A new world record for Fastest robot to solve a Rubik's Cube was set on Saturday, when a smartphone-powered machine managed to complete the puzzle in a lightning quick 3.253 seconds.
The record was set by Cubestormer 3 on Saturday, after the robot was unveiled at the Big Bang Fair science expo in Birmingham, UK on Saturday
Eighteen months in the making, Cubestormer 3 was created by ARM engineer David Gilday and Securi-Plex security systems engineer Mike Dobson.
Constructed from LEGO building-blocks, it uses a Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone powered by an Exynos 5 Octa application processor with a special eight-core ARM chip as its brain.
The phone analyzes the cube, calculates the correct sequence of moves and instructs four robotic hands to do the manipulations.
ARM9™ processors also power the eight LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 bricks which perform the motor sequencing and control.
The new record shaves just over two seconds off the existing record, set in 2011 by its forbearer Cubestormer 2, which David and Mike also built.
“We knew CUBESTORMER 3 had the potential to beat the existing record but with the robot perfoming physical operations quicker than the human eye can see there’s always an element of risk,” said David Gilday,
“In the end, the hours we spent perfecting the robot and ensuring its motor and intelligence functions were properly synchronized paid off. Our big challenge now is working out if it’s possible to make it go even faster.”
As well as setting a new record for solving the standard Rubik's Cube, two other Gilday-built smartphone-powered robots also set new titles.
The MultiCuber 3, based on a Huawei® Ascend P6 smartphone with a Hisilicon K3V2E processor, managed to solve a 4x4x4 Rubik’s Cube in a record time of 1 minute, 18.68 seconds.
The day also saw MultiCuber 999, based on a Samsung Galaxy S3 smartphone powered by an Exynos 4 Quad application processor, complete the even more difficult 9x9x9 Rubik’s Cube – in a benchmark time of 34 minutes, 25.89 seconds.
