Robot Masters Rubik’s Cube in 15 Seconds

Where was this when I need­ed it 30 years ago? Two stu­dents at Rowan Uni­ver­si­ty, Zachary Grady and Joe Ridge­way, have con­struct­ed a robot­ic arm that can solve the Rubik’s Cube in 15 sec­onds. As The New Sci­en­tist explains, the “sys­tem uses a cam­era to cap­ture how the cube is scram­bled and sends the images to a com­put­er. It deter­mines the pat­tern on each face and algo­rithms are used to solve the cube. The solu­tion is then trans­lat­ed to the arm’s pneu­mat­ics and motors.” For more bril­liant robot tricks, you can watch robots shoot archery, lead the Detroit Sym­pho­ny orches­tra, and even make eth­i­cal deci­sions…