Rubik’s Cube Solver: A Review

The Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combinatorial and mechanical puzzle invented in 1974.The Rubik’s Cube was invented by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik. Since its invention in 1974, the Rubik’s Cube has challenged users to solve a colourful puzzle in record time. While humans have managed to solve the puzzle in as little time as possible, machines are able to do so in under a second.The purpose and aim of this project is to develop an autonomous system which would be able to solve a Rubik’s cube in minimum number of moves and in minimum time i.e. to reduce time.This paper is to develop a Rubik’s Cube solving system that implements various algorithms- sequences of moves that move specific pieces of the puzzle from one location to another.In order to recognise colours on each faces of the cube and then applying various algorithms on it in order to solve the Rubik’s Cube,Image processing is used. We will recognise the scrambled state of the cube. We then implement an algorithm that takes as input the scrambled state of the Cube and outputs a sequence of moves that solve the Rubik’s Cube. This output is then going to translate into a series of instructions for six stepper motors that interact with the Rubik’s Cube. Each stepper motor, controlled by stepper motor drivers turns a face of the puzzle. The stepper motors execute the moves produced by the algorithm for solving the Rubik’s Cube, fully solving the puzzle. Python is used as development environment (programming language).