David Gilday has an incredible Rubik’s Cube solving robot tutorial up on makezine.

David Gilday’s MindCub3r robot is made from a single Lego Mindstorms EV3 set and solves mixed-up Rubik’s Cubes. The way it works is that a color sensor scans all the faces of the cube, then a servo rotates the cube while an arm flips the cube around. In the video, David demonstrates the robot solving a cube in one minute and 41 seconds, thanks to a EV3 firmware hack and a revised color sensor program block.

The feature of the robot that blows me away the most is the way it flips the cube. That’s some excellent engineering! However, there are two non-engineering aspects that also intrigue me.

The first is the fact that David used only a single EV3 set. It’s super difficult to only use the basic set, because there are so many intriguing parts not found in the set that call out to be used. However, the coolest aspect of the project is that David is freely sharing the building instructions and EV3 program needed to make one of your own. See the MindCub3r project page to download.

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