Brothers Build Robot That Smashes Rubik’s Cube Solving Record
- 45 minutes ago
- 2 min read
A pair of brothers in the UK have officially broken the Guinness World Record for the fastest time solving a four-by-four Rubik’s Cube with a robot.
Their self-built machine completed the puzzle in only 45.3 seconds. Thus, absolutely obliterating the previous record of 1 min 18.68 seconds that was set in 2014. Not too shabby for a pair of undergraduate students - and you can see their device in action at the base of this page.
Matthew and Thomas Pidden built their robot over the course of 15 weeks during Matthew’s time at the University of Bristol. The robot consists of two parts: a physical body and a software component. A pair of dual webcams scan the cube, while two custom-built robot arms grab and manipulate it. A nearby laptop runs a specially coded algorithm (basically the robot’s brain) which analyzes data from the webcams and quickly calculates how to move the cube, reports Popular Science.
The robot was very much a joint effort between the brothers. While Matthew used his skills in maths, computer science and robotics to design the robot and programme it, among other things, Thomas used his know-how to design many of the 3D parts used in the final product.
If 45 seconds seems a tad slow for the fastest robot-solved Rubik’s Cube, you are right. The brother's record is specifically for the 4x4x4 cube. The original 3x3x3 Rubik’s Cube, invented by Hungarian sculptor Ernő Rubik in 1974, has been solved significantly faster. Currently, the world record for the fastest time a robot has solved one is 0.103 seconds. That's faster than the blink of an eye and you can watch it here.
By contrast, the fastest time for a human to solve an original Rubik’s cube is a remarkable 2.76 seconds. Even more so when you consider said human was just 9 years old.
