This Netbook and Lego Solves Rubik's Cube in 12s

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Still not as fast as a human can do it.

We've covered Rubik's cube-solving Nokia smartphones, but when you want it done faster, you're going to need some faster hardware.

By faster hardware, it could be both stronger physical hardware to manipulate the cube as well as a more capable computational device.

In this video, the creators used Lego Mindstorm bits and an Acer Aspire One netbook to make what is believed to be the fastest solve yet for a computer – 12 seconds.

Impressive, but can it beat us humans? Not yet.

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • amd_guru
    I cant even get one side to match up lol!! One step closer to terminators!
    Reply
  • amd_guru
    Shit i cant even solve one side of one of those...
    Reply
  • nachowarrior
    it's all in the programing... the speed of the ser\/o's is going to be the real limitation once they finally get the programming down pat. I can see someone getting motors so fast one day, that it actually busts the cube. :-p
    Reply
  • zoemayne
    i doubt it..... how are the sensors set up for this?
    Reply
  • foody
    Once again, computers doing very simple algorithms.
    Reply
  • sliem
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI_zjWssn2g&feature=related
    6.57 s
    Reply
  • ravewulf
    zoemaynei doubt it..... how are the sensors set up for this?
    There's a Lego web-cam in the center, right behind the cube. All it needs to do is get quick snapshots of the faces of the cube in the software, create a plan to solve it virtually, and send the commands to the servos. My brother has those servos, and they are quite fast.
    Reply
  • Gin Fushicho
    Why a Netbook? Near any desktop could do it faster.
    Reply
  • buwish
    I'm sure there are plenty of chips out there that could do it faster. However, they build a mechanical "solver" out of legos...how cool is that?!
    Reply
  • Camikazi
    Gin FushichoWhy a Netbook? Near any desktop could do it faster.I am guessing the solving is easy and netbook is really all that is needed, the bottleneck would be the servos moving the cube really.
    Reply