The world’s fastest Rubik cube solver is made from Lego

http://successfulsoftware.net/2012/10/10/the-worlds-fastest-rubik-cube-solver-is-made-from-lego/

by hermitcrab • 14 years ago

98 17 14 years ago

BitMastro3• 14 years ago

Why QuickTime? I wanted to understand why it doesn't work every time, but I don't want to install another plugin just for a single video.

hermitcrab2• 14 years ago

Because that is the format my compact camera takes. Sorry.

BitMastro3• 14 years ago

I see. Could you possibly upload to youtube or vimeo? I tried streaming using vlc and it's still too slow.

markyc• 14 years ago

didn't run on my ubuntu, but pics look great!

stephengillie• 14 years ago

This must be the same group that made the first Cubestormer a couple of years ago. This one looks even more incredible.

modernerd• 14 years ago

YouTube clip of a five-second solve here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0LfkIut2M

YouTube clip with some background from the designer and developer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHXTEBihbN8

peapicker• 14 years ago

Not bad, 5.27 seconds!

The fastest human, Felix Zemdegs, is 5.66 seconds... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v_Km6cv6DU

Zolt• 14 years ago

Question: is there an agreed upon starting position of the pieces when having these types of competitions? Ie, both the robot and the human had to solve the exact same problem?

Thanks

thechut• 14 years ago

I would assume in these cases it is not the same starting position. A competition like that could be done, but the reality is that it doesn't matter. The way this robot and the fastest human speedcubers solve the cube is most likely very similar and either based on the ZB[1] or original Fridrich method (sometimes refereed to as F2L)[2] method of solving which requires the use of 100s of different algorithms. Because of this, solutions will usually take a similar amount of time and require a similar number of moves to solve the cube.

[1] http://www.zborowski.republika.pl/expert3x3x3method.html [2] http://www.speedsolving.com/wiki/index.php/Fridrich

AlwaysBCoding• 14 years ago

In Rubik's cube competitions I think you solve the cube 10 times, and then the fastest and slowest times are dropped and the remaining 8 are averaged together, and that's how they get those times. It's not perfectly fair, since the starting permutations are different for different contestants, but it does a good job at figuring out who the fastest solvers are.

Laremere• 14 years ago

Note that this comparison isn't even fair. Humans will be given the cube and are given time to inspect it and solve it in their mind before actually starting the clock and moving the sides of the cube. On the other hand robots have their clock start as soon as they start inspecting it.

Jun8• 14 years ago

Fastest robot cube solver. The time is slightly better (5.27s vs 5.66s) than the world champion human solver but taking into account that it sometimes fails (due to hardware, which is the fail shown, don't know if the sw fails, too) the average solve time may be larger.

rm999• 14 years ago

The world record for average solve time (over five solves) is 7.56 seconds. I think 5.66s is abnormally fast I think.

Here's a video of the 5.66s solve: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v_Km6cv6DU

hkmurakami• 14 years ago

I think this is the exact kind of thing that would get 10 year olds excited about math, science, and engineering. :)

The world’s fastest Rubik cube solver is made from Lego

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