William Garside Undergraduate Dissertation 2017/18

Analysis of Rubik's Cube Solution Algorithms with a LEGO MIndstorms Robot

Supervised by S.North

Abstract

Mathematicians and enigmatologists alike have been infatuated with Rubik's Cube for the past four decades, with countless algorithms and methods devised to solve it. Whilst the self-named 'Cubers' have been playing with brightly coloured Cubes, LEGO enthusiasts have been playing with small plastic bricks which have even more combinations than the Cube's forty-three quintillion. This project will combine these two groups with the aim of solving Rubik's Cube with a LEGO Mindstorms robot and attempt to optimise the solution as far as possible. Various methods will be analysed and compared throughout the duration of the project, alongside the documentation of the robot building process. This is an entertaining and exciting project, but complex algorithms will be picked apart and demonstrated through the LEGO robot, with the final goal of pushing both the algorithms and the LEGO Mindstorms to their limits.