How college students built the fastest Rubik’s Cube-solving robot yet
1 min read
Summary
A team of students from Purdue University in the US has broken the record for the fastest time solving a Rubik’s cube with a robot.
Their custom machine completed the task in a record-breaking 0.103 seconds, using a combination of a strong, customised cube, a camera setup that enables the machine to see quickly, and a technique used by human speed cubers.
Robotic cube-solving is now fast enough that the key to breaking records is improving the machine’s perception time, rather than simply making the robot’s physical operations faster.
The students’ robot is called Purdubik’s Cube and uses software that takes into account the robot’s unique abilities in how it can manipulate the cube.
While the current record seems impossibly fast, the students believe a carbon-fibre cube could be developed that would enable the robot to break its own record.