UC student breaks world record in competitive speedcubing

UC computer science student Sujan Feist broke the world record for fastest average solve time for the 2x2 cube, a smaller version of the familiar Rubik’s cube, in competition this month in Coshocton, Ohio.

The competition consists of five attempts with the fastest and slowest scores thrown out and the three remaining averaged for the final score. Feist, a second-year student in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, scored an average 0.86 seconds, topping the previous best by just 0.02 seconds.

Feist, 19, captured his world-record feat on video in which he begins jumping up and down and hugging his friends screaming, “Dude! Oh, my God!”

“I knew I had a pretty decent shot at a good time,” Feist said. “I pulled out the calculator app on my phone and knew for sure it was a world record.”

Feist topped the previous world record holder, Yiheng Wang, a 12-year-old from China who also holds the world record for best average solve time for the traditional 3x3 Rubik’s cube. Feist bested him for the world championship by .02 seconds in the 2x2 competition earlier this year.

Speedcubing TV highlighted the new world record.

“Sujan faced off against Yiheng Wang in one of the most thrilling 2x2 world championship finals to date,” Speedcubing TV said. “Sujan has proved himself to be the king of 2x2.”

In competition, players compete in a variety of categories based on cube shapes and sizes.

“It’s a lot of pattern recognition and also committing algorithms to memory and using them in the solve,” he said.

A 2x2 cube has 3 million possible combinations. A traditional Rubik’s cube has 43 quintillion combinations or 43 with 18 zeroes after it, Feist said.

Solving the 2x2 cube entails between 13 and 15 turns of a cube — incredibly, all in less than a second.

Feist began solving cubes as a child. But he got back into it in high school and began going to competitions. Today, he holds 62 gold medals and a new world record in the World Cube Association.

Feist came to UC to take advantage of its co-op program in which students divide the year between classroom instruction and full-time employment with a company in their field. He begins his first co-op rotation at a computer science company next year.

“That’s going to be a fun experience,” he said.

His dad, Adjunct Assistant Professor James Feist, teaches music in UC’s College-Conservatory of Music and was on hand to watch his son’s record-setting performance.

Afterward, his dad took him to dinner to celebrate.

Feist said he never gets nervous in competition. He practices beforehand so he feels prepared under pressure.

“It’s like studying really hard for a test. You won’t be nervous or anxious at the test because you studied for it,” he said.

Watch the Speedcubing TV report.

Featured image at top: UC student Sujan Feist set a new world record in speedcubing in competition last week in Coshocton, Ohio. Photo/Provided