On competitive Rubik's cube solving

When I was 12 years old, a kid on the neighborhood swim team solved a Rubik's cube. This activated my competitive spirit. If he could do it, why couldn't I? I dug an old Rubik's cube out of the closet and spent the next week-ish scouring the internet for various tutorials until I finally found one that I could follow. Solving it for the first time was cool, but that wasn't enough. After all, I had to have the steps memorized and be able to execute them in under a minute for it to be practical enough to show off.

I spent hours upon hours studying how to get faster. I got to the point where I could consistently solve the cube in under 15 seconds. But that wasn't enough. I wanted to learn the most impressive (to me) way of solving it: blindfolded. That marked the beginning of my obsession for the next few years. I started attending competitions, studying various solving methods, and diving deep into the cubing world.

Below are a few highlights of my favorite memories from that time:

3rd place at US Nationals 2018 in the 5x5 blindfolded event

Solving 26 cubes blindfolded at once in under an hour

Started a YouTube channel teaching advanced blindfolded solving techniques -- 3.2k subs and still getting comments to this day

Got the "unofficial world record" for solving a Rubik's Cube blindfolded with my feet (and almost got taken down from YouTube for showing my feet)

Finalist in the Salesforce Got Talent show with an underwater blindfolded solving + cube mosaic show, won $10k and donated it to the World Cube Association

And a few honorable mentions:

• Wrote a bunch of software to optimize solutions, train solves, and organize competitions. This showed me the power of software and is a reason I am a software developer now (peep the blog post on writing a cube solver)
• Organized official World Cubing Association competitions, including unprecedented back-to-back competitions in two different cities
• Wrote about this in my college apps and put it on my resume (it definitely helped me get my first few interviews and internships)
• Best of all, made some great friends that I still talk to today ❤️