ADAMS — It’s hard enough to solve a Rubik’s Cube in under a minute. How do you unscramble it while blindfolded?

That feat was being repeated over and over by competitors taking part in a sanctioned Cube New England competition at Berkshire Arts and Technology Public Charter School in downtown Adams. Organizers said it’s the first competition of its kind held at BART, and the first in the county in a decade.

Taking off his blindfold and looking at his time, Elijah Rain Phelps celebrates his record-setting score in the blindfolded 3x3 puzzle cube event at a World Cube Association competition at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams on Saturday.

About 60 participants of all ages from across New England — though mostly younger — spent Saturday solving cube and pyramid-shaped three-dimensional puzzles as quickly as possible, and socializing with each other between competitions.

Competitions held in school gymnasiums are usually loud. But this one was different: All that was heard amid the silence was the whirring of plastic, as competitors spun the puzzles’ moving parts in their fingers with remarkable precision and dexterity.

Competitors swiftly spin and twist the edges of puzzle cubes in timed heats during a World Cube Association puzzle cube competition at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams on Saturday.

Gordon Holey, an eighth-grade math teacher at BART, was the event organizer as well as one of the older participants. His initial annoyance with students bringing the three-dimensional puzzles to class turned to curiosity.

With blindfolds on and assistants holding opaque cards in front of them for insurance, participants compete in the blindfolded 3x3 Rubik’s cube event at a World Cube Association competition at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams on Saturday.

“I was like, you know, ‘I should embrace this.’ And I had a scrambled [cube] on my bedside table, and I said ‘I'm gonna figure out how to solve this,’” Holey said. “I quickly became really obsessed with it. And I love teaching the kids how to [solve the puzzles] faster and faster.”

That was about 50 competitions ago for Holey.

From an education perspective, the puzzles offer real-life examples of recognizing patterns and solving problems with applied algorithms, Holey said. And they also produce community and a friendly sense of camaraderie among competitors who meet at competitions and become friends online, he added.

One of those students is Simon Garnish of Lee, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at BART. This was his first competition. Like many others, he received a Rubik’s Cube as a gift and got hooked on figuring out how to solve it.

“I looked up a tutorial on how to do it in like five minutes. Then I saw a video of someone like, solving it in like six seconds. And I was like, ‘how do you do that?’" Garnish said.

Berkshire County last hosted sanctioned Cube New England competitions in 2014 and in 2016 at Williams College. Ric Donati of Williamstown was an organizer of those events — and a Mount Greylock Regional School student at the time.

Now 25, Donati decided to give the blindfolded competition a try. He and Sufyaan Syed, 13, of Cheshire, Conn., were seated at the same table during the blindfold competition. Both following a similar method: They studied their scrambled cubes for a little less than two minutes, taking mental notes of where the moves needed to be made. Then they made sure their eyes were covered — a mask for Donati, a hooded sweatshirt work backwards for Syed — and got to work.

Syed and Donati both explained that they assign each section of the cube a letter, and then combine those letters to make words and phrases that they can remember as they’re moving the pieces while blindfolded.

Competitors from around the northeast traveled to the Berkshires to take part in a World Cube Association puzzle cube event at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams on Saturday.

“I don't really think about the cube when I'm actually solving. I think about my story that I made up while I was looking at the cube and apply it,” Syed said.

What’s even more amazing is this was just the second time Syed ever tried solving a cube blindfolded. That would explain the proud smile he gave his father, Sameer Syed, halfway across the room when he finished the puzzle.

“I just learned how to do this, like, 30 minutes ago,” he said.

With his sweatshirt on backwards to act as a blindfold, 13-year-old Sufyaan Syed competes in the blindfolded 3x3 puzzle cube event at a World Cube Association competition at Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School in Adams on Saturday.

Each of the six competitions is judged based on five solution attempts. The fastest and slowest times are discarded and the average of the three remaining times is used to determine placement.

What’s fun about it?

"The community is great,” Ric Donati said. “It's always fun just competing against yourself. And it’s more fun than watching TV.”

Elijah Rain Phelps, 18, a student at St. Michael's College in Burlington, Vt., also said the people are what make the sport fun.

"Everyone's kind. Everyone is welcoming. There's cubers of all different ages. I've seen grandparents compete. I've seen four-year-olds compete," Phelps said. "I made a lot of friends through cubing. And if it wasn't for them — if I was just coming to competitions by myself every time — it would not be nearly as enjoyable."

It’s also a family activity, as Donati’s parents, Anne and Martino, were also on hand. Anne managed to lower her 3x3 cube solving time to a personal best of 44 seconds.

“I’m not competing with anybody but it’s my best time,” she said.