This robot can solve a Rubik's Cube faster than your reaction time telling you it's being solved

I’ve never solved a Rubik’s Cube. The last time I had one, I didn’t know about all the logic and reasoning involved. I just sort of twisted the segments around until I got bored and put the cube down again. Maybe if one crossed my path again, I’d actually put in the effort to solve one.

If you’re like me and you just want the satisfaction of seeing something go from disorganised to neatly arranged as quickly as possible, then boy do I have the video for you. Some very intelligent undergrads over at Purdue ECE have creatued the “Purdubik’s Cube,” a device that holds the Guinness world record of fastest robotic Rubik’s Cube solving with a blistering time of 0.103 seconds.

The Purdubik’s Cube can solve a Rubik’s Cube before you realise it’s being solved

As spotted by The Verge, there’s a battle to see which robot can solve a Rubik’s Cube faster. The record used to be 305 milliseconds, held by Mitsubishi (yes, that Mitsubishi), but some undergraduates from Purdue ECE took up the challenge and utterly smashed it with a record of 103 milliseconds.

It’s hard to put into perspective how quick “103 milliseconds” truly is. It’s one of those timeframes that is so fast, we can’t picture something going that fast. Fortunately, one of the students, Matthew Patrohay, broke it down for us:

“We currently have a time of 103 milliseconds, and we can very reliably solve under the [previous] world record of 305 milliseconds. […] Put into perspective, the human blink is around 200 to 300 milliseconds. So, we’re significantly faster than that. Human reaction time is 100 to 200 as well. And so we’re faster than that. Basically, before you even realize it’s solved, we’ve solved it. Before you even realize it’s moving, we’ve solved it.”

You can see the cube being solved in the above video. It starts off with some demos where people could press a button and see their cubes get solved super quickly, but the world record-winning solve is at 49 seconds into the video. Sure enough, if you’re not expecting it, the cube gets solved before you realise what’s happening. It’ll be very interesting to see if it can ever beat.