Jigsaw Puzzle Championship Coming to Campus

If you’re feeling puzzled about how to spend your remaining weeks of summer, a special event on campus might answer that question.  

Psychology professors EB Caron, Margaret Tarampi, Natasha Segool, and Wednesday Bushong are bringing the USA Northeast Regional Speed Puzzling Championship to the University of Hartford on Saturday, Aug. 12. Individuals and teams will come together to try to be the fastest in completing a jigsaw puzzle. 

Registration is open now to anyone who wants to join, and there are some spots still up for grabs. 

The event will have various youth and adult divisions, a puzzle swap, and prizes. 

Caron has competed in championships already, including last year’s national competition in San Diego. While she loves it as a hobby, she also engages her UHart statistics students in analyzing data she’s collected on her puzzling.

Tarampi has previously done research on spatial cognition in dancers and architects, and when Caron joined UHart's psychology department last year, Tarampi saw an opportunity for a new collaborative research project. Together with Segool and Bushong, and with the help of Arts & Sciences Deans Funds to purchase puzzles and send them around the country, they are beginning research on the cognitive abilities of puzzlers.