Video of a robot that solves the Rubik's Cube in a little more than a second -- three times as fast as any other machine and almost five times better than a human -- has gone viral on YouTube.
The video of the Rubik-in-a-second robot has garnered more than 4.2 million views on YouTube since it was posted on the website Jan. 11.
Its creators, software engineers Jay Flatland and Paul Rose, said they hope the results will lead to a Guinness World Record for them.
The robot is shown on the video solving the Rubik's Cube in 1.196 seconds, 1.152 seconds, 1.047 seconds, and 1.019 seconds after it was reset each time by hand, noted the website
Venture Beat.
The current machine record for solving the Rubik's Cube is officially 3.253 seconds while Lucas Etter holds the human record for solving it in 4.904 seconds.
The robot holds a specially created cube with small holes drilled into each side that allows it to hold the cube firmly, said
National Public Radio. Flatland says in the video that four USB webcams feed information into a cube-solving algorithm called Kociemba.
Kociemba then "determines a set of moves to solve the cube very rapidly," says Flatland.
"In today's modern world, where cars can park themselves and be summoned with the press of a button, it perhaps shouldn't come as much of a surprise that there's a robot capable of solving a Rubik's Cube in just about one second flat …" posted Yoni Heisler, a writer for the tech website
BGR.com.
The Rubik's Cube, which was first called the Magic Cube, was invented by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik in 1974, said Venture Beat. More than 350 million Rubik's Cubes have been sold worldwide, according to
Mashable,
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