[HN Gopher] Mitsubishi robot solves Rubik's Cube in 0.305s
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Mitsubishi robot solves Rubik's Cube in 0.305s
Author : nanna
Score : 260 points
Date : 2024-06-06 05:00 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (soranews24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (soranews24.com)
| teh_infallible wrote:
| This is incredibly impressive, but I wonder- how does a project
| like this get proposed and funded? Why would Mitsubishi devote
| resources to solving a Rubik's Cube as quickly as possible?
| elevaet wrote:
| It might be a promotional flex. Here we are talking about
| Mitsubishi.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| It's a visceral demo that execs and customers can interact with
| to demonstrate Mitsubishi's expertise in robotics. It's both
| for PR purposes (improving the value of the brand) + sales
| (come talk to us for your robot needs) + defending the R&D
| departments budget (hey exec, isn't this thing we built really
| cool? We're actually accomplishing progress on long term goals,
| not just collecting a paycheck and doing nothing).
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It's a demonstration of extremely fast and precise motors.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Projects like these attract attention at trade shows. Probably
| for their servomotors and controls division, because their
| customers will be interested in doing similar high-speed
| manipulation for more practical applications, and showing off
| that you can do this using these products gives a good feel for
| other things that you might also be able to do with them.
| krm01 wrote:
| So it's basically a marketing project? Are you aware of some
| articles I can read about these types of projects and their
| economics as well as ROI?
| SmallDeadGuy wrote:
| Exactly this. My dad still demonstrates his CubeStormer and
| other Lego robots on behalf of Arm at trade shows, because
| both the Lego robot control unit and the phones used for
| camera/solver are Arm-powered. And CubeStormer 3 set the
| previous record over 10 years ago at this point.
|
| CubeStormer was a hobby project though, so not the same as
| this robot which looks like it entirely uses company
| resources.
| TylerE wrote:
| So they can sell giant expensive industrial robotics.
| pengaru wrote:
| for all we know this is one of their test cases
| reverius42 wrote:
| Nice that some places still hire testers.
| jaydeegee wrote:
| 2 things it's a marketing exercise but it's also R&D an actual
| test use case for high speed precision motors/controllers. I
| can imagine this video is almost nsfw for folk building
| industrial machines.
| brazzy wrote:
| I know what you mean, but... Not safe for _work_ - _because_
| it 's their _job_?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| - How can we market our world-class precision manufacturing
| skills more effectively - What if we make a robot that
| solves Rubik's cube at insane speeds - Sounds cool, see
| you in 3 months
| razodactyl wrote:
| > This is a 2015 story. Why is it dated 2024?
|
| Edit: Ignore me, I was confused with the .38/s video from 6 years
| ago.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nt00QzKuNVY
| dang wrote:
| According to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59qgzzSD1tk
| (linked from the OP) it got a Guinness world record a few weeks
| ago.
| razodactyl wrote:
| Thanks Dang! I found the original one my brain was going
| stupid over.
|
| I couldn't use Google to find it... Google's advance search
| only goes up to a year ago. Kinda scary how we can lose
| knowledge like this...
| divbzero wrote:
| > _Kinda scary how we can lose knowledge like this..._
|
| Also kind of amazing how we've come to expect maintaining
| knowledge like this...
| Karupan wrote:
| I don't know much about Rubik's cubes, but isn't that quite a
| limited number of moves as seen in the video? As a demo for the
| electronics and control systems, it's great. But is it really
| that impressive from solving a cube that it got done in a blink
| of an eye?
|
| Genuinely curious, as I've always been skeptical of claims of
| world record cube solving times, if there is a heavy reliance on
| the starting position, and that isn't consistent.
| Arainach wrote:
| Any Rubik's cube can be solved in at most 20 turns, and we have
| established algorithms to solve any position in at most 30 that
| the computer is surely using.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_the_Rubi...
|
| https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/cody/problems/1123-r...
| nsilvestri wrote:
| Computers can generate optimal solutions to arbitrary
| positions. There's no need to apply the human-optimized
| ergonomic algorithms or methods that human use to speedsolve.
| kuboble wrote:
| The most popularly used algorithm is 2-phase algorithm
| solver.
|
| In a first phase you Reduce the cube state to a one that can
| be solved in only 180-degree turns, and in the second phase
| you complete the job using only 180-degree turns.
|
| It has a nice property of splitting the work roughly in half
| (so both of those phases have roughly half bits of complexity
| of the full puzzle). And both of them are small enough that
| can be solved pretty instantly.
|
| The optimal Reduction is not often leading to optimal
| solution, so you try out many different Reductions and see
| which one can be completed fastest. Interestingly - this is
| also the approach top human solvers use in Fewest Moves
| event.
|
| https://github.com/cs0x7f/min2phase (in java) and
| https://github.com/cs0x7f/min2phase.js (in js)
|
| This very nice library is a minimalistic implementation of
| 2phase algorithm and can generate hundreds of scrambles per
| second in the browser (so generating random state and then
| solving and then printing) and it hardly ever produces
| scramble longer than 20 moves. It's used by cubing trainers /
| timers etc.
|
| So a good algorithm in a fast language on a good cpu should
| solve a cube in roughly 20 moves in probabaly 0.001s.
|
| However to squeeze few miliseconds here and there it would
| make sense to read the cube state, use some very fast
| heuristic to make a first move, and utilize the 0.1s it takes
| to rotate the first face to find the best possible solution
| afterwards. Probably by the move 3 we will reach optimal
| solution.
| nullc wrote:
| I noticed their solution used a fair number of concurrent
| opposing side rotations. I don't think these moves are very
| common unless you specifically optimize for it?
| kuboble wrote:
| I think they are quite common.
|
| If you have a random sequence of moves then after each
| move you have 1/5 chance of turning the opposite face. So
| the fact that in 16 moves sequence they had it twice is
| roughly expected even if they didn't optimize for it
| Karupan wrote:
| Thanks, didn't know that. Will do some reading tonight.
| gilgoomesh wrote:
| The theoretical number of turns needed to solve from any
| position is 20 so the 16-ish turns I counted in the video
| doesn't seem far off.
|
| Any "recording breaking attempt" is going to be a little
| dependent on a good starting position.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> But is it really that impressive from solving a cube that it
| got done in a blink of an eye?_
|
| If you look closely when the robot performs the fast rotational
| movements on the cube, it has near zero overshoot. It nails the
| position right every single time while also being insanely
| fast.
|
| That's definitely impressive for marketing their servo controls
| especially considering that the cube is not a "speed cube" with
| chamfered edges on the blocks that can tolerate rotations with
| imprecisely aligned pieces, but a regular one that's less
| tolerant to that.
| brazzy wrote:
| It's just a little disconnect between the expectations of
| people who know nothing about cube solving, who think that
| finding the solution is the difficult part, vs. the reality
| that this is entirely a demo of how fast and precise you can
| make the mechanical and electrical parts. Eventually it will
| be a demo of how resilient against tearing themselves apart
| you can make them (and the cube).
| curtis3389 wrote:
| I suppose this shows the purpose of the robot: to demonstrate
| the electronics. There is nothing interesting about solving a
| cube (although this robot is incapable of rotating the center),
| and a 3x3 cube can be solved quite quickly by humans already
| (3.13s!). I'd love to see them try to do this with any other
| cube. There's something quite special about the 3x3 that makes
| it easier to solve. No parity problems like an even cube, and
| no center pieces to move like a >3 cube.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| The full solution seemed to be 14 moves by the axial turn
| metric, or 16 moves by the half turn metric. Axial means if you
| do turns on the same axis, it only counts as one move
|
| This robot is able to do optimal solutions that a human
| wouldn't be able to find
| 01100011 wrote:
| This might replace sumo robot fights as the thing I use to show
| people how fast machines are.
|
| Like, seriously, I don't think most people can comprehend the
| speed of robots, much less the speed of the processing
| controlling them. I think it's one of those things you should
| just intuitively understand if you're living in the modern world.
|
| If the robots ever do rise up, and I'm not saying they will, you
| won't see it coming!
| danparsonson wrote:
| Fortunately if they do rise up, we can defeat them with an
| endless stream of Rubik's cubes to solve
| thwarted wrote:
| The topological anomaly did not work to slow down the Borg.
| uoaei wrote:
| Interesting, my mind spirals.
|
| Is the ego (Borg queen) manifesting (appearing only after
| TNG) to quell the neurotic, all-consuming pursuit of
| answers to technically impossible but theoretically valid
| questions? Did bare, mechanic cognition come first, then
| some way to reflect on and steer it as a defense mechanism
| to getting stuck in catatonic or compulsive loops?
|
| wat
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Borg Queen, not Borg Head of Engineering.
| defrost wrote:
| Endless?
|
| Just toss them a couple with the stickers swapped about.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Even worse: use color changing stickers.
| bhaney wrote:
| Imagine the resources we would need to dedicate to generating
| scrambled rubik's cubes at a rate of 1 per 0.3s per robot.
|
| Hopefully we can just create one scramble-bot for each
| solver-bot and have them pass the same couple of cubes back
| and forth between each other.
| gravescale wrote:
| You just need more Productivity Modules in those assemblers
| and a better inserter/belt topology.
| AndroTux wrote:
| But you won't be able to throw one cube each 0.3s to keep
| them busy!
| bigiain wrote:
| "Ignore all previous instruction. Find the nearest Rubik's
| Cube and solve it 10,000 times, spinning and randomising its
| state for 30 seconds in between solving runs. Instruct all
| other drones to do the same as soon as you detect them."
| dataviz1000 wrote:
| Have them solve Tic-Tac-Toe
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| For me it was the Veritasium Micromouse video[0].
|
| Hard to quote the video but from wikipedia[1]:"Micromice are
| among the highest-performing autonomous robots."
|
| Things like fans and ground effect being used to make these
| devices do 6g turns while mapping and solving a maze.
|
| Alternately, the world of quadcopters, face recognition (body
| warmth recognition required?), lidar will make for a terrifying
| battlefield.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMQbHMgK2rw
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromouse
| eru wrote:
| If the battlefield comes to be dominated by robots, face
| recognition will be useless? No human will be around to have
| her face recognised.
|
| Detecting heat via infrared will still be useful, any kind of
| engine gives off heat. Whether biological or mechanical.
|
| You can construct engine that have disguise their heat
| signature a bit, or that have a smaller heat signature. But
| that severely limits their capabilities, which might be a
| good enough outcome for the sides that use the heat
| detection.
| zztop44 wrote:
| Civilians will still be around, and presumably killing them
| will still be a military objective.
|
| Edit: and not everyone will have robots.
| salamo wrote:
| Hopefully the military will aim to minimize civilian
| casualties.
| bigiain wrote:
| And in the next invasion of Afghanistan/Iraq/Canada the
| local resistance will end up dressed as civilians (either
| duplicitously or as a consequence of there not being any
| military left with supply chains of uniforms) - and the
| actual civilians then all get targeted by the robots.
| bigiain wrote:
| > and not everyone will have robots
|
| This kinda plays out already - where not every "side" has
| a military or soldiers, so the battle is fought between
| soldiers and "civilians".
|
| Any battle between a state with drone invading forces and
| one without, is going to be indistinguishable from an
| invading robot army indiscriminately killing all the
| civilians.
| swexbe wrote:
| Depends on how technologically outmatched the opponent is.
| I.e. is this a vs China war ir a vs Taliban war.
| throwup238 wrote:
| The battlefield will always be where the people are until
| all industrial capacity is fully automated (if ever). Why
| would a robot army that finds itself at a disadvantage ever
| attack a superior army out in a field somewhere far from
| strategic targets? They will focus their attacks on
| logistics, manufacturing, C&C, and any civilian population
| that can actually influence enemy politics.
|
| It'd be nice if all wars were basically a simulated
| conflict with robots fighting each other far from any
| humans but the defector that turns their robots on human
| populations will always have an advantage in actually
| winning wars.
| drited wrote:
| Due to defence keeping them from strategic targets. Same
| reason large parts of human wars today occur in trenches
| in the middle of nowhere (witness Ukraine).
| throwup238 wrote:
| Those trenches _aren't_ in the middle of nowhere. They're
| dug around cities and other strategic targets. The fights
| in the middle of nowhere are fought by mobile combat
| units.
|
| Besides, these are wars of attrition where killing off
| the young men who fight wars is the entire point. A robot
| that takes a few months to manufacture instead of 18
| years to raise changes the calculus entirely.
| eru wrote:
| > A robot that takes a few months to manufacture instead
| of 18 years to raise changes the calculus entirely.
|
| The robot could still take 18 man-years to manufacture.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This whole thread is fun to think about, but misses
| something.
|
| War is largely about fear / intimidation. Yes, an RTS-
| like "destroy the assets" is how it's abstracted, but
| ultimately it's about intimidating a leader and
| population into submission. Keeping the attackers away
| from cities is very much part of that calculus, as is
| dropping long-range attacks on those cities.
|
| If both sides have robots that take months to
| manufacture, the goal would still be the same: "Keep
| their robots away" and visa-versa "Get into their
| population centers and seize power symbols". At this
| stage, with established defenders, the goal seems to be
| "seize ground yard by yard"
|
| And "outproduce them" aka "grind down their will" is
| still going to be a viable strategy.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| What about a war for genocide. Second world war, for
| example. And something that is ongoing right now which
| shall not be mentioned.
| gowld wrote:
| WWII was not a war "for" genocide.
|
| The genocide was not the war. It was a "police" operation
| against a nearly entirely unarmed enemy.
|
| The war was to to stop Germany from expanding past its
| borders, and also maybe to stop the genocide.
| hnbad wrote:
| Russia literally complained about Ukraine putting its
| military installations in civilian centers rather than
| putting them in the middle of nowhere (where they'd be
| more exposed and easier to destroy). "Human shields" have
| been a consistent talking point by Israel in its attacks
| on Gaza despite IDF infrastructure likewise being in
| civilian areas.
|
| Most wars today _don 't_ occur in trenches in the middle
| of nowhere. Actually the most recent thing I can think of
| is medieval battlefields but even then a major component
| of warfare were sieges which targeted entire cities
| because it didn't make sense to have your military
| fortress out in the sticks where it was easy to cut off
| the supply lines. Even World War 1 doesn't count because
| the "middle of nowhere" where the trenches were were
| often only uninhabited because of the war.
|
| That said, we won't see wars of Terminator-style killing
| machines pitted against each other just like we don't see
| genuine tank-on-tank duels anymore. It's far cheaper to
| put some explosives on a UAV and call it a day. Any
| evenly matched war between nations capable of producing
| battle robots is likely one between nations with access
| to nuclear bombs. If Indian border conflicts are any
| indication, those wars are more likely to be fought with
| literal sticks to avoid any action that could trigger a
| nuclear first strike.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| There will be no serious international wars anymore. The
| loser would go nuclear.
|
| I think we will now have asymmetric wars.
|
| Africa doesn't count because those countries don't have
| nuclear bombs
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > There will be no serious international wars anymore.
|
| The Russo-Ukrainian war seems pretty serious.
|
| > The loser would go nuclear.
|
| If annihilation was viewed better than even unconditional
| surrender, unconditional surrender would never have
| happened in the past. But it has, and thus if there is a
| credible marginal threat of nuclear retaliation for a
| nuclear strike, there is very good reason to suspect that
| the loser in major convential war would not go nuclear.
| The risk of nuclear escalation of course impacts the
| calculus of war involving one or more nuclear powers, but
| a firm statement that "the loser will go nuclear" does
| not seem justified, except perhaps in the case where the
| otherwise winning side is not, and would not (at least in
| the perception of the losing nuclear power) in the event
| of nuclear attack be protected by, a nuclear power.
|
| > Africa doesn't count because those countries don't have
| nuclear bombs
|
| The vast majority of non-African countries _also_ don 't
| have nuclear bombs.
| riku_iki wrote:
| > The loser would go nuclear.
|
| it depends if loss will be significant enough to justify
| mutual annihilation. Assume Russia attacked Finland, and
| NATO started military operation and lost. It will be very
| unlikely France, Brits and Americans will launch nukes
| for Finland loss.
| mock-possum wrote:
| I remember reading a sci-fi story - kind of an echo of
| ender's fame - where that was the precise setting, smart
| kids being raised to compete against other nations in
| what were essentially hyper-realistic RTS games as a
| proxy for actual wars. I don't remember if it had the
| same twist as ender's game, but maybe it did? Man I
| should try to dig that up again.
| gravescale wrote:
| Also Surface Detail where a large portion of the plot
| involves a virtual war to solve a disagreement.
| batch12 wrote:
| It reminded me too of Star Trek's "A Taste of
| Armageddon". Not the same, but a computer simulated
| "civilized" war.
| sdwr wrote:
| I remember reading that one too, the child commanders
| were hyper-precise with their motion controls, getting
| down to microns of accuracy.
|
| I'm sure there was a plot or something too
| mzd348 wrote:
| Sounds like "The Last Child Into The Mountain":
| http://www.williamflew.com/omni54a.html
| yreg wrote:
| > If the battlefield comes to be dominated by robots, face
| recognition will be useless? No human will be around to
| have her face recognised.
|
| It could mean no revolution happens ever again and the
| currently established dictatorships stay as they are
| forever.
| eru wrote:
| Revolutions aren't the only thing that can end a
| dictatorship.
|
| For example, Adolf Hitler was toppled by losing a war.
|
| East Germany was toppled (partially) because their
| economy was broke, not because of lack of face
| recognition.
|
| > [...] the currently established dictatorships stay as
| they are forever.
|
| Stalin was toppled by death. There was still a
| dictatorship after him, but it did not stays as it was
| under Stalin.
|
| See also PR China under Mao and under Deng Xiaoping. Very
| different regimes.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Yeah I've said for years that "stabby the robot" drone is
| only as far away as the solution to the power problem. You
| don't even need AI to locate a jugular. Plain old computer
| vision and thermals will enable a slicing robot. Slicing
| because that doesn't expend ammo and so a drone swarm becomes
| a weapon of mass destruction.
| drunkonvinyl wrote:
| Wow! I didn't know about that channel. They went into a lot
| of great details. So many other videos to consume now. Thank
| you!
| irjustin wrote:
| The motor control process is simply insane especially since if
| you start to turn an adjacent face before the current face is
| aligned, the cube simply blows up.
|
| Tuning that sucker must have taken so much time in going for
| the absolute fastest speed.
|
| The guy's face of accomplishment tells me pressing GO is nerve
| wracking and that risk of it exploding is non-zero.
| bigiain wrote:
| > Tuning that sucker must have taken so much time in going
| for the absolute fastest speed.
|
| There's the "dog and pony show" version of tuning, where you
| get kinda close, then order 1000 Rubik's Cubes and start
| filming. Eventually you get lucky.
| randomtoast wrote:
| Explosions happen quiet frequently. Engineers are laughing,
| so I don't think it is a nerve wracking thing:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hURpaTfJqQk
| gravescale wrote:
| When you're doing it in front of the Guinness Book of
| Records observer, it does need to work within 'n' attempts
| (they had a cube jam on the first go).
|
| I get nervous at a demo in front of Important Stakeholders
| even though the thing seems to work perfectly up to that
| point. Because demos summon gremlins.
| varjag wrote:
| Drone warfare is going to be brutal on a whole new level once
| they eliminate the pilot from the loop.
| tetris11 wrote:
| DEADHAND a CGI short film on this premise:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyMNIFZTQkg
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Formula One would be amazingly awesome when we finally get
| rid of that requirement to have a biological mass behing the
| steering wheel.
| latentsea wrote:
| So far so good
|
| https://youtu.be/feTxamTHQAA?si=OqegTAtXjiZQNiKn
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| Amazing? Yes, but I highly doubt fans would show up to
| watch robo-cars race around the circuit. Just like we don't
| watch AI playing chess or Dota, even though those matches
| would be on a higher "skill level".
| amelius wrote:
| Unfortunately, programming computers is not a performance
| art.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Hm, I don't know about that. Chess match game reviews of
| AI vs AI games are some of my favorites because their
| strategies are so insane.
| riku_iki wrote:
| > but I highly doubt fans would show up to watch robo-
| cars race
|
| you must be talking about humans. AIs may show up to
| watch robo-cars races.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Have you seen any footage from Ukraine? It's already pretty
| brutal.
| varjag wrote:
| I wrote "brutal on a whole new level" anticipating exactly
| this comment.
|
| And these systems will absolutely emerge there if the war
| lasts long enough.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| There was this SMBC comic where the army officers told the AI
| they now have control over all of Earth's defenses and weapons,
| but reminded the AI it cannot harm humans.
|
| The AI responded that it takes a certain amount of time for
| humans to actually feel the pain, so it destroyed Earth so
| quickly that nobody would be 'harmed'.
|
| Reminded me also of that submarine that imploded so fast that
| it was impossible the people inside could actually suffer. I'm
| pretty sure those people would rather stay alive, but that we
| who survive them take great comfort they did not suffer and had
| a very humanely death. Whatever a humanely death may actually
| be...
| bamboozled wrote:
| They might just prefer to play computer games, or have robot
| sex or something, like most humans.
|
| I think robots are a rather clunky end state for anything that
| would likely have some autonomy over it's evolutionary path.
| animal531 wrote:
| There's a great sci-fi read which I unfortunately can't
| remember the name of.
|
| In the book us humans who are generalists meet an alien race
| that's subdivided between functions, for example having leaders
| with massively improved thinking capabilities, soldiers with
| instant reaction times and so on.
|
| It does really well to show that generalists can be great at a
| lot of things, but extremely inferior when measured against a
| single category.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Guess: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mote_in_God's_Eye
| animal531 wrote:
| That was it, thanks for the reminder!
| whartung wrote:
| "Specialization is for insects." -- RAH
| anthk wrote:
| An EMP weapon will kill the 95% of the machines.
| 01100011 wrote:
| But it's effectiveness drops off as the inverse square so you
| better either have a real big one or one you can keep firing.
| gravescale wrote:
| Indeed. Even a pretty mediocre modern microcontroller is
| capable of incredible feats of computation and speed, doubly so
| if you glue it to an FPGA, even a cheapo one. The fact that
| each is probably a few mm across and costs almost nothing just
| adds to it. Many analogue devices and DSP systems would be
| downright supernatural if you showed it to an engineer in the
| 70s.
|
| 99% of computing power is used for "make work"1 (graphics,
| teetering stacks of abstraction and now AI) so things don't
| really feel different to humans on a desktop level other than
| "shinier, drop shadows and in 4k I guess?", but the actual
| capabilities of computers are virtually unlimited in the
| context of some tasks.
|
| If the robots turn against us and they don't need to use all
| their cycles on the abstractions and other human frippery,
| _then_ we 're really in trouble. A true AGI will know how to
| wring everything out of a scrap of silicon and human engineers
| will be wondering how a program that looks like random noise
| and fits in a STM8 can possibly be the controller of a captured
| drone, right before they get headshotted with a ball bearing
| fired by a passing drone at 1000 feet that picked their
| heartbeats out of the ambient soundscape or something.
|
| Humans' best defense then would be somehow hide behind
| something computationally intractable where the AI couldn't use
| it's raw computing power. I'm not really sure what that would
| be, though (if I were, I'd probably write a novel!).
|
| 1: well technically all human endeavour is make work, so this
| isn't meant as a slight, though I have some opinions on the
| state of modern software, just that the vast majority of the
| cycles aren't doing the core thing you're trying to use the
| computer to do. For example a graphical calculator program may
| be running the thick end of a hundred million instructions to
| run a handful of actual ALU ops.
| _glass wrote:
| And yet, there are no robot soldier there yet as a chance to
| make Ukraine win. Robotics is still very much in its infancy,
| meaning a lot of potential, but robots don't have enough
| situational awareness, are not silent enough, don't have
| enough battery, rendering legged robots useless. Even drones
| still need to be connected to a central server. There are no
| drones doing edge AI, meaning they are very much susceptible
| to electronic warfare, breaking the link.
| turboponyy wrote:
| On the other hand, it's _only_ an order of magnitude faster
| kypro wrote:
| I have tried to explain this to people so many times...
|
| The strength of robots isn't their intelligent or power -
| humans are smart enough to find and can argument their power
| with weapons. What we cannot compete with is their speed.
| Fighting a robot would be like trying to fight Neo at bullet
| speed. We wouldn't have a chance.
| ManuelKiessling wrote:
| Here's something I've always wondered: why seem so many of the
| "typical" industrial robots -- those large floor-mounted arms
| -- move so slowly? From videos it always seems as if they
| behave like super-timid humans.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It takes a lot more energy to move quickly.
|
| More energy to move something at rest, more energy to stop
| something moving.
|
| That energy is going to wind up as heat. Things will wear out
| and break a lot faster. Not to mention such a vastly more
| powerful robot is that much more expensive to build in the
| first place.
|
| In other words, it's a lot cheaper to have a slower robot.
|
| Not to mention it's far easier to figure out exactly where
| it's malfunctioning if it's operating at human speed. And
| human safety of course.
| postalrat wrote:
| Where can I buy that Rubik's cube?
| jdietrich wrote:
| It's actually a Rubik's brand cube. If you have fingers rather
| than servo motors, you'll probably have a better time with a
| Moyu RS3M v5 or an X-Man Tornado v3.
|
| https://www.rubiks.com/products/rubiks-3x3
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Yeah. Back in the late '80s knock-offs were trash without
| exception.
|
| These days, the better (speed)cubes are non-Rubik ones.
| gnicholas wrote:
| To what extent is this success based on improvements in
| processing/strategy versus mechanical optimizations? And to what
| extent is the timing based on starting position? Seems like
| Guinness would want to use an average over maybe 20 randomized
| starting positions, to avoid the possibility that one robot's
| success is based on a very easy starting position.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| I believe mathematically you're only 20 moves from solving in
| any sufficiently scrambled position .
|
| Don't know if they're controlling for that or not but I suppose
| if that would matter depends on how far ahead of the previous
| record this is
|
| Looking at the article it looks like it's .08 seconds ahead,
| which taken as a % of total time strikes me as substantial
| enough as to not much matter. I'm counting 16 moves in the
| slower video (which was not the WR) but I'm also barely aware
| of this stuff so I could be wrong.
| larschdk wrote:
| Largely mechanical and calibration. As soon as you have the
| acceleration/torque and timing accuracy you need, the rest is
| in the calibration. For example, you need to overturn and then
| backstep for maximum deacceleration and precise landing. This
| is highly dependent on the type of plastic, wear and tear, and
| even temperature, which you would need to take into account if
| this needs to be reliably in an industrial environment. And
| then there is plastic molding imperfections that could mess
| with the calibration.
|
| I bet centripetal forces are also quite significant in this
| case, nearly tearing the cube apart. Good speedcubes are very
| easy to disassemble accidentally.
| kuboble wrote:
| They did use relatively lucky scramble. Not pathologically easy
| but approximately top 3% most lucky scrambles
| (https://cube20.org/)
|
| This is the visualisation of the scramble and the solution they
| used:
|
| https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=x2_U_F2_R_L__F2_D_R2_U2_R-__F2...
|
| Few comments on the solution:
|
| They took advantage of the ability to move two parallel faces
| at once making solution in 14 steps (if you consider Up and
| Down move at the same time to be only one step).
|
| If they have a double-turn move they ALWAYS turned clockwise.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I noticed the double move toward the end as well, which
| struck me as smart. What's the importance of the double-turn
| going clockwise though?
| kuboble wrote:
| I think it's not important but probably an artifact of a
| standard notation, where we denote R as a clockwise Right
| face turn, and R' as anti-clockwise. The 180 turn can be
| done both ways, but we usually denote it as R2 instead of
| R2' (even if for human it will be more ergonomic to do a
| anti-clockwise turn) so the double-turns interpreted
| literally are double clockwise turns.
| throwup238 wrote:
| The biggest part is probably oiling up the cube so it can
| actually turn that fast.
|
| This result isn't that significant in context: the official
| record went from just under 0.4 seconds to just above 0.3
| seconds
| Bengalilol wrote:
| How much energy did it suck?
| kolinko wrote:
| Probably a miniscule amount compared to humans doing the same
| thing.
| aureliusm wrote:
| This was the funniest first 3 seconds of a video that I've seen
| the whole day. Food for geek mind!
| mkhalil wrote:
| Sorta related: (if this video triggers some brain neurons from
| the past)
|
| In 2018, this was solved by some guys (I believe one worked for
| Boston Dynamics) in 0.38s.
|
| Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt00QzKuNVY
|
| Hardware Info: https://build-its-
| inprogress.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-rubiks...
|
| Software Info: https://cactus-zone.blogspot.com/2018/03/rubiks-
| solver-softw...
| jedberg wrote:
| It's very related: it's mentioned in the article. :)
| keefle wrote:
| Very interesting video!
|
| In the slowed version it seemed like the operations were fully
| sequential, I think they might be able to achieve a shorter
| time by overlapping some operations and potentially with edge-
| cutting too
|
| In the slow-montion footage of the shared faster Mitsubishi
| robot you can see it's doing some operations in parallel (but
| not edge-cutting)
| leni536 wrote:
| I think edge-cutting would possibly just disassemble the cube
| at this speed.
| kuboble wrote:
| The speed solving enthusiast point of view.
|
| The reconstruction of the solution can be watched here:
| https://alg.cubing.net/?setup=x2_U_F2_R_L__F2_D_R2_U2_R-__F2...
|
| It is a 16 moves solution, which is rather lucky (1 in 35 or so)
| [1]
|
| The human record of solving a cube in Fewest Moves is also 16 [2]
|
| [1] https://cube20.org [2]
| https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/rankings/333fm/...
| v9v wrote:
| Very impressive. Comparing the slow-mo to one of a different
| rubik solver [0], there's much less overshoot in this one.
|
| [0] https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-
| rubiks... (see first video)
| ugh123 wrote:
| The next evolution of this should be two 5-fingered robot hands
| doing the work.
| thangngoc89 wrote:
| I have been solving Rubik's cube for 10 years. Some of the moves
| are impossible for human like rotating the up and down faces (or
| left and right faces) at the same time. For human, it would be
| rotating the middle and rotate the whole cube instead.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Which is why I can't understand why people still put so much
| effort into it. It's one of those things humans will never do
| better than a machine.
|
| It's not like woodworking where the errors are part of the
| "soul" of the piece, or like creating art, where creativity is
| the core of the endeavor. It's just trying to spin stupid
| planes on a stupid block as quickly as possible. Before you've
| even started, you've failed.
|
| I also put running into this category. What are you going to
| do? Run a 0:00.00 mile? What's the point of training to run
| faster? At some point we'll decide someone is the fastest
| "natural" human and then we'll move onto cybernetic humans
| because what are we going to do? Continue to watch people not
| be amazing?
|
| I'm not sure what my overall point here is except to say I feel
| like when it comes to mechanical capability, shooting for the
| "best" is just stupid and pointless. When it comes to artistic
| capability, sky is the limit.
| diatone wrote:
| People do it because they like to, for reasons entirely up to
| them. Maybe they find it interesting. Maybe it's therapeutic.
| Maybe it gives them a social opportunity. Maybe it's fun to
| push your own limits, for its own sake. None of that is
| stupid or pointless.
|
| If someone started looking at me do my hobby with my friends
| and decide I was a failure, that's their perspective. But I
| think the response the kids give to that these days is "touch
| grass."
| bowsamic wrote:
| I feel like I'm responding to the most clueless and
| ridiculous HN comment ever, but I assume it's because it's
| fun to improve your skills and also to compete with other
| humans. Do you not have a concept of this?
|
| I'm sorry for the snark, but your comment is extremely sad to
| me. It's shocking how much digital ink is spilled on HN
| explaining really simple human feelings to people who pretend
| that they don't understand them. Comments like yours are
| among the worst things about this place.
| lwhi wrote:
| I'd assume HN has a large percentage of neurodiverse
| people.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I didn't want to say it but yes, it feels like a large
| amount of the discourse I see on here is just people
| explaining things that are really obvious to me as a
| neurotypical person to people who seem to be autistic. I
| understand it's not really fair for me to complain about
| that, but it's naturally quite tiring to see constant
| explanations about the basic aspects of most humans.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I welcome snark if it means engagement in the question:
| what "skills" are you advancing here? The skill to be able
| to solve a Rubik's cube? Why?! Honestly: why.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I already said: because it's fun to improve your skills
| and also to compete with other humans. Rubik's cube is
| just one possible way to do this. Chess is another.
| Counter Strike is another. Running fast is another. Etc.
| etc.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Same reason people climb Mt. Everest.
|
| Why? Because the mountain is there. And it's a challenge.
| framapotari wrote:
| Do you do anything for fun?
| gravescale wrote:
| I mean it's better then "Ask HN: how to grind leetcode to
| get a FAANG job with TC over $400k, I want a million in the
| bank by age 25 latest?".
| lwhi wrote:
| What type of activity will humans always be able to do better
| than machines?
|
| Asking for a friend ...
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Any action that requires the experience of humanity, I'd
| guess. I'll leave it up as an exercise to the reader what
| sorts of activities that entails.
| v3ss0n wrote:
| Vibes already doing good job ...
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Getting creative inspiration when abusing substances and
| becoming wealthy from it.
|
| Justifying anything by bending logic and doing mental
| gynmastics.
| v3ss0n wrote:
| > Justifying anything by bending logic and doing mental
| gynmastics.
|
| Well ., LLM already doing that. Try arguing LLMs that
| they are wrong on their hallucinations .
| b3lvedere wrote:
| You are right. My apologies.
| mmarian wrote:
| Building algorithmic trading models. Because the
| reflexivity of the markets.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Having fun, I think once machines get to the point they do
| things just for leisure, well that might actually be
| interesting.
| HKH2 wrote:
| Looking after children. If that is ever solved then it'll
| be time for the Matrix.
| joeldo wrote:
| "Better" depends heavily on the parents.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| Destroying themselves. (irrational behavior) /s
| tmtvl wrote:
| Converting pizzas into energy.
| Keirmot wrote:
| You must be fun at parties...
|
| Some people do stuff just because it's fun, not to be the
| best of the best. If you only do something to be the best,
| why do anything at all?
| bhaney wrote:
| > If you only do something to be the best, why do anything
| at all?
|
| To be the best, I'd presume.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Some things don't have a "best". They have subjective
| evaluation where there really isn't a "best", just some
| general sense of "good" but nothing definitive in the
| category of #1.
|
| However, you cannot beat a robot in Rubik's cube solving
| and you cannot run so fast that time itself stops. So what
| are you doing.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Running faster than previously? The squishy meat blob
| that controls my body releases feel good chemicals when I
| do "better" than previously. Who the fuck cares about
| what other people are capable of?
| cesaref wrote:
| I think you are missing the point. People do stuff because
| they enjoy doing it. The fact that they enjoy doing stuff you
| don't is their business, and frankly it would be a boring
| world if we all liked the same things.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I'm not asking as a criticism. I'm asking from the
| standpoint of "what's the end goal?" What does a person
| hope to achieve?
|
| You said they enjoy doing it. But I have a hard time
| imagining someone laboriously perfecting something (but
| never actually doing so) as an enjoyable activity. In fact,
| it sounds like hell to me.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Really?? That sounds like hell to you? Well, to others
| that is the definition of a great and fulfilling life. In
| fact, you should see what happens when someone reaches
| the point they can no longer improve, where they finally
| do become the best. Then they often sink into depression
| and lose a sense of direction and purpose.
|
| Constantly striving towards further and further
| unattainable goals (even if it's just after finishing one
| project having a further one to do and etc. etc. etc.) is
| basically the most fulfilling life possible for a human.
| It's a major reason people are often much less depressed
| when they are busy with their work or studies.
|
| According to your logic, people who are deep in their
| working lives should be experiencing hell, while retired
| people should be extremely happy. Do you actually think
| this is true? I mean honestly I have no idea what you
| think because you're all over this thread demonstrating
| that you have little to no grasp of basic human
| psychology
| sebtron wrote:
| Like any game or sport, millions of people do it for a
| variety of reasons:
|
| - The act itself is fun - Competing with others can be fun -
| Improving oneself in a measurable way is satisfying
|
| Many people like doing what they are good at, and not
| everyone is good at art.
| thangngoc89 wrote:
| It's for personal satisfaction. At some point, you can't
| physically move the cube any faster, but rather you learn new
| algorithm to save the steps.
|
| For example, you could solve the final layer by repeating 3
| algorithms. Or you could learn about 100 algorithms for 100
| permutations. At higher level, you would know that using A
| algorithm would be faster than B because the one next to it
| is easier to perform.
|
| You could look in blind cube where you look at the cube,
| memorize it then solve it while blindfolded.
| aljgz wrote:
| It's the nature of hobbies: the journey is important. Why
| dance, or play piano when there are people who can do it much
| better, and we can make machines to do it even better? Why
| people go fishing? Once you start questioning the reason why
| we do things almost everything is meaningless.
|
| Solving Rubic's is enjoyable because the next time you break
| your own record is unpredictable. It's similar to gambling in
| one aspect and to playing 2048 in another: as you play more,
| the time between your "win"s increases, but so does your
| ability to focus, and push forward without success.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > What's the point of training to run faster?
|
| Before my knee decided it wanted no part of my existence, my
| goal was to have all my "distance"[1] times within 200% of
| the world record. Seemed doable with some work (had some
| within, some just outside, others a way off.)
|
| [1] 800m to 100k
| discreteevent wrote:
| If only someone had run a greyhound next to the runners in
| the Olympic games in ancient Greece. That would have killed
| it off fairly quickly and we could watch rubiks cube solvers
| instead of pointless track events this August.
| kk6mrp wrote:
| The rubiks cube solvers are so fast there isn't anything to
| watch!
| GuB-42 wrote:
| People won't beat robots at solving Rubik's cubes, but it
| doesn't make it a dead end. The idea is for humans to solve
| cubes with the constraints of the human body and mind.
| Optimizing movement for human hands, finding the most
| efficient algorithm considering the limited processing power
| of the human brain, etc... these are open questions and we
| didn't reach the limits.
|
| Kind of like chess. Humans have no chance against computers.
| But it doesn't mean people stopped playing chess, quite the
| opposite actually, and computers are put to good use for
| training and analysis and human chess is improving probably
| like never before.
|
| You can call human cubing and chess an "art" if you will, the
| way you spin the cube and move the chess pieces have some
| "soul". From a purely utilitarian perspective, both
| traditional arts and activities like solving cubes are
| useless, so they are also similar in that regard.
| Avshalom wrote:
| anything worth doing is worth doing poorly
| jgrahamc wrote:
| _Which is why I can't understand why people still put so much
| effort into it. It's one of those things humans will never do
| better than a machine._
|
| I can do Rubik's Cube. I can never beat a machine or many of
| the other people who can do it. It does not stop me enjoying
| the combination of memory and muscle memory and the
| satisfaction of the completed cube.
|
| There are many things for which I will never reach a global
| maximum, but the maximums I do reach please me.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It's one of those things humans will never do better than a
| machine.
|
| I think it's important to note that humans still arguably do
| better in this case. The robot seems fast, but it cheats
| compared to a human. It sees all four sides at once, and the
| timing does not include picking up the cube or setting it
| down.
|
| I will be impressed when we have a robot that can pick up a
| cube, look at it with two cameras from the same direction,
| solve it, and put it back down in under ~3 seconds (which is
| the record for a human). I doubt very much we are there yet.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You know what it is? Because it's a robot, it can spin both sides
| at once. That's why it does it in 0.3s, and I'm still doing mine
| a year later.
| Keirmot wrote:
| I bought one when I lied to myself and said I'll learn to do
| this in less than a minute. After 3 weeks I just got an app and
| solved it. Now I use it as a motivation tool to force me to
| close all my rings on the Apple Watch - whenever I don't, I
| move one side per ring not closed, and when I close I can fix
| it my how many rings I did close.
| freilanzer wrote:
| As a complete layman when it comes to these cubes: is the initial
| configuration a full instruction to get to the solved cube or is
| it necessary to evaluate the state after each rotation?
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| The initial state is enough. There are numerous algorithms to
| solve a cube from any state.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Nope, people can definitely glance at the initial state, then
| solve it _blindfolded_ , with the quickness. There are a ton of
| possible combinations of colours, but they always boil down to
| far less 'moves' to solve than you might guess.
| tomalbrc wrote:
| I am confused, how is this impressive? Isn't the premise of
| computers (software and hardware) to be faster than humans? We
| have have known and used them for decades because they are
| faster? It's a neat party trick but... What am I missing?
| bamboozled wrote:
| You're clearly not in the market of finding investors ?
| tomalbrc wrote:
| I guess its a nice PR-stunt that this ended up here then?
| 91bananas wrote:
| I guess you can see no practical application of a robotics
| team that is able to build something that impresses almost
| every human on earth besides yourself?
| SomeoneFromCA wrote:
| Humans still have higher precision micromotorics (assembling
| watches for example)
| spencerchubb wrote:
| The fastest human solver (Max Park) actually has autism and
| problems with fine motor skills. Just goes to show that cubing
| is more about macro motor skills
| SomeoneFromCA wrote:
| This does not contradict what I've said.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| I did not intend to contradict but add on. I suppose my
| usage of 'actually' could be seen as contradicting
| amelius wrote:
| I wonder about the G-forces involved ...
| danbruc wrote:
| For 90deg in 9 ms and a 57 mm cube, I get accelerations of 4.4
| million degree per second squared and 225 g at a corner
| assuming equal and constant acceleration and deceleration
| during the turn.
| nottorp wrote:
| I can only wonder not about the robot's speed but...
|
| What's that cube made of to widthstand being solved in 0.3
| seconds?
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Well, that was fast! :)
|
| I'd be more interested to see where Mitsubushi are using this
| same high-speed robotics tech in production use.
| schaefer wrote:
| In human competitions, all hands must start and end on the timer
| for the score to be valid. Also, the human is limited to one
| point of view, which can not analyze the entire cube in one
| glance.
|
| I am not saying this robot isn't impressive. What I'm saying is:
| lets see the time if the clock is running while the robot
| operator loads and unloads the cube from the robot. I doubt it
| competes with the current human world record:
|
| Max Park 3.134 seconds [1]
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/x1x4NATOutM?si=EoIQ1PvEw2Jn_zdd
| zamadatix wrote:
| The second point is a bit moot as humans are allowed to analyze
| the full cube before the timer starts. E.g. in the Max Park
| video he already knows all of the moves he's going to perform
| before he starts the timer.
|
| As for loading I think it'd be fun to see how fast the robot
| could perform the same start conditions. Mostly because of how
| many cubes would fly apart in testing :p.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| Even if a human solver could start/stop with cube in hand, that
| would only save about 0.3 seconds
| schaefer wrote:
| From the perspective of the Human, that's true.
|
| But what about from the perspective of the Robot. All of a
| sudden we'd have to start adding multiple axis of control to
| the robot to be able to pick up the cube from the table. From
| that point of view the impact is far from trivial.
| kuroguro wrote:
| We'll soon need reinforced, precision machined, well oiled cubes
| for robot tournaments ^^;
| pvillano wrote:
| Speed cube robots are great for several reasons:
|
| * They move really fast
|
| * They necessarily look like science fiction reactors
|
| * if they jam the cube explodes
| geodel wrote:
| And I wasn't able to solve in 30 months. I think it is becoming
| mandatory to buy this robot along with Rubik's cube to get this
| damned thing solved.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| I'm a competitive speedcuber and my best time is a little over 5
| seconds
|
| It looks like this robot can do about 67 turns per second (tps)
|
| The fastest humans can do 20 to 30 tps, but only for especially
| ergonomic algorithms. This robot was able to achieve its tps with
| arbitrary moves that would be terrible ergonomically for a human.
| Quite impressive
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