santos GuimarãesBrazilMarch 2015 – July 2018[9]
Ilkyoo ChoiSouth KoreaSeptember 2013[15] – July 2017[17]
Chris HardwickUnited StatesJuly 2016[18] – November 2017[4]
Luis J. IáñezSpainJuly 2016[18] – July 2018[9]
Alberto Pérez de Rada FiolSpainNovember 2017[4] – November 2019[7]

Structure of the WCA

WCA Board of Directors

The WCA Board of Directors (or simply WCA Board) is the leadership team of the WCA and its highest authority. WCA Directors are Officers of the WCA and also, have the role of Full Delegate. The WCA Board is responsible for the WCA organization as a whole. As part of their day-to-day work, they discuss issues that affect the WCA and advise the committees. The WCA Board oversees that the applications to hold WCA Competitions meet fair conditions to give all the world similar chances to compete, and finally approves and announces the competitions accordingly. After competitions, they read reports from the WCA delegates about competitions to be up to date on the WCA activity worldwide and take part in the discussion of any incidents that occur.

The Board is also responsible for helping WCA fulfill its mission: “more competitions in more countries with more people and more fun, under fair and equal conditions.” This means spreading cubing to new communities and countries and working together with the Senior Delegates to open up cubing to even more people.

WCA Teams and Committees

WCA Communication Team

The WCA Communications Team (WCT) is in charge of overseeing and supporting communications of the WCA with the community and the general public. This includes answering general requests that are submitted via the WCA website and maintaining the social media accounts of the WCA. The team responds to multiple emails a day from all around the world regarding starting cubing competitions in new areas, what to do for your first competition, big media requests about competitive speedcubing, and many other issues. Many requests are also forwarded to the appropriate WCA team or delegate if they are regarding a particular competition or specialization.

WCA Competition Announcement Team

The WCA Competition Announcement Team (WCAT) is responsible for approving and announcing WCA Competitions and ensure such announcements adhere to WCA quality standards. They Review and announce competition submissions in WCA. They train Delegates to properly utilize the tools that WCA has for them.

WCA Disciplinary Committee

The WCA Disciplinary Committee (WDC) investigates a variety of situations and proposes solutions including punishments when necessary. Among other topics, these situations could be serious violations of WCA regulations or community issues. They deal with many instances of cheating, general conduct, or disputes in the way that delegates and organizers run events. They are also responsible for issues that may occur in the WCA internally.

They can be contacted by WCA officials or community members to be made aware of possible violations at WCA competitions. Initial contact with the team is usually through emails or directly from any competitor or delegate. If the Team Leader agrees that this case falls under the WDC’s jurisdiction, a WDC case is initiated. The team attempts to correspond with everyone involved, to get all sides of the story, and to provide an independent report for the investigation. Once the case is closed and the decision made, they inform all relevant persons of any actions and make a public announcement, if necessary.

WCA Financial Committee

The WCA Financial Committee (WFC) is responsible for everything regarding finances within the WCA. As an Advisory Committee, they manage the finances and accounts of the WCA by an approved annual budget proposal, which is also their work to provide regularly. Similarly, the Financial Committee pays invoices and taxes that are directed to the WCA, after consultation and with permission of the WCA Board. Every quarter, they report and advise the WCA Board on all finances of the WCA, to give them a summary of the scope of financial possibilities and options that the WCA has.

WCA Regulations Committee

The WCA Regulations Committee (WRC) was founded to support the WCA Board in maintaining the WCA Regulations in 2011. Over the years, their area of responsibility has been broadened, so that they handle all issues which are related to the application, the improvement, and the development of the WCA Regulations today. They support delegates on any kind of procedural matters happening at competitions and decide on unresolved and uncovered incidents. The WRC regularly publishes WCA internal reports to help all delegates and improve their knowledge of the Regulations. This includes regulation changes based on feedback from the WCA staff and the community, while also taking into account their insights and reports of incidents that occur during WCA competitions. New versions of the Regulations are published periodically. Another part of their work is to encourage members of the WCA community to create and maintain translations of the Regulations.

WCA Results Team

The WCA Results Team (WRT) is responsible for managing all data in the databases of the WCA, most importantly competition results and personal data.

The most time-consuming regular task of the WCA Results Team is posting results of WCA competitions to the WCA website, once the delegate of the competition has sent them in. They rigorously check if the results were submitted correctly and if so, transfer them into the WCA results database. This work of the Results Team assures the data quality of the databases of the WCA. Each such posting procedure is ended by creating a public post on the WCA website – these are the posts that you can see on the front page of the WCA website! Apart from posting competition results, the WCA Results Team is also responsible for making corrections to competition results if necessary and they are in charge of administering all WCA profile pages. This includes for example changing user data, like dates of birth, according to verified requests and managing profile picture requests.

WCA Software Team

The WCA website is a huge open source project on GitHub.[19] They bring continuous improvements to the website very frequently, to allow all of the community members to easily access and enjoy WCA content. Recently internationalization was implemented, so now people can use the WCA website in their native language. Other important milestones are the development of the registration system, and especially payments. The team keeps an eye on the website all the time to ensure it's permanently available and they react as fast as possible whenever something is wrong.

The Software Team develops new software for various tasks within the WCA whenever needed. Thus, they created an app simplifying translating the website, to engage more people translating into their language. On 21 August 2012 the WCA Workbook assistant has released [20], which is used by all delegates to submit the competition results to the WCA Results Team. The Software Team also updates the official WCA Scrambler, TNoodle, according to data provided by the WCA Regulations Committee if changes are needed. Additionally, they maintain and develop administrative tools for various Delegates, Committees, and Board members on the WCA website.

WCA Delegates

WCA Delegates are members of the WCA who are responsible for making sure that all WCA competitions are run according to the mission, regulations, and spirit of the WCA. This means that at every competition a WCA Delegate needs to be present to be considered official. The WCA has three different types of delegates: WCA Senior Delegates, WCA Delegates, and WCA Candidate Delegates. Beyond the duties of a WCA Delegate, a WCA Senior Delegate is responsible for managing the delegates in their area and should also be contacted by the community for regional matters. They are available to mentor the delegates in their area – especially when new communities are being developed. New delegates are listed as WCA Candidate Delegates at first and need to show their ability to manage competitions successfully before being listed as WCA Delegates. If possible they may delegate their first competitions alongside more experienced delegates to get the hang of all responsibilities connected to delegate a WCA competition.

All acknowledged WCA Delegates, Candidate Delegates and Senior Delegates can be found on their official Website.[21]

History

In 1999, the first modern age speedcubers found each other on the Internet via Rubik's Games, a computer game with an electronic version of the Rubik's Cube. Chris Hardwick from Raleigh, NC founded the Yahoo! Group "Speedsolvingrubikscube" and the Unofficial World Records, a place where cubers could post their personal best times. Ron van Bruchem started speedcubing.com together with his friend Ton Dennenbroek, an avid puzzle collector.

Because the cubers were living all over the world, they wanted to organize a competition at which they could all meet. In 2003, under the guidance of Dan Gosbee, they organized the Rubik's Cube World Championship in Toronto. This first modern-age Rubik's Cube competition was a huge success, but there were lots of issues, largely due to the lack of any regulations. After the World Championship, van Bruchem and Tyson Mao started organizing competitions in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as at Caltech in the United States. In 2004, they started the World Cube Association, which today has held competitions in more than 100 countries.

Events

Currently, the WCA offers competitions in 17 events. Not all of them are offered at every competition, but they are usually all offered at national, continental, and global championships. The events are:[22]

Additionally, some events have had their official WCA event status removed. They are:[23]

World Championships

Every two years starting from 2003, the WCA holds the Rubik's Cube World Championships. The Championship ultimately determines the world champion. Every official event is held at the Championship. The Rubik's Cube World Championship requires extremely careful planning by several volunteers, as well as a large financial commitment to reserve the venue and make necessary preparations.[2]

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See also

Notes
  1. "New WCA board member". World Cube Association. September 24, 2005. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  2. "About the WCA". World Cube Association. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  3. "WCA Statistics". World Cube Association. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  4. "Changes in the Board of Directors – November 2017". World Cube Association. November 10, 2017. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  5. "Changes in the Board of Directors – September 2018". World Cube Association. September 2, 2018. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  6. "Changes in the Board of Directors – July 2019". World Cube Association. July 1, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
  7. "Changes in the Board of Directors (November 2019) | World Cube Association". www.worldcubeassociation.org. Retrieved 2020-01-29.
  8. "Gilles Roux retires as member of WCA Board". World Cube Association. October 15, 2008. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  9. "Changes in the WCA Board". World Cube Association. July 1, 2018. Retrieved July 2, 2018.
  10. "New WCA board member". World Cube Association. September 24, 2005. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  11. "Tyson Mao retires as member of WCA Board". World Cube Association. August 1, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  12. "Tim Reynolds and Sébastien Auroux in WCA Board". World Cube Association. July 28, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  13. "Sébastien Auroux retires as WCA board member". World Cube Association. February 24, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  14. "Tim Reynolds retires as WCA Board Member". World Cube Association. December 19, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  15. "New WCA Board Members". World Cube Association. September 19, 2013. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  16. "Natán Riggenbach resigns from the WCA Board". World Cube Association. August 5, 2015. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  17. "Changes in the Board of Directors (WCA Board)". World Cube Association. July 1, 2017. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  18. "New WCA Board Members". World Cube Association. July 4, 2016. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  19. "WCA Github Repository". World Cube Association. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  20. "WCA Workbook Assistant versions". World Cube Association. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  21. "WCA Delegates". World Cube Association. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  22. "WCA Regulations". Retrieved 18 August 2017.
  23. "WCA Regulations History". World Cube Association. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
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