Save over 40% when you secure your tickets today to TNW Conference 💥 Prices will increase on November 22 →

This article was published on January 30, 2017

This Raspberry Pi-powered Lego robot can solve a Rubik’s cube


It might not be as fast as some humans and fellow machines, but recreational inventor Francesco Georg has built a cute-looking robot that can solve a Rubik’s cube entirely on its own – and while there’s nothing novel about this concept, this weird gadget was built using only a set of Lego and a Raspberry Pi.

Georg showed off his quirky invention in a video posted Reddit where you can watch the the machine solve the cube in a little less than the not-so-impressive time of a minute and a half.

To put together this curious creation, Georg used the Lego motors from the Mindstorms EV3 set to power the robot, as well as a BrickPi starter kit to configure its movements.

As the inventor explains, he loaded the robot with a Python implementation of the two-phase Kociemba algorithm, which was also used in another similar machine capable of solving the cube in only one second.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Watch the footage in the video section above to get a better idea of how the Lego-powered robot functions.

Unfortunately, Georg hasn’t shared the exact code he used for his creation, but you can head to this GitHub repository to get the code for the Kociemba algorithm implementation in case you want to build your own Rubik-solving robot.

Disclaimer: We like some products. We don’t like others. Either way, if you buy something through our affiliate links, we get a small cut of the revenue. This isn’t a sponsored post, but for the sake of transparency, you deserve to know what’s up.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.