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Lego Robot Solves Any Rubik's Cube In 12 Seconds
kkleiner writes "Cube Stormer is the latest creation from Mike Dobson, aka Robotics Solutions, and not only is it made entirely out of Legos, it can solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than twelve seconds. Often it can finish in less than five! This thing looks bad-ass and is incredible to watch."
And heres me expecting to see a robot that can quickly rearrange the stickers.
Cool, just make sure it doesn't mistake your head for a Rubik's Cube. :)
Think 99% of the world population can't do that :P
and not only is it made entirely out of Legos
It's "Lego". Lego bricks. Lego blocks. Lego. Not Legos. Lego.
Thanks
Most if it is just giant specialized pieces from Lego that are only usable in this one kit.
Lame.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
For Singularity reference.
of our new Lego robot masters.
That thing got four arms. Come on, that is cheating.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
All I needed was 6 different paint brushes dipped in 6 different colours.
Unfortunately, the linked to post and video doesn't give much details. Naively, I expect that the computer program is first figuring out very quickly what the series of movements to solve the cube and then implementing those. There are around 4 * 10^19 possible configurations for a Rubik's cube, but the group theory allows one to work out what steps to take without having to do very exhaustive searches since the Rubik's group is very well-behaved. However, this assumes one is in an actually solvable configuration. I'd be curious to find out if they've debugged the device well enough to make sure it doesn't hang or get in some infinite loop if one gives it an unsolvable cube (not all possible permutations of squares are solvable. Most trivially, edges need to stay on edges, corners on corners and centers on centers. But some configurations are still not solvable. For example, if one swaps two center stickers it isn't hard to see that that lays outside the Rubik's group of reachable permutations).
It has 8 "fingers", but 0 arms.
I want to know what happens if you break the cube up and reassemble it so it can't be solved. I'm pretty sure that was possible. If it's not I'm sure it could be accomplished by breaking two cubes and creatively swapping the parts over.
it can solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than twelve seconds.
Firstly, I've never seen a 3x3 Rubik's cube. If such a thing existed, wouldn't that be dramatically simpler than a normal Cube? Finally, if it's only 3x3, wouldn't that make it a two-dimensional square, rather than a cube?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Am I the only one who thinks it looks a bit like ATLAS from the LHC??
Which makes it even more AWESOME.
Here's a direct link to the video, since the blog embedding it seems to be on the way to going down: CubeStormer
Sturgeon was an optimist.
I'm not sure what's more impressive, the one that solves the cube or the one that does sudoku. While solving the sudoku is trivial, the OCR it performs appears interesting, and to say the least, programming it to write with a pencil must have been incredibly tough.
the thing is that its just using an simple algorithm that's very easy to get a hold of(via google). in fact the only reason why i see that this beat the human world record is because it has hands on every side(except the front) of the cube. cool yes, but a massive breakthrough in robotics, not so much.
I have one I HAVEN'T solved in 30 years. Young kids, always wanting to do everything in a rush...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"...what's the point, man?" The Dude
http://legorobotcomics.com/
Eat sleep die
Once, I peeled off the three decals on the corner of a cube and stuck them in different places to try to stump it. It just peeled them back off and stuck them on in the right places.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
Wow. That site has more third party Javascript scripts included than I've ever seen. It scrolls off my screen when listed in NoScript. *That's* why NoScript is good. :)
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with my next Rubics cube order? I hope so, I don't think I've ever solved a Rubics cube without pliers and a screwdriver (flathead).
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
The video is really nice to watch, and when I show it to (non-technical) friends I can hear their jaws hitting the floor...
But the solution to a Rubik's cube has been known for many years. There's even a screen saver, for pity's sake! Attaching a robot to perform the manipulation of a real cube is pretty much an obvious step. Making it from Lego is probably simpler than machining custom parts from an aluminium block.
When they use Lego to re-create the logic elements, however, I will be very impressed. I've been thinking about the concept of mechanical computers since reading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
This guy did it a while back with considerably less hardware, though it takes his rig a bit more time to get the puzzle done ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htnL1KTpaY8
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would peel off one of the yellow stickers and replace it with a red one from another rubix cube rendering it impossible to solve.
I wonder what it would do then?
Would it keep trying to solve it or say it is solved when it wasn't?
I didn't need to see the rest ;-)
5 seconds of action in a minute and a half show.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I can't understand why this is a "Lego" robot.
The pads are Lego the rest of the Lego is total cheap fluff. If I stick a few pieces of Lego on my car does that mean I drive a Lego car?
Maybe it is some cheap promo.
What am I missing here?
CC
...should have been implemented as a difference engine constructed out of Legos. THEN I'm impressed.
Isn't it time to get out of your parent's basement...
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Okay, it's not FAKE but it's completely and entirely dishonest. I can solve the rubik's cube in about 20 seconds over an average of 12 solves, so I have a thorough understanding of human speed-solving. Computers, on the other hand, would go for some idea solution that a human brain is not capable of producing. This is especially true since the robot in this video moves EXTREMELY slowly, about 1-2 turns per second on average. Human hands can EASILY sustain 3-5 moves per second. This computer, to solve the Rubik's cube in 2 seconds as in the first part of the video, or 4 seconds as in the second part of the video, would have to be able to solve the cube in 4-10 moves. The optimal solution for solving a rubik's cube has already been bounded at about 18 moves (look it up).
Still don't believe me? Start watching and replay the video from 30s onwards. Freeze the video when the timer starts at 0:00 and look at the cube, it is actually a single 90 degree rotation away from a fully solved state.
The 4s video beginning at 1:07 shows several rotations of the WHOLE CUBE without making any actual moves, then does 4 turns and solve it, which means that it wasn't anywhere near a scrambled state to begin with.
More evidence that it's fake? Is there any information on this other than a 2 minute video on youtube?
Now they'll have robots put the cubes in order for shipping. That's a lot of jobs...
As will I, when I see one that can build other Lego robot masters.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
It's made entirely of Legos. Except for the computer.
You know, I have a great Lego pizza oven. It's made entirely of Legos. Well, except for the metal box, heating element, wires, plug, and a few other things, of course. This is obviously some new use of the word "entirely".
they rebelled... they evolved... and they have a plan: to solve pointless puzzles and make us feel inferior because they can do it faster than us.
Um
It's made of LEGO dude.
Being made of Lego raises the coolness of an object to it's own power. So if a machine solving a Rubik's Cube had a coolness factor of say, 100, then a machine solving a Rubik's Cube MADE OF LEGO would be 100 ^ 100, or:
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
I mean I don't even care if it's fake... it's still epickly cool.
If I see one more person saying "legos" instead of "lego" I will gouge their eyes out.
You could build a robot to do the eye-gouging for you. You could even make it out of Legos....
Augggh!!! I'm blind!!
Have gnu, will travel.
I loved my Legos, still have a bin full somewhere in my closet...
...and the robot ACTUATES the solution. You enter the starting state of the cube and the program figures out the solution. Different than the robot solving the puzzle.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Pervert.
If that machine is made entirely of legos, then I can build a car entirely out of sticks found in my yard. If you don't count the bits in the cube-solver that actually do the work, the computer, then I won't count the engine, drivetrain, and tube frame of my car. Terribly, utterly, and entirely unremarkable. But good job to the builders anyway, I guess.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Mostly this is just a demonstration of how a computer can, from the initial scrambled state, immediately see clear through to a solution in a relatively short path, whereas humans can't visualize a whole solve instantly, and so they take it in steps, at a significant cost to solution length. Comparing the two videos you can see that the human is much faster than the robot at making sequences of turns, but must make many more moves than the robot.
It's a machine. I'd expect a robot to be vaguely humanoid shaped.
Let me know when someone programs a Rubik's cube to build something out of legos.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
that is all you actually need to solve the Rubiks cube
Any actual solver of the cube will tell you this is absolute bollocks - there are many configurations of the cube with 3 "sides" visible from one corner to appear solved that do not constitute a completely solved cube. Therefore, you must absolutely see more than 3 sides before you can solve a cube. With a "picture" cube it is even possible to only rotate the 3 non-visible centers and return the edges and corners into their correct locations.
Hand in your geek card - you are a disgrace. It would appear the last time you used your brain was 7 years ago too.
Entirely made of legos? I haven't seen the log laser reader or the lego computer before. I better go through my son's toys before he burns his eyes out.
That thing got four arms. Come on, that is cheating.
Have it compete twice against a wookie...
mind you, the cubic solver is nice looking and has a lot of attention paid to making it look good, but it seems to be using a netbook. The sudoko seems to be using ONLY its onboard lego controller, and it has that human touch of writing with a real pen that makes it spooky. The math may be simpler, the robotics seems far more complex. I can almost imagine that robot driving around looking for dropped newspapers to solve the puzzles :P
The sudoko also wins for me because while all the principles involved are simple enough, getting it all to work together so smoothly is anything but.
Cubestorm for looks and sheer speed, sudoko robot for neatness and purity.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'll get you started. Yes, whoosh, I know. There's really nothing wrong with the phrase "could care less". Yes, if you deconstruct it, it describes an unremarkable situation, but the same can be said of many English expressions, e.g. "head over heels" or "cheap at half the price". Nonetheless these are all established phrases in the language with commonly understood meanings, without requiring deconstruction. Language usage is based on "common understanding", not prescriptionism or a logical gold-standard.
There's an iphone app for that!
(for solving the cubes, that is)