CubeStormer II solves the Rubik's Cube puzzle faster than the human world record.

CubeStormer II solves the Rubik's Cube puzzle faster than the human world record.

This ARM Powered robot was designed, built and programmed by Mike Dobson and David 

Gilday, creators respectively of CubeStormerhttp://youtu.be/eaRcWB3jwMo and Android 

Speedcuberhttp://youtu.be/ylFb4pqAUd8.

The mechanics are constructed entirely from LEGO, including four MINDSTORMS NXT kits, 

with the addition of a Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone running a custom Android app as the 

robot's brain. Both the MINDSTORMS NXT kits and the Samsung Galaxy SII use a variety of 

ARM --based processors.

The app uses the phone's camera to capture images of each face of the Rubik's Cube 

which it processes to determine the scrambled colours. The solution is found using an 

advanced two-phase algorithm, originally developed for Speedcuber, enhanced to be 

multi-threaded to make effective use of the smartphone's dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 

1.2GHz processor. The software finds an efficient solution to the puzzle which is 

optimised specifically for the capabilities of the four-grip mechanism. The app 

communicates via Bluetooth with software running on the ARM microprocessors in the 

LEGO NXT Intelligent Bricks which controls the motors driving the robot. During the 

physical solve, the app uses OpenGL ES on the phone's ARM Mali-400 MP GPU to display a 

graphical version of the cube being solved in real time.

Human speedcubers' solve times only include the physical manipulation of the cube and 

don't include some time which is allowed to "inspect" the cube beforehand. Times 

recorded by CubeStormer II are for the total solve including: image capture, software 

solution calculation and physical solve.

Want to see it in action?? Check it out at ARM TechCon 2011 in Santa Clara, California Oct 

26-27th http://www.armtechcon.com.