Robot Solves Rubik's Cube in 0.38 Seconds

A robot solved the Rubik's Cube in 0.38 seconds and shattered the previous world record in the process.

The current Guinness World Record was set in 2016 by a robot listed as Sub1 Reloaded, which solved the cube in 0.637 seconds, but software developer Jared Di Carlo and Massachusetts Institute of Technology robotics student Ben Katz wanted to one-up that, CNET reported.

So they decided to create a machine that could topple the record. Video of the achievement posted on YouTube was viewed more than 1.46 million times as of Friday morning.

"We noticed that all of the fast Rubik's Cube solvers were using stepper motors, and thought that we could do better if we used better motors. … So we did," Di Carlo said in a blog post. "Our solve time of 0.38 seconds includes acquiring the image from the webcam, detecting colors, finding a solution, and actually rotating the faces of the cube."

The duo went through several Rubik's Cubes, which were destroyed and rebuilt, before attaining their goal.

Di Carlo said they eventually opted to use the cheapest cube they could find for the experiment, because they thought they would end up destroying many more, "but somehow ended up only going through four cubes and 100's of solves."

In a separate blog post, Katz detailed how the machine was built and what the process entailed to set the currently unofficial new record.

"The machine can definitely go faster, but the tuning process is really time consuming since debugging needs to be done with the high-speed camera, and mistakes often break the cube or blow up FETs," he said.

"For the time being, Jared and I have both lost interest in playing the tuning game, but we might come back to it eventually and shave off another 100 ms or so."

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