The humble Rubik’s Cube has been a staple in classic puzzles since 1974 when it was invented by Hungarian sculptor Ern? Rubik.Since then, it has become somewhat of a competition to break the world record for the fastest time in solving the Rubik’s Cube.
Last year, a 14-year old boy officially broke the world record in November by solving a Rubik’s Cube in 4.904 seconds. The event was captured by Guinness World Records, and beat the previous record of 5.25 seconds.
But now, engineers have build a Rubik’s Cube-solving machine that can blow a human’s performance out of the water. The machine, which uses 3D-printed cube-gripping tips, can solve a Rubik’s Cube that has been jumbled up in under 1.2 seconds.
The machine’s fastest time was 1.019 seconds, but it also had other times like 1.196 seconds, 1.152 seconds, 1.047 seconds. Check out the video of it in action below:
Created by Jay Flatland and Paul Rose, the machine is built out of 3D-printed frames, has cameras, motors, and even computerized technology based off of the Linux operating system that recognizes the colors of the Rubik’s Cube and makes decisions quickly based on predetermined algorithms to solve the cube quickly.
Six holes were drilled into each of the sides of the Rubik’s Cube to make way for the machine’s grips, which are used to suspend the cube in the air while the machine rotates its various moving parts to solve it. The machine used the Kociemba algorithm to solve the cube each time.
Whenever the machine needs to solve the cube, the cameras are all covered, and a human scrambles the cube to ensure that the machine doesn’t have any unfair advantages.
Since the current world record for a machine solving a Rubik’s Cube is 3.253 seconds, these young engineers are in the process of applying for Guinness World Records to see the machine in action so they’ll get to have their names written in the history books.
Source: Jay Flatland/YouTube