"Infineon claimed the test had implications for driveless cars" - now the cars can try solving Rubik's cube whilst pile driving you and your car into the side of a truck. Nice.
Robot solves Rubik's Cubes in 637 milliseconds
A robot has reportedly broken the world record for solving a Rubik's Cube in the shortest time – the third occasion this year it has fallen. The builders of the Sub1 Reloaded robot claimed it took 637 milliseconds to figure out the cuboid puzzle at the Electronica trade fair in Munich. The power for motor control was supplied …
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 14:12 GMT Anonymous Custard
Antici.......pation
“large number of unanticipated sensors”.
Somehow I think the sensors won't be unanticipated, although their data and signals quite probably will be.
Unless they're getting really advanced and taking game theory a bit too far by picking them up as they drive along as power-ups?
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 14:27 GMT Charles 9
As for that time...
Is this the COMPLETE time needed to solve the cube, complete with mechanical action? Given the sheep physical distance 20 moves would take, I would call that one heck of a feat.
Which means I don't think so. Probably just the time needed to construct an efficient solution while the actual motors take it nice and easy so as not to break the cube through overexertion.
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 15:08 GMT Charles 9
Re: As for that time...
Ah, but they used a special low-friction cube, not the bog-standard cube humans have to solve. I'd love to know what's the fastest solving time, from first glance, using the standard cube. Also, the solution is substandard because it made 21 moves when any cube can be solved in 20 or less. So there's still room to improve.
Has anyone learned if finding the optimal solution to any Rubik's cube is considered a P or NP problem?
PS. I can't see the video due to my blockers.
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 15:47 GMT Midnight
Re: As for that time...
Most humans in competitions _do_ use speed cubes, which are designed to avoid unfortunate accidents like popping or corner cutting and then disassembled, lubricated, adjusted and reassembled at least twenty times during the lead-up to a competition. The first adjustment ensures that all of the cube's parts will be turning at top speed with exactly the amount of friction required while the next nineteen or so are just to give the cube's owner something to do with their hands while waiting.
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 18:10 GMT Charles 9
Re: As for that time...
"Has anyone learned if finding the optimal solution to any Rubik's cube is considered a P or NP problem?"
Found my own answer, though I never knew it as "God's Algorithm". Seems an optimal solution algorithm was written in 1997, and the Cube has been exhaustively studied. But then, I have to wonder why the record breaker took 21 moves instead of 20? Was it for reasons of mechanical efficiency (easier to do certain turns in sequence than others)?
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 21:16 GMT DavCrav
Re: As for that time...
"Has anyone learned if finding the optimal solution to any Rubik's cube is considered a P or NP problem?"
I'm going to take a wild stab in dark and say you don't know what P or NP is. Because if you did you would know that solving any specific problem is very much in P. In fact in C: constant time algorithm.
-
-
Friday 11th November 2016 09:42 GMT DavCrav
Re: As for that time...
"Since the robot in the video would be totally unable to solve a 4x4x4 cube, I'd say that the complexity in this case is "worse than exponential"."
Now I see what the previous commentator might have meant: the nxnxn cube, whether finding the optimal solution is in P. I very much doubt if it's in NP, and since the symmetric group on n points has order n!, I would hazard a guess it's not soluble in O(a^n) time for any a>0.
-
-
-
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 14:34 GMT AndyS
Re: As for that time...
Interestingly the computation time is not included for human solvers - they get to examine the cube beforehand, and work out what they are going to do. So the 4.9 second record is simply for executing a series of pre-worked-out moves, with a few (very short) calibration stops along the route.
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 19:56 GMT Charles 9
Re: As for that time...
"Interestingly the computation time is not included for human solvers - they get to examine the cube beforehand, and work out what they are going to do. So the 4.9 second record is simply for executing a series of pre-worked-out moves, with a few (very short) calibration stops along the route."
Which raises the possibility of a variant of the speed solve competition: from a blind start, thus taking into account on-the-spot mental solving as well as the mechanical manipulation into the time.
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 16:22 GMT Nick Ryan
Re: World Wide Jungle
Yep, and it's same old bullshit pedalled on each one... "you won't believe what happened next", "millionaires hate you knowing this secret", "this woman in X makes Y per day working at home" (stop yer tittering at the back) or "How to buy X, Y or Z for unbelievable prices" and so on. Repetition: the underpinning of brainwashing. The more "reputable" (hahaha) sites foist this bullshit on every page the more the gullible believe that any of it is remotely true and not just click bait shit.
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 14:53 GMT Haku
Next challenge: Rubik's Magic
I still have my original one bought in 1986 from Woolies, with its box. The new silvery coloured one they brought out a couple of years back isn't very good as it just doesn't have the same tactile feel to it because it's about 2/3 the thickness of the original.
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 22:15 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
Re: Next challenge: Rubik's Magic
"At least with the Cube, the configuration can be randomized to keep things interesting."
Maybe I'm on the wrong track here, but no nitpicking intended: "... the Rubik’s cube has 43 quintillion possible combinations of coloured squares but can be completed in 20 moves." Okay, doesn't that mean that while I can pick (more or less) randomly one combination out of 43 quintillion possible combinations as the starting point, the thing itself and the process of ordering the colours is anything but random?
-
Friday 11th November 2016 13:34 GMT Charles 9
Re: Next challenge: Rubik's Magic
You'd be correct. Look up "parity puzzle" and you'll discover the Rubik's Cube is a type of parity puzzle (the common 15 Puzzle is another). Basically, while there are so many different configurations, those configurations are still bound by the physics of the cube that only allow certain rotations, meaning there are valid arrangements and invalid ones. The Cube has been researched quite extensively for the last couple decades.
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 15:42 GMT Charles 9
Re: How complex is that problem anyhow?
It's mostly a matter of twisting the cube. It takes a tiny fraction to assess the cube and probably a touch more to determine a solution based on it. Still, the time is quick due to using a low-friction cube. Given its flimsier construction and looser tolerances, we can't expect the same results from the standard cube.
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 19:38 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: How complex is that problem anyhow?
I's completely dominated by how fast you can twist the cue. You can see on the video that the movement begins almost immediately, so the visual input and computation are taking about a millisecond and then it's about 30ms per mechanical move.
It's a very nice piece of mechanical engineering that our esteemed rag appears to have mis-filed under "Artificial Intelligence".
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Thursday 10th November 2016 16:17 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Not impressed
Special cube and grabbing and rotating the centre of each face.
Whereas these use standard Rubik's cubes...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=rubik+lego
In particular...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0pFZG7j5cE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=staapsj3eRQ
a little different...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5b9BIBuOd4
or, the old fashioned way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwNUmnDu1r8
-
-
-
-
Friday 11th November 2016 08:21 GMT Ken Hagan
Tsk Tsk. Has no-one let you in on the plan? Since the Chinese copy all our tech, the current strategy is to make our tech amazingly crap, diverting Chinese industry down unproductive routes whilst we carry on using old rubbish that, er, works.
Hence, Windows 10, the F35 fighter, Samsung phones, this cube solver, ...
-
-
-
Friday 11th November 2016 13:14 GMT Charles 9
The problem with picking fruit is that they are typically irregularly-shaped, positioned pretty randomly in any given tree, and a bit on the squishy side. These are problem areas where machines aren't ideal. Same with homes. They're designed for human bodies that tend to have a certain level of instinctual knowledge of how to move and so on. That's why it's been tricky to build a fully-mobile robot: some of the stuff we do comes instinctively so we don't know HOW we do it.
-
Biting the hand that feeds IT
