Annika Stein

Physicist @ ETAP, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Other Activities

Speedsolving

I am a speedcuber, which means that I solve twisty puzzles against the clock - competing against others and myself. For example, it takes me around ten seconds to solve the well-known Rubik's Cube or three seconds to solve a puzzle called "Skewb". Solving puzzles and learning new strategies play an important role, but there are various related activities. For example, I'm an experienced content creator, and even before uploading on youtube, I started producing tutorials for gutefrage.net over a decade ago. Some more recent videos can be found in the box below, showing my currently favourite puzzles in action.

Volunteer work

Member of the World Cube Association (WCA).

  • Served the role as Community Representative for the WCA Advisory Council (WAC) from March 2022 to January 2023, from January 2023 to November 2023 a Staff Representative.
  • Full Delegate, was Junior / Trainee Delegate from July 2022.
  • Main organizer of the first speedcubing tournament in Rhineland-Palatinate. Lead organizer of the largest National championship in Germany to date. Helping out at every attended competition, e.g. being judge, scrambler, runner, scoretaker. Extending WCA activities to new regions that were underserved with competitions in the past to attract more newcomers.
  • Verified Translator: Contribution to the official German translation of the WCA website.
  • Contributor to the WCA software.

Competitive speedcuber

Competed in thirteen countries, including the European Championship 2018 (Madrid) and 2022 (Copenhagen).

29 official podiums (2x gold, 14x silver, 13x bronze) out of 85 tournaments, obtained in categories "3x3x3", "Skewb", "4x4x4", "6x6x6" and "7x7x7". Female National Record holder in category "Skewb", and first place at German Online Cubing 2020, the "official" replacement of the National Championship in an online-format during the global pandemic.

Outreach, Projects

Interviewee for

Initiated and gave a workshop on the Rubik's Cube (talk, tutorial) during the 2022 Annual Retreat of our Research Training Group, for PhD Students and PIs: Contribution (restricted access).

Building software for the German community, e.g. a landing page, federal state ranks, nametag creation.

Development of open-source training software to practice solution strategies in the speedcubing category Skewb, called "SkewbSkills" (GUI application with Python plus Web solution with HTML, CSS, JS).

Content creation: educational resources for twisty puzzle enthusiasts (mainly YouTube, Instagram), focus: tutorials, explaining solution strategies with which thousands of people have learnt something new. Coaching new cubers through various channels, created material for a (German) online course on advanced methods for the brainteaser "Skewb".

Author for the "German Cube Association e.V." (Wordpress). Author for the "Cubingfreunde-Blog" (Wordpress). Member of the "Cnobel Prize" committee.

Affiliated with cuboss.com ("brand ambassador" promoting their services and products on social media), previous cooperations with other sellers of twisty puzzles.

Cooperation with "C.H. Beck" (book review: Beleglink).

Taught fifth to twelfth graders how to solve the cube in a school project.

Selling twisty puzzle related merchandise via spreadshirt.de.

More projects

Out of curiosity, I asked myself which quarks are the most popular ones in High Energy Physics, and came to answer this question on a weekly basis by skimming arXiv contributions inside a small data science project. You can find the details on GitHub, results can be viewed here.


"If you are curious, you'll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them." - Ernő Rubik