When Kaius Young received a Pyraminx Rubik’s Cube for his birthday in 2016, he was hooked. He practiced and practiced, learning all sorts of different cubes, and, long story short, made his way to his first competition in 2017.

Cubing is an activity where participants compete to solve Rubik’s Cubes as fast as they can. There are many types of cubes to solve, and each one is its own event. Young’s favorite events are the 4X4 and 5X5 cubes.

Young excels at the Rubik’s Clock, pictured to the right. He said that his biggest accomplishment “is being world-class at solving the Rubik’s clock for two years now, peaking at 8th worldwide in 2022.” Although he has moved up and down in the rankings since then, at a competition last week, he moved back up to 16th place worldwide.

He is currently working to get into the top 100 times worldwide for the 4X4 and 5X5 cubes. Another goal is “to get back to the top 10 in the world for Rubik’s clock.”

Having been a part of the cubing community for the past six years, Young is appreciative of the constant supportive atmosphere. He commented that his “favorite thing about cubing is the community. Each competition is more about improving your own time than being better than someone else. While getting a win or getting on the podium is nice, I’m just as happy when my friends beat me and get the win instead. There’s never any bad blood.”

He hopes to see new cubers enter the community in the future and would advise them to enjoy themselves and “just go for it! Cubing is a wonderful community, and while trying and getting faster is fun, times aren’t everything.”