Video Of The Week - Lego Robot Crowned Rubik's Cube Champion

Even in this day of digital gaming, solving the Rubik's cube as rapidly as possible, remains a challenge most people can't seem to resist. While humans have been doing it ever since the 3x3x3 cube came to market in 1974, even robots are now getting into the fray.

On March 15th, a robot aptly called Cubestormer 3, stole the show at the Big Bang UK Young Scientists & Engineers Fair when it solved the cube in a speedy quick 3.253 seconds. Not surprisingly, it broke the Guinness World Record surpassing both the previous human record of 5.55 seconds set by Dutchman Mats Valk in 2013, and robot record of 5.27 seconds set by its predecessor - Cubestormer 2!

The Lego robot is the brainchild of UK-based engineers, David Gilday and Mike Dobson. Built from the colorful bricks along with some borrowed motors, actuators and arms from Lego Mindstorm sets, the robot's 'brain' is powered by a custom-made Android App that performs the analysis and sends it the right commands. It is no wonder that it took the co-inventors who worked on it during their spare time, 18-months to perfect. Though happy at its progress, they believe they can get that the next version of Cubestormer to solve the colorful cube even faster - So stay tuned!

Resources: theverge.com, telegraph.co.uk