The World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship will be held in Spain this month, and one UC Berkeley grad student is hoping to bring home the win.
"I usually do three puzzles every evening after work, three 500-piece puzzles. I try to get as many as I can on the weekends. I meet up with my puzzle friends on the weekends and we have days-long puzzle sessions," Hannah Doyle, a professional speed puzzler, told CBS News Bay Area.
Doyle's passion sparked about a year ago when she saw some speed puzzling video competitions online.
"Bought [a puzzle] and timed myself," she said. "My best time ever on a 500-piece is a little over 30 minutes."
That is when she pieced together her new hobby.
Doyle has won several competitions since she began speed puzzling, including placing second in nationals last year. Most recently, she puzzled for 12 hours straight with her team, "Girls in STEMP."
The "P" stands for puzzles.
When Doyle is not fine-tuning her puzzling skills, she dedicates her life to STEM.
"My project is like human vision, so we're looking into ways that we can stimulate people's retinas with highly specialized laser systems," Doyle said.
She is a fifth-year PHD student and hopes to graduate this academic year.
"It requires pretty remarkable visual acuity and a lot of manual dexterity," Becca Taylor, vice president of the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association, told CBS News Bay Area.
Taylor placed first in last year's World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship.
"We were the first ever American gold medalists. And two of the four came from here, the Bay Area," she added.
"Of all of the top 10 in each of the three divisions, the Bay Area had the highest representation of trophies geographically within the U.S. So, we had trophies coming home in all three divisions, which is pretty great! I was very proud. The puzzling community in this area is bursting at the seams," Taylor said.
While Taylor will not be competing in this year's world competition, she said she is excited to support her fellow puzzlers from the Bay Area.
"I have an area on this table taped off, so this is like the regulation area that they're going to use in the World Championships. So, I try to recreate the conditions as closely as possible to like what it's going to be like during the competition," Doyle said.
Officials from the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation said there will be 72 countries represented in this year's competition.
"We're very excited about this edition, which continues to break participation records," Alfonso Alvarez-Ossorio of the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation, told CBS News Bay Area. "But there are still millions of people around the world assembling jigsaw puzzles who are unaware of this wonderful event."
The competition will be held in Valladolid, Spain, from September 15 to September 21.
As for Doyle, she hopes she can be an inspiration to others who may end up finding a fulfilling hobby.
"It's always possible to find something that you're passionate about as long as you just keep trying new things and keep experimenting," Doyle said.