Rubik’s Cube Solver Made Out Of Popsicle Sticks And An Arduino

rubix cube solver

[Matt] recently learned both how to solve a Rubik’s cube and the basics of an Arduino. Putting the two together, he decided to try his hand at making an automatic Rubik’s Cube solver!

We’ve seen this done quite a few times using LEGO Mindstorms, but we’re much more impressed with [Matt’s] clever use of popsicle sticks and mechanical linkages…. The device uses just two servos. One to rotate the base, and the second to flip the cube over.

He’s using an Arduino UNO (R3) with 2 Hitec HS-311 hobby servos, some popsicle sticks, hot glue, a paper towel roll, and a bit of plywood. He wrote the code to solve the cube himself, and has shared it on GitHub — but he didn’t stop there and decided to create a GUI to go with it using Python.

It’s not that fast, but it’ll solve a cube in about 20 minutes — stick around after the break to see it in action!

15 thoughts on “Rubik’s Cube Solver Made Out Of Popsicle Sticks And An Arduino

  1. Clever. But aren’t there solutions that don’t depend on the starting state? I remember when Rubik’s cube was a “thing” (30+ ;years ago) people solving them completely sight unseen behind their backs.

    1. Do that and you will be probably rewarded with a fields medal. ;)

      (ps.: y best rubik time is about 50s, quite slow, but for the algos to become faster you have to memorize many sequences and i’m too lazy)

  2. Nice work.I wouldn’t know where to start if I was going to solve a rubik’s cube, either by hand or software. But I definitely think that this robot should be able to scan the cube by itself. It must be possible for instance to place 9 color-sensors on the bottom, or something like that.

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