The fear that robots may one day take over the world hangs forever over our heads. For now, however, they are helping us solve problems, like the one in the US that solved a Rubik's cube in less than a second.
Ben Katz, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, along with software developer Jared Di Carlo created a robot that can solve a Rubik's cube by using a different kind of motor on their "Rubik's Contraption." and the robot solved a Rubik's cube in just 0.38 seconds.
Compare that to the record held by humans. Guinness World Records recognizes US-resident teen Patrick Ponce as the fastest Rubik's cube solver. He achieved a time of 4.69 seconds in September last year.
Watch the video of the robot solving Rubik's cube in 0.38 seconds here:
Details of the inhuman feat
Di Carlo, whose robot solved a Rubik's cube in 0.38 seconds, wrote in a blog post: "We noticed that all of the fast Rubik's Cube solvers were using stepper motors and thought that we could do better if we used better motors."
He added that the 0.38 seconds include the "image capture and computation time, as well as actually moving the cube". To grab the title of World record setter, the solve time of Rubik's cube now needs to be made official.
The current record of solving a Rubik's cube is held by German engineer Albert Beer and his robot Sub1 Reloaded. It solved a jumbled Rubik's cube in just 0.637 seconds. The feat was recognized by Guinness World Records in 2017.
Di Carlo described the entire procedure of the 0.38-second puzzle-solving on his blog "Cactus Zone."
The duo used Kollmorgen ServoDisc motors. "The motor is coreless, so there are no heavy steel laminations on the rotor, and there's no steel to saturate, so it can accelerate insanely fast. In a 10-ms quarter-turn move, the motor reaches over 1,000 rpm," he explained in his blog post.
The machine solved a "YJ Yulong Smooth Stickerless Speed Cube Puzzle," which is available on Amazon for just $4.55.
