Many Rubik's Cube solvers have been produced based on LEGO MINDSTORMS robots over the last years, but this one I just saw beats them all by far. 
The CubeStormer as they call it, was created by Mike Dobson with the software support from David Gilday. Unlike we may expect these days, it is based on the old RCX and many Technic parts.
They claim their contraption scans and solves any 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube combination in less than 12 seconds.
This is lightning speed, so that I'd need to see it in slow motion...
However it looks to me that all the intelligence behind this prodigy, lives on the laptop rather the RCX itself.
As mentioned in The NXT STEP, this thing reminds the Large Hadron Collider and is probably just as impressive.
Don't blink, or you might miss it!...
Via The NXT STEP
Edit:
Meanwhile a trustworthy source has informed TBs that the following elements were used to build the CubeStormer:
- 4x RCX Bricks
- 24x 9V Motors.
- 4x Rotation Sensors.
- 8x Touch Sensors.
- 4x Light Sensors.
- 10x 9V Lights.
- 1x PF Light pair, to light the cube while scanning.
- 2x Fiber Optics Elements.
- NQC used as programming language.
Apart from the laptop and Rubik's cube it is 100% LEGO
Last Update: 2010.Feb.17 00:30 CET
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16 comments:
And I thought the Speedcuber was fast! Judging from the speed and precision of the motors however, I'm not sure this is a 100% LEGO solution (evidently without taking into account the laptop..)
All i can say is...EPIC!
AWESOME!
WOW, very impressive!
Holy jebus!!! That is superfast. WOW!
Sverre
Yes I'm with Jetro on the suspicions on the motors to get that much torque AND speed it must be multiple motors on a mains power supply or its over-volted/non-lego. I would like to see more on the motors.
Even so its an awsome build! very well done.
Curiously, there is a few things in common about these recent solvers (CubeStormer and Speedcuber)
- The same kind of 4 claws robot
- The same music in both videos
- And the robot designer from Sppedcuber, is the guy from the software support on CubeStormer: David Gilday
Interesting!
Very curious, because the intro of the video specifically says: "A Rubic's Cube Robot to challenge all speedcubers"
You can challege your own work....
So that doesn't say much....
Amagad! *picks up jaw*
Purist or not, this is awesome :)
Anybody fond more info or pics of this solver??
Sverre
Wow, I never thought this combination of speed, strength and precision was possible with pure LEGO components! I wonder if, since the language used is NQC, the firmware on those RCX's is the official from LEGO or the one by Dick Swan (which I only recently found out about, and appears to have enhanced functionalities well suited for this kind of robot)...
I just read the announcement on LUGNET (or comment, whatever you want to call it) and I obviously overlooked something: there is another video of this device in it's early stages from about a year ago. In that video you can see a lot more of the claws that hold the cube and their movement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnV7oc2SMbc
If you visit the creators YouTube channel you will also see how the speed was progressively reduced from 4 minutes to 1 minute to... 12seconds and more and more RCX units were added.
In case anyone is still reading this... here's another nice cubes solver for a 5x5x5 cube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6DMaimg03E
Not so lightning fast, but very nice to see as well.
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