Robots are cool when they do cool things. This one solves a Rubix Cube, but it looks like it should do so much more.
Robots made using Lego Mindstorms that solve Rubix Cubes are apparently yesterday’s lunch, but The Cubestormer has a menacing aura that will make all other Rubix Cube robots toot in their trousers. This somewhat large machine will take any 3x3x3 Rubix Cube combination and wipe the floor with it in under 12 seconds.
The Cubestormer, which creator Mike Dobson has been working on for 2 years (in his spare time), is billed as the world’s fastest Lego Mindstorms RCX Speedcubing Robot, and I’ve got no reason to doubt that claim. The reason I find this impressive is because I have a Rubix Cube I’ve been trying to solve since the second grade, and I’ve even been illegally swapping the stickers.
Lego Mindstorms are programmable construction sets that include sensors, motors, USB interfaces, webcams, and all that nerdy goodness. They’ve been used to design multitudes of creations, from robots that solve Sudoku, to robots that are not involved with solving Sudoku, to even more robots that are entirely unassociated with solving any kind of puzzle-based task.
Mostly though, I like The Cubestormer because it looks like it should open a dimensional portal once it solves each Rubix Cube. Hopefully, Dobson is working on that next. The thing really is beautiful; when I first saw it, I thought I was looking at the Large Hadron Collider. Despite talk of any Rubix Cube combination being possible to solve in “x” amount of time, The Cubestormer really is a marvelous creation.
(Via: Engadget)
