ARM-Powered robot aims to break world speed record for solving Rubik’s cube

ENGLAND, UK: The CUBESTORMER 3 robot, which uses ARM processor technology has started final testing before attempting to break the Guinness World Records title for solving a Rubik's Cube at the Big Bang Fair being held at the NEC in Birmingham, UK, on Saturday (March 15).

The current record of 5.27 seconds was set just over two years ago by its predecessor CubeStormer II.

The new robot employs an ARM-powered Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone to analyze the cube and instruct four robotic hands to do the manipulations. ARM9 processors also power the eight LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 bricks which perform the motor sequencing and control.

"We are very confident the robot will break the record," said Dominic Vergine, head of corporate responsibility at ARM. "The new robot can think three times faster than its older brother. The older robot was using intelligence from a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 based Samsung Electronics' Exynos 4 Dual application processor in a Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone.

CUBESTORMER 3 will use a Galaxy S4 equipped with an Exynos 5 Octa application processor with an eight-core ARM big.LITTLE implementation featuring four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7 processors."

CUBESTORMER 3 is the result of effort in their spare time over 18 months by co-designers David Gilday, a principal engineer at ARM, and Mike Dobson, a security systems engineer for Securi-Plex. The new design features upgraded mechanics including a precision independent braking system that will bring significant speed benefits. The software has also been optimized to take advantage of the increased mechanical flexibility as well as the compute power gains.