A robot made by German company Infineon solves a Rubik’s Cube in record breaking time. Believe it or not, this is a robot solving a Rubik’s Cube (image via Infineon)
The Rubik’s cube is one 80s trend that isn’t ready to die just yet. Whether someone’s making the largest working model or is the winner of the latest speedcubing competition – that’s a real thing – the toy has just about outlived other 80s fads. Not only do people still love trying to solve the puzzle, robots do too. A new robot by Infineon, a major German semiconductor manufacturer, recently solved the cube in record breaking time, faster than any of us can imagine.
The robot in question, the Sub1 Reloaded, solved the puzzle in only 0.637 seconds at the Electronica trade fair in Munich. It was so fast, it broke the previous record of 0.887 seconds set by an earlier version of the robot equipped with a different processor. All it took was the press of a button for the robot to start solving. Sensor cameras on the bot got to work, which allowed it to figure out the best way to solve the puzzle. The chip inside the robot then picked the fastest solution for the challenge.
The creators behind the record breaking bot revealed it has a motor controller that’s powered by a microcontroller from the company’s AURI family. This is similar to the tech behind their driver assistance systems. Infineon claims there are more than 43 quintillion combinations to solve the Rubik’s cube. Perhaps they’re already hard at work on their next robot to break the record set by the Sub1. The team has submitted the paperwork to Guinness Book of World Records to claim the title of fastest Rubik’s cube solver. Currently, the titled is still held by Lucas Etter, who, at 14, solved the puzzle in 4.904 seconds in 2015. Of course, this isn’t the first cube solving robot. Last year, a robot built by a Bradenton, Florida student, solved the puzzle in 2.39 seconds.
Watching footage of the Sub1 solve the puzzle in the blink of an eye is vastly entertaining. It’s one of those clips you want to watch on repeat and share with your Facebook friends. But once the charm wears off, you begin to think about the potential for technology like this. What else could these fast processors be used for? Surely, they can’t only be created for the sole purpose of solving puzzles. The possibilities seem endless, especially since the company is already using similar tech in some of their other projects.
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