Lego Robot Solves Any Rubik's Cube In 12 Seconds 224
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."
Stickers (Score:5, Funny)
And heres me expecting to see a robot that can quickly rearrange the stickers.
Re:Stickers (Score:4, Informative)
And here's me expecting not to see stories from 9 years ago repeated.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/07/0133248 [slashdot.org]
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Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Cool, just make sure it doesn't mistake your head for a Rubik's Cube. :)
This Video is FAKE (Score:4, Informative)
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?
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The optimal solution for solving a rubik's cube has already been bounded at about 18 moves (look it up).
Only in the worst possible configuration of the cube. 18 moves can't be the lower bound for every cube, because there exist many configurations that can be solved in less than 18. (Like the one you mentioned at 30s) If you'd read the rest of the wiki article you probably just consulted you would have seen that there even configurations that need over 20 moves too.
As for turning the cube then solving it in 4 moves, look at the computer and note a single view of the cube. The machine has to determine the star
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It's dishonest because for both the "2s" and "4s" solve of the cube, the cube was not fully scrambled. In fact, for the 2 second solve, the cube only had one single turn on it when the timer started. It is dishonest because he CLEARLY and obviously did not scramble the cube for both the 2 second and 4 second time. Look at the video at 30s and freeze it at the start of the timer and you'll see exactly what I mean. I can't honestly believe that you don't know what I mean by "dishonest" if you haven't done thi
Re:This Video is FAKE (Score:5, Informative)
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It's dishonest because for both the "2s" and "4s" solve of the cube, the cube was not fully scrambled. In fact, for the 2 second solve, the cube only had one single turn on it when the timer started. It is dishonest because he CLEARLY and obviously did not scramble the cube for both the 2 second and 4 second time.
This isn't dishonest. I watched the video and saw that the machine can solve a trivial problem in one move. The video didn't disguise this in the slightest. You can see a more complex configuration being solved elsewhere in the video and this obviously takes more time.
Look at the video at 30s and freeze it at the start of the timer and you'll see exactly what I mean. I can't honestly believe that you don't know what I mean by "dishonest" if you haven't done this simple task for me.
At 0:30 I see a cut from one sequence to another. I didn't think I was watching a real demonstration until I saw a start-to-finish run without any cuts.
And yeah, you were right about the 18 moves thing, I was quickly looking for a number to back up my argument. The fact that 18 is actually lower than the optimal lower bound strengthens my argument instead of weakening it, though.
No, it doesn't. Your original argument seemed to be that 18 moves is the lower bound for so
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Okay well apparently my original comment is too long for people to read through, so:
tl;dr: freeze the video at 30s and look at the cube in its "scrambled state". You'll see that 2/3 of the cube is lined up, and anybody could make that last turn in 1 second to "solve" it.
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The Lego-Coolness equation (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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I think your definition of "fake" and mine differ. The video is certainly not fake. It's a Lego machine that can solve a Rubics Cube that is being blogged about by some random overzealous blogger. The 2 and 4 second solves were probably the engineer running test cases where he took a solved cube and rotated it a certain number of times to see if the machine would then solve it in the same number of rotations. It's fairly obvious that the machine isn't capable of solving a random cube in 2-4 seconds beca
Re:This Video is FAKE (Score:5, Interesting)
The next to last solve (at 41s) takes 21 moves*, and is the only cube claimed to be random... thus, I don't see any dishonesty. It takes around 1.9 seconds to analyze, about 0.4 seconds to reset/process, and the remaining 8+ seconds to solve. Therefore, it makes on average between 2 and 3 turns per second.
Humans do not include inspection time in the speed calculation (at least, that's the case in the accompanying video of the world record). An apples-to-apples comparison, therefore, would be the human time at 7 seconds and the robot at a little over 8. I couldn't follow the world-record video, but I think I saw at least one mistake (a move followed by the opposite move) and a little hesitation. So, you're probably correct in the 3-5 moves per second for humans.
*21 includes twice that the computer simultaneously moves two faces, each counted as two separate moves. 180 degree moves are counted once.
That's fast (Score:3, Interesting)
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Think 99.9999% of the world population don’t give a flying fuck about it too. :P
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I can't do that. and I'm Asian.
Re:That's fast (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure? Just about every Asian I know can do it that quickly, and they make up about 30% of the world's population.
That's because in China they use The People's Cube [thepeoplescube.com]
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Interesting comment. East Asians have a higher visuospatial IQ. It would make sense that solving a Rubik's cube would play to their strengths - it's pure visuospatial ability. Your anecdote rings true with me - I remember being amazed at how quickly a group of average Japanese students could play Tetris on the Gameboy. They were able to play it indefinitely at the fastest level. The abil
I for one will be slack jawed at the awesomeness (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I for one will be slack jawed at the awesomenes (Score:2)
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Cheating! (Score:5, Funny)
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Poor little tink-tink.
I solved a Rubiks cube in 12 seconds once (Score:5, Funny)
All I needed was 6 different paint brushes dipped in 6 different colours.
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All I needed was a flat-head screw driver.
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I did it in 2 seconds. Had 6 surfaces with color pre-applied, and just touched each of them with a side of the cube. ;)
How they are doing it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How they are doing it? (Score:5, Insightful)
They probably didn't debug it much, but in actuality - most of it is pattern recognition. If you look straight down the corner of one Rubiks cube, you will see 3 faces of it, and that is all you actually need to solve the Rubiks cube. All the pros merely remember the patterns and the steps required to solve each pattern. Rotate the cube 90 degrees and the pattern still exists, even though things are in a different shape.
Really, the programming side of this isn't that impressive once you know how Rubiks cube solving is done. I'm more impressed at the speed, which I've normally found Lego technic and Mindstorm products to be a little laggy in commands and slow to operate, keep in mind though, that was the stuff I used like 7 years ago.
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(No, seriously, I am. Scrabble has a lot of depth to it when played on a higher level that you are completely ignoring. Don't be so quick to dismiss something just because you don't know much about it.)
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Also, Scrabble lacks depth at higher levels. National competitors learn spellings but not necessarily meanings, which completely bastardizes the entire point of language. National Scrabble competitors essentially live or die by the number of combinations of seven letters they know are valid. To me that is a disgusting travesty, and quite frankly after watching Word Wars I di
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Supposedly there is a set series of moves that will solve and brand new (ie just opened Rubik's cube). I have seen videos of people solving one behind their backs, blind folded. The set series of moves has some reasoning.
I usually took it apart and put it together with the sides matching. There were a few times I used a baseball bat to 'solve' the cube. Good stress relief that way.
Re:How they are doing it? (Score:4, Funny)
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Supposedly there is a set series of moves that will solve and brand new (ie just opened Rubik's cube).
They are sold in the solved position.
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It looks pretty simple to me. You put it in and it snaps shots of the 6 sides of the cube. Those are interpreted by the computer which probably uses a standard solving algorithm. The solution is translated into movements for the robot, and off it goes.
My guess would be if it was impossible to solve, it wouldn't start doing anything, the software would complain. No Rubik's cube is impossible to solve without physically messing with the cube (as you pointed out, swapping stickers for example). If you start w
Re:How they are doing it? (Score:5, Funny)
You put it in and it snaps shots of the 6 sides of the cube. Those are interpreted by the computer which probably uses a standard solving algorithm. The solution is translated into movements for the robot, and off it goes.
I'm stunned. And here I was thinking it worked by magic. Is that REALLY how it's done?
Sorry, I'm just feeling rather cynical today. Pffft.
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I've got one that just does random actions. Statistically, it has to get solved at some point.
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They probably used Herbert Kociemba's program:
http://kociemba.org/cube.htm [kociemba.org]
check the webcam section.
Kociemba is the creator of a very fast algorithm that solves most of the cubes in less than 25 moves in one second, using a two-phase technique (by using large precomputed tables).
Even with a slow robot only able to execute 2 moves every second, it's easy to reach 12 seconds that way.
BTW, the human records are below the 10 seconds limit:
http://www.speedcubing.com/records/recs_cube_333av.html [speedcubing.com]
Average means that
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Before someone claims dishonesty, all these solves were performed in competition with judges observing,
LHC? (Score:2, Funny)
Which makes it even more AWESOME.
Direct link to video (Score:2)
Heh that's nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
I have one I HAVEN'T solved in 30 years. Young kids, always wanting to do everything in a rush...
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I've solved one. But then my girlfriend gave me one with numbers instead of colours... Still haven't managed that one.
it's called sudoku.
and here I was thinking..... (Score:2)
And how! (Score:3, Funny)
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
Wow. That site has more third party Javascript scr (Score:3, Informative)
Simplified hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [youtube.com]
I don't get it (Score:2, Interesting)
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
The computer driving it... (Score:2)
...should have been implemented as a difference engine constructed out of Legos. THEN I'm impressed.
Bad news for the Chinese kids at the factory... (Score:2)
What? (Score:2)
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".
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)
You can use trademarks as adjectives. The rest of the world uses them as nouns and verbs. Get over it.
Re:Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
The only people who care about that pointless distinction are trademark lawyers.
For the rest of us, they're simply called LEGOS.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
For the rest of us, they're simply called LEGOS.
The world is divided into two groups, those that call them Legos and those that make fun of the first group.
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Has anyone of that second group found a sex partner yet. Woman, man, penguin, sea urchin, alien, Lovecraftian trans-dimensional being... anything? ;)
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Those that make fun of the first group and those who are utterly baffled at using a singular noun to describe something that is only interesting in the plural.
Like fish, and sheep...
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They? There are multiple different objects each of which is a lego? I can think of lots of objects, each called a lego brick, but none that are individually called a lego.
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Yes, non-pedants call each little piece of plastic a *LEGO*. How hard is that for you to understand?
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Really?
o.O
I've seriously never heard anyone call a lego brick a lego before. Must be some weird ism. I'd interpret "a lego" to be an entire company producing a brand of lego.
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Yes, just as you wouldn't say that you own a "Honda® automobile". Normal people just say "I have a Honda".
Normal people would also say "There are three Hondas in the garage." instead of the stilted sounding "There are three Honda® automobiles in the garage."
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I've always used lego as a plural, as in "I have a bucket of lego."
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I always called them "Lego brand building blocks". As in, "Hey Timmy, want to come to my house after kindy to play with my Lego brand building blocks?". Timmy never came to my house though.
On an unrelated note, my father was a trademark lawyer.
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People I know *don't* consider it as a mass noun. Ice makes sense as a mass noun since the same term applies to quantities ranging between ~10 molecules to an entire moon of an outer planet. For Legos, OTOH, it makes zero sense to use a mass noun because you're almost always concerned with a number of pieces from 1 up to a couple of hundred. In fact, you're often occupied handling just a single Lego piece, so not having a singular version available would be highly irritating.
Ice was a bad example. A better
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Allow me to bring you some Kleenexes; your weeping protestation is piteous.
Maybe a couple of aspirins for your headache?
Reality must really piss off language prescriptionists.
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Lego is a brand, just like Ford is. People refer to many Mustangs or F150's or whatever as "Fords" all the time, so the same would be true of Lego.
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Have you driven a Ford lately?
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people do not refer to a brick made by lego as "a lego", they refer to one as "a lego brick".
If they step on one barefooted, they refer to it by wholy inappropriate language.
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And the parking lot isn't full of Toyotas,Fords, Hondas? Its full of Toyota cars, Toyota trucks, Ford cars Ford trucks and Honda Cars?
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Cause I bring back deer, elk, geese and fish, and have a few beer. Well I would if I were a hunter.
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Is the plural of Lego Lego?
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The main problem is that the US calls it one way, the rest of the world another way.
Just as with metric, math (vs maths), the US has to do it differently.
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To make it easier on all of you pedantic types how about if instead of pluralizing Lego to Legos. We'll just abbreviate "Lego Bricks" to something that rolls off the tongue a little easier. How about "Legos"?
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It's "Lego"
No, it's "LEGO"
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"loosers"? What are "loosers"? The opposite of "tighters"?
Only losers use the word "loosers". :)
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3X3 refers to the configuration of squares on each face of the cube. The 3x3 is the standard one that made us all so angry in the 80's.
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I think I still have one or two embedded in the walls of my bedroom...
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You live in the same place! wow.
Isn't it time... (Score:2)
Isn't it time to get out of your parent's basement...
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So you're saying each face has 3x3x3 squares on it?
No, I'm not saying that. The slashdot article never mentioned anything about "per face" either. It simply says "3x3 Rubik's Cube," with no qualifier.
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in fact the Rubics Cube being a *cube* one could simply say "a 3".
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And people wonder why the robots are going to revolt and dominate us.
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Yea, but look at the video right below it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp8Y2yjV4fU [youtube.com] All that uses is just a NXT kit.
His website is http://tiltedtwister.com/sudokusolver.html [tiltedtwister.com] If you want to make your own solver go http://tiltedtwister.com/index.html [tiltedtwister.com]
Pissees me off, I bought the 2.0 kit and need exra parts. But its amazing what you can do with it. Now to build a LTO tape autoloader!
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I would call it lame. The robot isn't "solving" anything. The real impressive work is what happens before the robot does anything: the algorithm that determines a good solution for the given cube.
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programming it to write with a pencil must have been incredibly tough.
Pen-plotter control algorithms were ancient and well-documented 30 years ago when I saw the source code for a hobbiest homebrew version (about 1k lines of assembler) in Byte Magazine (I think... 30 years and all).
The sudoko is seems more impressive (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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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!!