Second-year College student Ari Randers-Pehrson first began speedcubing — competitively racing to solve combination puzzles, like the Rubik’s Cube — eight years ago. Now, he impressively ranks 18th in the world for the fastest WCA average solve of a 4x4 Cube. While he has accumulated quite the trophy collection throughout his speedcubing career, it is the community he found in World Cube Association competitions that has kept him in the hobby.
“I found a really welcoming community, so I just kind of stuck with it and continued improving on my own, but also with the community that I found,” Randers-Pehrson said.
Today, he serves as Vice President of the University’s Rubik’s Cube Club, where he organizes local competitions with fellow students who share this interest.
Most WCA competitions are one- or two-day local opens, and those who achieve qualifying times can progress to regional, national and world championships. Events range from 2x2 to 7x7 Cubes, and some even involve solving Cubes one-handed or blindfolded. While Randers-Pehrson specializes in the 4x4 Cube and has earned many accolades, his first win in the 3x3 category — where he earned a time of 7.70 seconds, the average of 5 solves with the highest and lowest time dropped — happened at a 2024 competition at the University of Maryland.
Drawing from his experience in this realm, Randers-Pehrson explained how speedcubing is particularly good at building community for kids and teens. Because Cubers are typically more focused on beating their own previous times than beating other people, a culture of self-improvement dominates rather than interpersonal rivalry.
“If you solve the Cube faster, that isn't necessarily gonna affect someone else and how fast they solve it,” Randers-Pehrson said. “So it's very [conducive to] supporting each other rather than bringing each other down, which is great.”
Beyond being supportive, the speedcubing community is also resilient. When the COVID-19 pandemic created uncertainty about its future and forced in-person competitions to shut down, virtual competitions quickly substituted. Both well-known Cubers on livestream and competitors watching from home would scramble their Cubes in the same predetermined ways, then solve them as fast as possible.
“That kind of filled a hole that existed, and then that really jump-started the community once it came back. And I feel like the community is growing a lot right now in the U.S., but also all over the world,” Randers-Pehrson said.
While most of the competitions he has attended are local, he has also competed at the national, continental and global levels. Two years ago, Randers-Pehrson attended the World Championship 2023 in South Korea, where he enjoyed the chance to connect with Cubers with different specialties from across the globe. He said rekindling those friendships with those whom he only sees at championships is a major aspect of these events for him.
“The competitions themselves … feel more like a meetup than a competition,” Randers-Pehrson said.
Randers-Pehrson also has friendships with fellow Cubers who attend the University, like Zayn Khanani, 11-time world record holder in the 2x2 event and first-year College student. Interestingly, Khanani and Randers-Pehrson knew each other even before coming to the University, as both are originally from Northern Virginia.
“It's been fun to have grown up knowing him … and now getting to organize competitions [together] … So there's definitely a number of Cubers here who maybe started in middle school, or they got really into the competition side of it,” Randers-Pehrson said. “It's been great to connect with those people more.”
Now, one of Randers-Pehrson’s personal goals is to qualify for the 4x4 finals — drawn from the competitors with the 16 fastest times — at the World Championship 2025 in Seattle this summer.
While he is still active in the competitive speedcubing scene, Randers-Pehrson’s focus has now expanded from just winning competitions to organizing them at the local level. The Rubik’s Cube Club at the University gained official Contracted Independent Organization status last semester. Before being formally approved, the club has held yearly competitions under the WCA for the past few years since its founding.
According to Randers-Pehrson, organizing a WCA competition is relatively simple. Once the club books a space for a particular day and time, WCA volunteer delegates travel to that location to regulate the competition. Beyond coordinating that, tables and timers are the only setup required.
This year’s Cube Club competition holds space for 90 competitors and will be held April 6 at the University’s Newcomb Hall.
“I'm really looking forward to that and expanding what the Cube Club is able to do here … with the community,” Randers-Pehrson said. “Seeing all the up-and-coming kids or people in high school hanging out with their friends and enjoying that experience, I think will be nice.”
As Randers-Pehrson works to progress as a leader in the speedcubing community, he recognizes the sport’s applicability to life outside Cubes and competition venues and emphasizes how it can bring people together at the University and beyond.
“A bigger part [of competitive speedcubing] is connecting with the people around you at these events,” Randers-Pehrson said. “Relating it to real life, it's not always about the direct results of yourself. It's more about the collective community there, and the idea of everyone doing their best.”
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