Here's The Remarkable Way Two Men Found To Solve A Rubik's Cube In A Second

by N/A, 9 years ago | 2 min read

Two guys invented a robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube, because that's what science needs. While that's not entirely far-fetched, just wait and see how quickly the bot can solve the classic novelty puzzle.

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Jay Flatland and Paul Rose are a robotics team based in Kansas. They've built a robot that can solve a Rubik's Cube in approximately one second.

This is just as impressive as it sounds, and they intend to shoot for a world record.

Here's the robot in action.

The robot's frame was 3D printed. The cube's sides are rotated with "step remoters" that have specially 3D printed feet.

The feet fit within carefully drilled holes on all six sides of the cube.

Some people on YouTube seem to think that this invasive procedure of modifying the cube somehow makes it less legitimately solved. However, people who compete in Rubik's Cube solving contests apparently cut some corners, and it's well within the rules. You'll have to decide for yourself on this, though–here's a complete list of rules and regulations from the World Cube Association.

The team has also rigged up a set of four webcams that read the position of the colors on the cube's sides.

In conjunction with an app they've built, this allows the computer to tell exactly how many (and which) revolutions to make in order to solve the cube. There's more to it than this, but I'll leave the full explanation to Jay and Paul, which you can see in the video at the end of the article.

So far, the robot's been regularly solving the cube at a time of just over one second.

That's pretty remarkable, but the two hope to get it down to under one second.

They'll be officially trying for a world record soon, so stay tuned for updates.

Think they can do it?

Best of luck, Jay and Paul!

Watch the full video here.