CubeStormer II beats human world record in solving Rubik’s Cube

They say that seeing is believing – well, all I gotta say is, that adage holds true with the CubeStormer II video that you can watch right after the jump. This unique ARM-powered robot was specially designed, built and programmed by Mike Dobson and David Gilday with one objective in mind – to beat the human world record when it comes to solving the Rubik’s Cube puzzle. Easy meat for them, considering they are respective creators of the first CubeStormer and the Android Speedcuber.

All the mechanical parts rely on LEGO bits and pieces, ranging from a quartet of MINDSTORMS NXT kits to a Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone which has a custom Android app working as the robot’s brain. The phone’s camera is utilized to shoot images of each face of the Rubik’s Cube before it begins solving it, where an advanced two-phase algorithm gets down and dirty to get the job done in a jiffy. I wonder whether humans would be able to do better if we were allowed to “inspect” the cube beforehand.