Do the holders never let off of the square they are gripping?
Sometimes I think I’m doing nothing with my life. Then I see people with intelligence and drive and resources and they use it to make a robot to solve Rubiks Cubes.
And then I don’t feel so bad.
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Personally I welcome our blah blah blah overlords - in the words of the current overlord “what have you got to lose”.
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New world record for a human solved cube.
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Does it run an analysis before the button being pushed? If that’s the case, for how long? Because that’s when real computation happens, the rest is mechanical (impressive, but mechanical).
If computation happens at button-push, wow.
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The computation is a trivial, compared with the mechanical problem. In this case, an ad-hoc mechanism do not need to be dexterous, as human hands are, and that simplifies the problem a lot. When a flexible, robotic manipulation device (robot hands), performs that, that would be really, really awesome.
Anyway, It’s a nice device, and kudos to the builders.
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Technically just one solved cube, because the centers don’t move. If they did move (e.g. any color face could be opposite any other color), there would be 5!, or 120 solved cubes
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I look forward to this device being incorporated into internally inconsistent caper movie plots.
“It’s no good, Professor. We’d still have to solve this Rubik’s Cube to disarm the laser grid, and we only have 0.7 seconds before the bomb goes off. Even the best human solvers take full seconds!”
“Wait a moment… I think I might have just the thing.”
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I was raised Catholic but I’m not practicing anymore. I’ve switch to Methodist (sorta - my kid and wife drag me sometimes) which lets you chose however many moves you want.
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If I’m understanding the computations involved correctly, it’s probably a question of microseconds before the solution is found. The solving algorithm they teach humans is really very simple if you can effortlessly remember all the color-positions at once, and maybe they’ve got something even more direct for computers.
My guess is that the limiting factor here is not the calculation, or even the robot cube-twisting devices, but the physical integrity of the cube itself. Pretty soon someone will invent a titanium cube bathed in ultra-low viscosity lubricants and the record will go down to 0.002s or something. (Which will be verified after the fire from the paper stickers igniting is put out.)
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Yeah, but if the only thing you have is an automated rubix cube solver then every problem will look like a rubix cube waiting to be…
Hang on… that’s awesome!
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The computation happens in less than an eyeblink, and has for many years–probably decades. Anything that can be solved computationally by a human in a few minutes is peanuts to a computer. The physical interface is the only impressive or innovative thing here.
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I agree, but wanted to add some numbers: The guys proving that the most needed moves are 20 (cube20.org, I think linked already here in the thread) crunched through all possible combinations - their program solved the solution for 19 billionen start positions in about 20 seconds, calculating one solution is negligible in terms of processor time.
(solving all positions took still some 35 CPU years…)
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Meanwhile, I’m still trying to solve the damn thing on my CoCo.
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Oh dear God. What in the hell is that thing?
Radio Shack Color Computer. Sweet 6809 CPU, but the most garish palette of any 8-bit micro.
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The color palette alone makes that difficult to solve.
How does it rotate? Is it animated? It looks like maybe one step above a flat cube to me.
It is barely animated. Different keys rotate different horizontal or vertical faces, or the center bands of cubelets, or the entire cube, in different directions.
Not exactly a demoscene entry.
There is actually a second color palette available, though.
(Note: This is coming from an emulator, so it may not be perfectly accurate.)
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@anon24181555: Totalitarian mathematics
trumpian/bannon mathematics:
*Looks at the OS sticker on the side of the device, sees “Windows Vista”
“Sorry, Perfesser. We’re screwed.”
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