Solving the Rubik's Cube

Earlier this year, a 15-year-old kid set a new record by solving a 3x3x3 cube in merely 6.24 seconds. As I said before, that time is so short that the average person might not even have the time to take in what he has to do to solve the puzzle.

It’s not all about humans wanting to set a Rubik’s Cube record, though. There have also been a series of machines – robots, if you will – trying to pit their stuff against what humans have brought to the table. Arguably, at the end of the day, humans are still responsible for these machines. Remember Ruby the robot who was able to solve the cube in about 10 seconds? She got a lot of attention for her feat, which is not much compared to what Feliks was able to do, but excellent for a robot.

Ruby’s time on the podium has expired, though, with the creation of CubeStormer II. Not only has this machine set a new Rubik’s Cube record for robots – it also has beaten the humans! Taking only 5.35 seconds to solve the cube, CubeStormer II ought to be every Rubik’s Cube enthusiast’s role model.

CubeStormer II was designed and built by Mike Dobson and David Gilday, who must be grinning smugly about their creation, which, by the way, is constructed from LEGO. More info on the construction of CubeStormer II:

The mechanics are constructed entirely from LEGO, including four MINDSTORMS NXT kits, with the addition of a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone running a custom Android app as the robot’s brain. Both the MINDSTORMS NXT kits and the Samsung Galaxy SII use a variety of ARM –based processors.

Here’s something even more impressive:

Human speedcubers’ solve times only include the physical manipulation of the cube and don’t include some time which is allowed to “inspect” the cube beforehand. Times recorded by CubeStormer II are for the total solve including: image capture, software solution calculation and physical solve.

I guess that machines have won this round. In the meantime, humans can practice learning how to solve Rubik’s Cube in 20 moves.

Here’s CubeStormer II in action.

Photo via Steve Rhodes

Enter Chris Myles with his customized Rubik’s Cube, which is inspired by Portal 2. For non-gamers like me, Portal 2 is a puzzle game which utilizes the first person perspective. If I understand it correctly, the objective of the game is to solve the series of puzzles that your character will face throughout the game. You have to navigate the various rooms, and you have to use the portal guns to teleport from one place to another. That being said, I have no experience with the game as I previously stated. Still, one look at Chris Myle’s handiwork, and I am really tempted to check it out.

Portal 2 Rubik's Cube

How did he get the Portal 2 Rubik’s Companion Cube done? He simply got hold of an old Rubik’s Cube, some sticker remover, SolidWorks, a 3D printer, super glue, paint, and clear coat. (While I was going through the list, I couldn’t help but be stuck on the fact that this guy has a 3D printer. Oh, the wonderful things he can create!)

He even has a turret to accompany the Portal 2 Rubik’s Companion Cube.

Portal 2 Rubik's Cube and Turret

And in case you think that this Rubik’s Cube can only serve as eye candy, let me tell you to think again! This toy is fully functional and can be solved. As to whether or not it is easier to solve than your conventional Rubik’s Cube, I have no idea. Here’s the solved Portal 2 Rubik’s Companion Cube.

Portal 2 Rubik's Cube Solved

If you can’t have a Rubik’s Cube this cool, then you’ll just have to settle for learning how to solve a regular cube in 20 moves.

Rubik’s Cube.  A  puzzle created in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of Ernő Rubik.  The multi-colored brick has been purchased more than 350 million times since its release, making it the world’s best-selling puzzle game and one of the world’s most popular toys.

Rubik’s Cube is a difficult puzzle to solve.  Despite giving it my best, rarely (once) have I been successful in defeating the little devil toy.   Even when provided with a guide to aid one in solving the puzzle, it remains vexing.

Attempting to demonstrate the superiority of robots (what other explanation could there be?), students at Swinburne University of Technology have created what they believe to be the world’s fastest Rubik’s Cube-solving robot.  The cleverly named robot, “Ruby,” can complete a Rubik’s Cube in a little more than 10 seconds.

Professor Chris Pilgrim, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies describes how Ruby works,

“Ruby works by scanning each face of a scrambled cube through a web cam.  It then uses a software algorithm to develop a solution which is fed to the high-speed robot through a real-time embedded control system. The students’ combined expertise in robotics and software engineering enabled them to construct a robot with a fast computer vision-tracking system capable of very high precision movements and timings.”

While claiming Ruby is the Rubik’s Cube robot Queen, the 10 second record remains unofficial. However, the students behind the project are attempting to have Ruby’s speed deemed a Guinness World Record.  The world’s fastest Rubik’s Cube solving robot, the Cubinator, was able to solve a scrambled Rubik’s Cube in 18.2 seconds, which remains the current standard for robots.

Unfortunately the speed of Ruby is sloth-like slow in comparison to the world record for a human.  Currently the fast single time on a 3×3×3 Rubik’s Cube is held by Feliks Zemdegs with a time of 6.24 seconds.

Have you tried to solve a Rubik’s Cube?  Do you consider yourself a Rubik’s Cube savant or does the little brick baffle you?

Techspot

This kid, who is only 15 years old, managed to wow everyone watching with his Rubik’s Cube skills, especially when he solved a 3x3x3 cube in merely 6.24 seconds. That’s less time it would take some people to name all the colors in the cube without looking!

Watch how he did it. Oh, and contrary to a brilliant comment in the YouTube page, just because Feliks is not Asian, it doesn’t mean the video is fake. ;)

For those who need some help in conquering the Cube, you may try getting hold of Feliks, although reading Rubik’s Cube for Dummies might be more feasible.

Artist Jason Freeny has created a Rubik’s Cube that may very well save your life in case a zombie goes after you. This cube functions just like any Rubik’s Cube – it was made from one – but it looks just as if it were made from brain matter. Never mind that the color of the brain is a little too pink – I think zombies will still go for it. If you ever find yourself being chased by zombies, try chucking this cube at them and buy yourself some time!

The Rubik’s Brain Cube was created from your regular Rubik’s Cube, which the artist first deconstructed. Under the masterful touch of the artist, the cube went from the first image in the gallery to the last image in the gallery. An absolutely delightful transformation!

For more action, here is a video that Jason posted on his Facebook page.

For the detailed step by step creation of the cube, you can check out the gallery at kidrobot.

If zombies and brains are not your thing, and you’re still trying to figure out how to solve the regular Rubik’s Cube, check out my post on Rubik’s Cube for Dummies. If that doesn’t help you, then I don’t know what will.

If you cannot figure out those 20 moves on your own, do not fret. Someone else has done the hard task for you and created an infographic that will show you – step by step – how to solve Rubik’s Cube in 20 moves. No more, no less.

Just to make things more fun, they threw in a handful of other pieces of information. Did you know that Erno Rubik invented the cube in 1974 in Budapest? Okay, you probably know that already. You also already know that all sorts of Rubik’s Cubes have been made – from cakes to jewelry to dresses.

How about this: Did you know that there is an art movement called Rubikubism? Did you also know that, allegedly, there are conditions such as Cubist’s Thumb and Rubik’s Wrist? Obviously, people who spend way too much time playing around with the cube can develop these conditions.

So yeah, there are a lot of things you can learn about Rubik’s Cube aside from actually exerting the effort to solve the puzzle. Here’s the infographic, courtesy of some guy at Reddit.

Just click on the image for a larger view.

Visit Page 2 to see videos of how to solve the Rubik’s Cube.

Artist and typophile Shaun Chung has added a new twist to the already long line of Rubik’s Cubes variants, and in my opinion, his rendition just might be the most interesting of all. For his undergraduate thesis (he majored in Fine Arts, with a focus on printmaking), he decided to incorporate his passion for Chinese typography into the creation of a one-of-a-kind Rubik’s Cube. The result? An exquisite wooden cube that “spells out” a traditional Chinese poem used to instill good values in children.

This is the result of Shaun’s creativity and – most likely – hours and hours of hard work.

If you’re really into the details, here are all the sides of the cube – not that you will understand what they say (unless you can read Chinese).

Shaun seems to be the type to go for function as well as looks, and he made sure that the cube can be used for another purpose. It actually functions as a stamp, which can be used to print out the poem I was talking about earlier.

Here’s the poster for this Rubik’s Cube. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

You have to admit that Shaun really outdid a lot of other Rubik’s Cube makers out there, didn’t he? Poetry, beautiful characters, and Rubik’s Cube – it can’t get much better than that! And, in case you are wondering what the Chinese poem is, check out Shaun’s description of the work that went into the cube.

Rubik’s Cube enthusiasts will know, however, that there is such a thing as God’s Algorithm.  The whole idea is to discuss the ways one can solve the Rubik’s Cube, and to come up with the minimum number of moves needed.  The use of God is an allusion to the notion that the Supreme Deity will have the information necessary to come up with least number of moves.

This brings us to God’s Number, which has finally been determined.So, the magic number is 20.  God’s Number is 20.

On to the who and how…

The team behind the effort: Tomas Rokicki, a programmer from Palo Alto, California, Herbert Kociemba, a math teacher from Darmstadt, Germany, Morley Davidson, a mathematician from Kent State University, and John Dethridge, an engineer at Google in Mountain View.

With the help of idle computer time – 35 CPU years worth, no less – given by Google, the team was able to practically solve every possible position of the Rubik’s Cube.  Exactly how they did it? You can check out the whole process in the team’s web site.

After reading this post, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a handful of you guys start scrambling around to find a Rubik’s Cube and try putting God’s Number into practical application.

For that reason, and for the joy of combining the Rubik’s Cube with robotics, we present CubeStormer from RoboticSolutions.

The claim is that this Lego Mindstorms RCX Speedcubing Robot can solve any 3³ in under twelve seconds. The video shows this: I’m happy to take their word on the machine being handed random cubes.

Just brilliant.

Kinda makes your human attempts at solving the cube rather futile, eh? Never mind. You can always dress up as a Rubik’s Cube instead.

Via

The first cake was baked by Sarenea for someone’s piano recital. Her post says that the special guy is called Corvat (now that’s a nice name!) and I bet he got a thrill out of his surprise. The cake is a three-layer cake with white and green on the other sides. Now this Rubik’s cube is all solved, so it’s easy to dig in without worrying about how to solve the puzzle.

The second cake was made by Tanya for an 80’s themed party. It’s a chocolate cake and this is how she describes it, courtesy of Walyou:

The chocolate cake was cut from a 250 x 350 cm slab tin, each square is 6″ and 2″ high, the top two tiers are on a small cake board for support. Covered in chocolate buttercream and black fondant, the colored squares were cut using a ribbon cutter then adhered to the cake with a little water. I used a metal ruler to mark an indented line between each row. I would recommend using a real Rubik cube to get the colored squares in the right place, this cake is impossible to solve!

So which one do you prefer? Personally, I prefer Tanya’s, if only because the cube is unsolved.

The great thing is that I could actually see myself being able to make this Rubik’s Cube costume. After all, what electronics/sound geek doesn’t have rolls of duct tape available, plus cardboard boxes from the latest Internet delivery?

Once you’ve sussed that, how about having a go at the 360. If you get peckish, make yourself a Rubik’s Cube sandwich.

Via