Robot Sub1 solves Rubik’s cube in 887 milliseconds

Shortly after two hobbyists created a robot that could solve a Rubik’s cube in 1.019 seconds, a new speed record was set. The Sub1 robot is the first machine to complete the puzzle in less than a second.

The German engineer Albert Beer is the creator of Sub1. To solve the problem, the robot uses two webcams, which take a picture of the cube, with three sides visible on each picture. The webcams are covered before the start of the solution procedure, so that the calculation of the solution cannot take place in advance.

To calculate the solution, Beer uses Herbert Kociemba’s algorithm. The solution is then sent to an Arduino-compatible computer board, which instructs the six stepper motors to perform the twenty steps required. The Sub1 robot managed to solve the famous cube in 887 milliseconds of seconds. At the end of January, the time was set to 1.019 seconds by another robot.

According to Beer, it took hundreds of hours to build, program and tune Sub1 and it is the first robot that can independently solve a Rubik’s cube in less than one second. He has filed a record claim with Guinness World Records and is awaiting confirmation.

According to the maker, the record attempt was made with a World Cube Association verified speed cube, in the Cubikon store in Munich. The official world record is still held by a Lego machine that in 2014, using a Samsung Galaxy S4, managed to solve a Rubik’s cube in 3.253 seconds. The ‘manual’ world record is held by Lucas Etter, who in November 2015 at the age of fourteen solved a Rubik’s cube in 4.904 seconds.