In the past couple of years, the Dutch Cube Day (DCD) was often organised in Eindhoven. Last year the location was in Emmen in the northern part of the Netherlands.
For 2011, the 31st edition of the DCD, we will return to Eindhoven.

Since there are many events in October, including the Rubik’s World Championships in Bangkok (Thailand) from 14-16 October and Spiel Essen (Germany) from 20-23 October, it was decided to organise the DCD on 29 and 30 October.
The main event is the Dutch Cube Day on Sunday 30 October. The speedcubing is a two-day event which starts already on Saturday.

For reasons of insurance, to avoid the presence of non-puzzle people and because of catering reasons it is required to apply in advance for an invitation. In case you would like to participate, please send me an e-mail (preferably) or, in case you don’t know my e-mail address, a PM.
Speedcubers are requested to contact Ron van Bruchem. More information on this will be presented the coming week at the website http://www.speedcubing.com

The program of the DCD will, as usual, consist of an informal get-together while showing, exchanging and buying or selling puzzles. Probably, there will be two lectures.
In the beginning of October the final program and a route description will be sent to the participants.

The entrance fee for the Dutch Cube Day on Sunday will be € 10.00 per person for NKC-members and € 15.00 per person for non-NKC-members. This includes coffee and tea and the usual informal lunch. An additional entrance fee of € 5.00 per person is applicable for those participating in the speedcubing event on the Saturday.

Geert

Sweet. I can't wait.

In the school I will go to, I might find a friend with a driver's license that could be intersted in going. Can you please keep me a space? I'll give confirmation in september or early october and if I go I will definitely bring some customs!

Greg

I really would like to go there!
As every year it will be fun, I know!

I hope I can go another year.

Hey everyone,

I have a couple of questions about the upcoming DCD, mainly how I'm going to get there (hense why I need UK members to respond to this thread). So, to the UK members who are going, could you please tell me which airport you're using to get there (and what days you are going)? If I can't find an airport south enough, I probably won't be able to go.

If I somehow do get there, which hotels will people be staying at?

I'm in a bit of a frantic rush to get this organised now, and any questions answered would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks,

Luke

I would be quite interested as well. I doubt that I could make it though?

Robert

Hello Luke (and others),

The location of the DCD 2011 is in Eindhoven, which has a small airport of its own.
There are direct flight connections between Eindhoven and some cities in the UK. There is e.g. a direct flight between London and Eindhoven.

There are several hotels in Eindhoven which are used by the participants, e.g. the Holiday Inn hotel which is just around the corner of the location of the DCD.

A final remark:
- The DCD is an 'on invitation only' event. So, please apply for an invitation in advance in case you would like to participate (again see the original thread).

Geert

It will be cheaper for me to travel to Amsterdam and then take a train to Eindhoven. At the moment the whole trip (including food and hotels) is coming out at around £550 (although probably more). For those Brits who have gone before, does this price sound normal (that price is for two people - me and my Mum). If anyone has a cheaper alternative, I would really appreciate it.

I'm going

I just started to organize my trip.
So it is 99% that I'll be there!

Well, it doesn't look like I'm able to go, unless I can take a cheap flight to France and hitch with Greg.

Well, you could always take the car and drive there. That's what the channel tunnel is for

http://maps.google.nl/maps?hl=nl&q=fran ... CEkQ8gEwAw

It's 'just' 331 miles / 530 km which is a 4-6 hour drive, which is probably worth the 2 day event (assuming you participate in the Dutch Open). This should be doable right?

I believe there is some kind of fee for taking the channel tunnel, but how high could that be.

Hope you can make it!

With our juicy cars and the Chunnel fee, it would cost about the same as the flight to Amsterdam. The only money it would save is the train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, but then I would have to tolerate a miserable and grumpy Mum for the weekend. I really need to try my best to get to school the next day as well.

No offence but I love this comment. A free service to Europe would be wonderful but like all transport you do of course have to pay. The tunnel cost a fortune to build and then there's the trains carrying the cars and people to pay for.
An alternative many people forget when travelling from the UK to Europe is a ferry. It's far more enjoyable and less hassle than flying.
For hotels in the centre of Eindhoven- http://www.booking.com/district/nl/eind ... aid=333634

In our experiences on going to holiday in France, the Chunnel is much better. Nevertheless, driving isn't an option either way.

I took this from another thread:
The DCD takes place during Sunday.
I can check-in on Saturday by 14:00. That would be my earliest point in time.

The easiest place to find would be the lobby of the Holiday-Inn where many of us will meet anyway.
Any other thoughts/suggestions?

Andreas

I'll be there at Saturday, and take part in the speedcubing event.
But of course I would love to meet with you.
Holiday-Inn lobby sound great!
(I only need to know the address. But probably it won't be a problem to find.)

I'll be there on saturday, about 14h (2 p.m) to watch the competition and maybe check out shapeways if they have some sort of shop. Maybe we should bring a few customs to the lobby for pre-DCD stuff, maybe show some mechanisms off and discuss.

Regarding the (in the meantime) deleted message in this topic about the location of the DCD a small remark: there is a deliberate reason for not mentioning the exact address of the location of the DCD at the internet and at this twisty website.

Thanks,
Geert

I am sorry.

Thank you very much for sending out the email invitations! Looking forward to meet you next week!

Am I right that exactly that Sunday there will be the clock reset?
We can sleep 1 more hour at the hotel!?

Yes, on Sunday the Daylight Saving Time in Europe will end, means at 3am the clock will be set back to 2am (only once ), and October 30th will have 25 hours. A very good selection for the Cube Day

Absolutely! I vote to have it this Sunday every year.
P.S. Will hotels charge 4.167% extra?

Unfortunately I noticed, that I forgot my camera when we were half the way to Eindhoven.
But there have been so many people around taking pictures, that I really hope to see a lot of nice images soon!

I was again a wonderful event meeting lots of friends and having a really nice day.
A big THANK YOU to Geert, his family and all the supporters around it for the whole organisation and execution.

- Frank -

WHAT did Geert organize

I really need to read slower. (Um, here they do have executions that one could attend if one wanted to...)

Thank you so much to Geert for organizing this, he's a really great guy and I met lots of nice people including many fellow designers =)

My best holidays this year so far, even though they were short

Many thanks to all participants !

pictures, stories, PUZZLES please!

Thanks to my wife, here are some pictures. Enjoy!
DCD 2011 in Eindhoven

Here are the lectures:
Lecture from Oskar van Deventer about "Designing Twisty Puzzles": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Ehaai9y-s
(same lecture as at IPP31-Berlin, see also http://twistypuzzles.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22196)
Lecture from Sjaak Griffioen about "Fold-a-Cube": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MUWmbEpBWk

Thank you Georges

Geert, a big "thank you" to you and your organizing committee for organizing this exciting event! Met many nice puzzle colleagues and of course old and new puzzles there.

Thanks Georges

And it was great again at DCD. We got to see a 6.41 solve at the finals (new Eropean record)! I found some nice puzzles:

Thanks Georges

Returning back this morning at the Mikrocentrum building (for work this time) was with a bit of a strange feeling. Nothing seemed to remind of the event of the weekend, all 50+ tables were put back to their original spots, no sign at all of the 850 breads (buns), 90 litres of soup, thousands of puzzles etc, nor of the more than 200 participants.
Organising the event is done with an entire team starting on the Friday with re-arranging everything, Mikrocentrum colleagues who are helping (especially Wim and Fenny), the organisation of the DCD/NKC, my family helping out, the lecturers, all the people helping to get things back on their original places on Sunday evening etc etc. I would like to thank all involved for making this possible. It is a true team effort. We are glad that speedcubers as well as collectors (some do both) were present in such large numbers.

For me personally, there were a lot of highlights of which I would like to point out a couple.

First of all, there was Georges Helm together with his wife Heidi (thank you for all the great pictures). Prior to the DCD Georges had mentioned to me that he would bring 5 large boxes with puzzles to the DCD which he would not like to bring back home afterwards and which he would like to give away for free. We discussed how we could best organise this in such a way that many could benefit from this.
It was arranged that some special puzzles were donated to the price winners of the speedcubing competitions and that the remaining puzzles were to be given away to all participants of the DCD. Those remaining 200+ puzzles were put onto two tables near the entrance and it was explained and announced that these were donated for free by Georges. This was announced in the speedcubing room (first floor) first and subsequently in the room with the ‘market’ with all the tables (ground floor). In ‘no-time’ the entire building (more than 200 people) appeared almost empty and almost everybody appeared to be located around the mentioned two tables. I had the feeling that almost everybody was able to take 1 or a couple of puzzles to their liking. Donating all these fantastic puzzles was very well appreciated by all participants. On behalf of all participants, we would like to thank Georges very, very much for such a fantastic generosity.

A selection (not all!!!) of the puzzles donated for free by Georges Helm.



I believe that the aspect of donating puzzles for the Dutch Open speedcubing competition at the DCD competition by (other) DCD participants might be something which we could repeat in the coming years, of course involving others too who might donate puzzles for this purpose. So, Georges may well have started a new ‘traditition’.

Another highlight was the special arrangement by Jan Zoon.
At the DCD in 2009 Jan had mentioned to me that he was working on a (non-twisty) ‘cathedral’ puzzle consisting of more than 45,000 cubes in ‘polycube cofiguration’ and that he wanted to display this at the DCD. He repeated mentioning this last year and worked on building the puzzle this year.
It is a masterpiece of design and construction that received a lot of well-deserved attention.


Thirdly, and perhaps I should have started with this, was the general atmosphere, the energy and enthusiasm of everybody involved which was again fantastic. I often mention that apart from collecting puzzles and playing with puzzles, it is even more important to belong to a community of people sharing the same passion as well as meeting friends from all over the world of this community. This e.g. involves people who you consider friends already for years (e.g. because of e-mails, exchanges etc) but who you might have never met before. Others you may just meet once per year at a meeting like the DCD. This is something every participant is contributing too and for me personally it is the driving force for co-organising the DCD’s.


The speedcubing part of the DCD contained several competitions. Mats Valk won this Dutch Open 2011 with an average of 9.34 seconds. Milán Baticz finished second (10.22) and Maarten Smit finished third (10.39). There was one European record: Mats Valk on the Rubik's Cube 6.41 (single attempt). There was also a special new speedcubing event. It turned out that there were 2 Lego Robots at the DCD, one made by Frank Tiex (Germany) and one made by Jean-Louis Mathieu (France).

Possibly the world’s first ever competition between such robots was held on the Sunday. This competition was won by Jean-Louis Mathieu


Some pictures of the event:

It has become a tradition to illustrate the badges of the DCD event by means of some puzzle pictures. This started when Constantinos Verdes was present at the DCD in 2007 and continued with puzzles of Lee Tutt (2008), Ernö Rubik and Uwe Meffert (2009) and Ola (OLZ) in 2010. For this year, we choose 2 recent great puzzles designed and made by Tom van der Zanden; his fantastic 4x5x6 (very well designed and made and great turning!!) and his incredible Multidodecahedron.

Strangely enough, we have not yet chosen pictures of puzzles by Oskar van Deventer for the badges. Perhaps his rate of designing and producing new puzzles is too low (??), but I have the feeling that he might come up with a couple of more puzzles suitable for this purpose in the future.


In the tradition of a.o. Andreas and Claus, we also had some group pictures made of puzzles, e.g. of the Jugo Flower puzzles.
There are 2 original designs, the "Colours" (COCKTAIL) version (shown left) and the "Butterflies" (PAPILLION) design (right).

Wil Strijbos decided to open the mechanism of his Papillion puzzle and he had a small series of duplications made in metal (as was explained and shown already before here at twisty).


Nicole Tiex (left), Frank Tiex solving the '4cubes puzzle by Tony Fsher and Oskar van Deventer' and Karin Hellings finishing the last layers of the Petaminx


Geert

Wow! Wish I could have been there! Perhaps next year.

-Eitan

I guess I have to get over there again one day

The DCD 2011 was a very nice event! So a big thanks to Geert and his family and all the others who organized and participated in this event.
I met again a lot of cube minded people from several countries.
Since Sunday I am the lucky owner of a ‘4 cubes’. Great to see the other wonderful designs and meeting the designers!
The 6.41 solve by Mats Valk that made him nr. 2 in the worldranking of 3x3 was also great to see.

I hope to be back next year and I am already looking forward to it!

Paul

As sad as I am to miss DCD (it has been four years!) I confess I am happy every time I see pictures and each year recognize more and more faces.
Thanks for organizing it Geert and thanks for the great pictures Georges!

Dave

I really enjoyed the DCD 2011 as well as the Dutch Open competition.
Great thanks to all who organized it for us!

I have returned home with some great stuff. (see photo below) Most of them are from Georges (around 80%)
It was really good to meet with some old friends, and all those familiar faces.
I'm really happy to meet with Greg, one of my returning costumer. Since it was his first time to show his incredible puzzles to us (see Ayano's photo below).

I'm also happy about my results at the speedcubing competition. I have reached a 3rd place from Magic, and I could solve the 3x3x3 cube in 18.94 It is not my best, but still, it is my one and only 18.xy time. (my competition best is 17.75)

And now the pictures:





And some pictures from Ayano's Facebook album:

Geert, I would like to thank you, your family and your team for another perfectly organised Dutch Cube Day! We all enjoyed it a lot, met many old friends, and found new ones!

It is amazing to see so many brilliant puzzle designers within a few square meters - and what they invented! 3D printing is really boosting new ideas, accompanied by wonderful puzzles made or modified by hand, and I saw really new ingenieus designs, twisty and non-twisty. We had fun!

Georges, a special thank you for your generous gift of donating a part of your collection to the community, in particular to the young people. That was a really nice idea which will be remembered. I also want to thank you for kindly bringing the puzzles which I had ordered in your shop prior to the Cube Day.

Video of Mats Valk's ofiicial 6.41 solve at the Dutch Open 2011

Wow... I wish I could have been there... Too bad I live in America....

Those puzzles look amazing.

Is there any bending of space time for so many physic-defying puzzles being in such close proximity?

With close up and slow mo- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxbT0Wfr6bE

I blinked and missed the slow-mo.

With these times shouldn't they be using timers with 3 dps?

For all those who missed the event- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_4IcBwSk1M

Hmm... I feel a bit of déjà vu after watching that video...

Great video Tony, but now I really wish I could have gone!