WACO, Texas — What started as a Christmas gift turned into a world-class opportunity for one Tennyson Middle School student.

Wesley Zuniga, a seventh-grader, traveled to Seattle this summer to attend the 2025 Rubik’s WCA World Championship for speedcubing — a global competition where participants race to solve the famous puzzle in record time.

Zuniga received his first Rubik’s Cube for Christmas in 2022 and became determined to solve it.

“I thought the Rubik’s Cube was really cool, but I could never solve it,” he said. “I looked at a tutorial and thought, ‘I’m going to do this!’”

According to his mother, Melody Zuniga, that determination quickly turned into a passion. Wesley spent hours watching YouTube tutorials and studying different solving strategies.

“Wesley went down a rabbit ho

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