Latest news with #Rubik's
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Faizan Zaki wins the Scripps National Spelling Bee a year after finishing runner-up
OXON HILL, Md. (AP) — Faizan Zaki nearly threw away his opportunity to go from runner-up to champion at the Scripps National Spelling Bee with a shocking moment of overconfidence. Given a second chance, he seized the title of best speller in the English language. The 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, who lost in a lightning-round tiebreaker last year, outlasted eight other accomplished spellers to win the title on Thursday night, including two that he let back into the competition after his own careless flub. Told to take a deep breath before his final word, 'eclaircissement,' he didn't ask a single question before spelling it correctly, and he pumped his fists and collapsed to the stage after saying the final letter. Two rounds earlier, Sarvadnya Kadam and Sarv Dharavane misspelled their words, clearing a path for Faizan, but instead of making sure he knew the word, 'commelina,' Faizan let his showmanship get the better of him. 'K-A-M,' he said, then stopped himself. 'OK, let me do this. Oh, shoot!' 'Just ring the bell,' he told head judge Mary Brooks, who obliged. 'So now you know what happens,' Brooks said, and the other two spellers returned to the stage. Upon his return to the microphone, Sarv chimed in: 'This is surprising!' But Sarv misspelled again, followed in the next round by Sarvadnya, and Faizan stayed just calm enough to ensure his competitors wouldn't get back to the microphone. It was a riveting conclusion to a competition that started in 1925 and appears to have a bright future. Scripps, a Cincinnati-based media company, had a few dozen former champions on hand to celebrate the centennial of an event that began when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers to host spelling bees and send their champions to Washington. Faizan lost to Bruhat Soma last year in a tiebreaker known as a 'spell-off.' He became only the fifth runner-up to come back and win and the first since since Sean Conley in 2001. With the winner's haul of $52,500 added to his second-place prize of $25,000, Faizan increased his bee earnings to $77,500. His big splurge with his winnings last year? A $1,500 Rubik's cube with 21 squares on each side. This is the last year the bee will be held at its home for the past 14 years, a convention center just outside Washington on the banks of the Potomac River. In 2026, the competition returns to the nation's capital at Constitution Hall, a nearly century-old concert venue near the White House. ___ Ben Nuckols has covered the Scripps National Spelling Bee since 2012. Follow his work here.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Cheese rolling and the 80-year-old newsagent
Here's our daily pick of stories from across local websites in the West of England, and interesting content from social media. Bristol Live are reporting on the teenager arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after an incident under an underpass at Cribbs Causeway. Somerset Live reported on 106-year-old GW Hurley newsagents in Burnham. Colin Morris, 80, was born above the shop and is still running the family business. A nurse in Wiltshire has been struck-off after filming people through a cubicle wall in Asda, as reported by Bristol Live. He's been convicted of voyeurism and making an indecent image of a child. And could Swindon-born Billie Piper be the next Doctor Who? That's being posed by the Swindon Advertiser. YouTuber 'risks his life' for cheese-rolling win Carer, 21, on what it's like to look after little brother Teen sets record for solving 12-sided Rubik's cube The number of homes in the Weston-super-Mare area who can use the Grand Pier for free has been expanded by almost 73,000. It follows the controversial price increase there from £1 to £2. This picture of someone's mum with the Double Gloucester from the bank holiday Monday cheese rolling is proving popular on X. People in the Weston in the Spotlight group are talking about the often controversial subject of some households having recycling left after putting their bins out. Follow BBC West social channels in Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. Headlines: Crop circles and village 'overtourism' High rise fire and eerie shipwrecks
Time of India
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Americans are getting teary-eyed over viral videos of their younger self on TikTok: Here's why
There's a reason why childhood memorabilia is one of the most important possessions of a person's life. From photos and videos to even letters, anything done by our younger self for the future brings out an emotional nostalgia that is bound to bring tears to the eyes. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Something similar happened when a bunch of students graduating from high school were shown videos of their sixth-grade selves asking questions to their future selves. Graduates from McCallie School, located in Chattanooga, Tennessee sat down to answer questions that were asked by them when they were in the sixth grade. In the video that has gone viral on TikTok, amassing over 37 million views and 8.5 million likes, people all over the internet are getting teary-eyed and connecting on the growth a child embarks on when they mature. It is emotional to see how in certain aspects of life you tightly hold hands with your childhood self, however, in others you let them go in order to learn a new aspect of life that is truly correct. The questions asked by the young students definitely showcased the maturity experienced by the graduating high schoolers as they answered a range of questions. While one was asked if his favourite hobby was still solving a Rubik's cube, another was asked if his favourite food was still Mexican. Other questions followed for subsequent students such as "Is your favourite movie still 'Water Boy'?", "Is your favourite subject world history or math and science?", "The biggest life lesson you have learned this far?" and "Life advice you would give to your sixth-grade self?" While some answers such as sports and movies remained the same, the students gave very wise advice to their younger self which was to be kind to everyone and biggest life lesson was trying your hardest no matter what as you would feel bad if you didn't. The students also mentioned how they would miss the school and the people who made it special. Shared by @CollinRugg on X, the video has gained over 3.3M views and 43K likes with people commenting on how teary-eyed and emotional it made them. Some even suggested they would do the same for capturing major life events. "totally going to do this with the family this weekend! Make it into a family album of memories. Absolute fantastic idea!" commented a person on X. "I'm blown away…. And a little teary-eyed. 🥹" wrote one, "Aww that made me cry. My oldest daughter is going into 6th grade and my son just turned 20. Goes fast. Very cool idea," added another.
NDTV
16-05-2025
- Science
- NDTV
Watch: This Robot Can Solve Rubik's Cube Before You Might Blink
A group of students at Purdue University, Indiana, USA, have smashed the previous Guinness World Record of solving a Rubik's cube once held by Mitsubishi, a Japanese conglomerate worth nearly $80 billion. The high-speed robot is called the Purdubik's Cube, which managed to solve the puzzle cube in a blink-it-and-you-miss-it 0.103 milliseconds. Matthew Patrohay, the lead of the project, was inspired by the previous record holder and wanted to make his own attempt at the record. After gathering his friends, Junpei Ota, Aden Hurd, and Alex Berta, the team managed to beat Mitsubishi's record by two-tenths of a second. "To put it in perspective, the human blink is 200 to 300 milliseconds. So we're significantly faster than that. Human reaction time is about .200 milliseconds as well, so we're faster than that," said Mr Patrohay. Talking about the challenges in developing the machine, the researchers said they had to redesign the cube so that it could withstand the tremendous force required to solve it within milliseconds. 'The cubes themselves just disintegrate,' said Mr Patrohay. 'The pieces themselves snap in half and fall apart.' Social media reacts The video of the machine in action has gone viral on social media, inviting puzzled reactions from the users, who cannot believe the cube was solved in a blink. "WOW. I literally blinked and missed it the first time. Absolutely insane," said one user while another added: "I had to watch it a couple of times because it looked like they just clipped it to show the finished cube." A third commented: "It is even more impressive to me that they built a cube capable of being solved that quickly without disintegrating." NEW: Purdue students demolish the Guinness World Record for fastest Rubik's cube-solving robot, solving the puzzle cube in just 0.103 seconds, faster than the blink of an eye. Insane. The previous record was set by Mitsubishi Electric engineers in 2024 in Japan with a speed of… — Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 15, 2025 The rapid machine was first unveiled at SPARK, Purdue's Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) student design competition, where it took home first place in December 2024. The team continued to build on the success by pushing the limits of automation and high-speed computing. The achievement is made more remarkable by the fact that Purdubik's Cube is highly intuitive and interactive. Using a Bluetooth-enabled "Smart Cube," users can scramble the puzzle in real time, and the robot mirrors every move, solving the cube instantly once the scramble is complete.
NBC News
15-05-2025
- Science
- NBC News
This machine can solve a Rubik's cube faster than most people blink
Blink and you'll miss it: A Purdue University student engineering team has built a robot that can solve a Rubik's cube in one-tenth of a second — faster than the average time it takes to blink an eye. Their robot, called "Purdubik's Cube," set a Guinness World Record last month for the " fastest robot to solve a puzzle cube." It successfully solved a mixed-up cube in just 0.103 seconds, a fraction of the previous record of 0.305 seconds, set by Mitsubishi Electric engineers in May 2024. The robot, located on the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, uses machine vision for color recognition, custom solving algorithms optimized for execution time and industrial-grade motion control hardware, according to a Purdue University press release.
