Self-solving Rubik's Cube

But is it actually &quot;solving&quot; itself? Or just recording the scramble and playing it back in reverse order? I realize it&#x27;s an artificial distinction, but if the cube is tracking its state and then running a solve algorithm, that&#x27;s more interesting (to me) than if it&#x27;s just popping a stack.<p>Either way, it&#x27;s extremely cool.

Very cool and impressive.<p>Next step: a solving algorithm that minimizes maximum net horizontal displacement from the starting position, to avoid falling off the table.<p>(the demonstration video has the cube almost fall off the table. A human had to interfere to push it away from the edge)

Seems to me you could make a pretty neat commercial product out of that. Add some LEDs to each surface, plus a speaker and you could have a Rubik&#x27;s cube that tutors you on how to solve it.

Fitting the hardware in the cube is the innovation

There are so many cool mods you could make with this, you could have it change to a particular pattern when idle or scramble again once you solve it!

I tried making a self-solving rubik&#x27;s cube in 2013 as part of a school project [1]. It didn&#x27;t quite work and I gave up.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daniel.lawrence.lu&#x2F;engineering&#x2F;cube&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;daniel.lawrence.lu&#x2F;engineering&#x2F;cube&#x2F;</a>

Are there awards for this sort of thing? If not, there should be. Such marvelous engineering and craftsmanship skills need to be recognized for the benefit of the individual and to inspire others.

So it moves while self-solving. If the movement is regular, how about an effort to solve associated &#x27;maze puzzles&#x27; with scrambles? It would be neat to see solutions with isomorphic paths.

Suddenly realizing how magicians do their Rubiks Cube tricks, they put them in a bag and the cubes solve themselves..

This is totally charming! Seems like it would benefit from having a clutch so you can disengage the servos while scrambling or attempting to solve by hand.

See also: Self rolling dice<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=urd8neVMt4Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;m.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=urd8neVMt4Q</a>

Similar, but more elaborated concept:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;1928372437&#x2F;gocube-the-classic-puzzle-reinvented" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;1928372437&#x2F;gocube-the-c...</a>

The innards look like Borg technology. Very cool.

There are some CAD pics in that page. I find it curious that the cad pics merge together the mechanical parts, the wires, and the electronics.<p>Can anyone tell which CAD software they’re using just by looking at the screenshots?

The number of solve moves appears to be 4x the number of shuffle moves (?)

The videos are incredibly satisfying. I wonder... if you try the old trick of flipping a single edge piece does it give up immediately or attempt the impossible forever?

Kids these days. Next they&#x27;ll have bowling balls you can steer with your phone.

The shortest implementation of solving algorithm is a stack of taken moves while shuffling which just should be reversed one by one.

Probably a silly idea, but I wonder if the cube will maintain zero net entropy through this self-solving process.

This was my first idea for my senior project in 2012! Didn&#x27;t do it, but glad someone finally did.

How does the microcontroller know the state of the cube?

<i>Useless</i> Rubik&#x27;s Cube

QUALITY tutorial... I just did one and am not sure I explained as concisely

That&#x27;s so cool! When I was figuring out how to solve it myself (took a year of tinkering to come up with an algorithm) the first big revelation is that the centres always stay fixed relative to one another.

Solving the original Rubik Cube (Ideal branded, obviously) was an impressive feat 35 or so years ago when the craze was in full swing. I would say this cube is a little bit late to the party. But wouldn&#x27;t it have been fantastic if your cube could have gone into &#x27;teaching mode&#x27; or &#x27;hints mode&#x27; where an automated cube could just nudge you on to be able to finish the puzzle without a) popping the squares out or b) clumsily picking off stickers and re-applying them, thinking nobody would notice.<p>Also had this cube been a retail best seller a decade ago then I think Edward Snowden would have had to have chosen another toy to hide his SD cards in.<p>Nonetheless, Christmas is coming up, I hope Santa has one of these for me...