How does it even work?!
Have you ever been to a Maker’s Faire? It’s kind of like a creative science fair that’s held all over the world, where tech enthusiasts, engineers, hobbyists, and anyone with a creative and scientific mind can show off the things they’ve built and the things they learned as a result. It’s a place to show off your self-building Gundam models, automatic loot box tapping contraptions, circuit board business cards, and whatever other kind of cool gadget or creation you’ve made!
There was just a Maker’s Faire in Japan this last weekend, and one of the most popular pieces was a Rubik’s cube that solves itself. It was shared by Twitter user @wyrm06, and Japanese netizens were so enamored with it that it quickly gained over 100,000 likes and retweets!
メーカーズフェアにて。目を疑うんですが、机の上に浮いて自力で色が揃っていくルービックキューブです。時々詰まっちゃうのがちょっと可愛い。隣で見てたおじさんが僕の心中を完全に代弁してくれててウケました。 pic.twitter.com/qvxaUkmTVH
— サカン竜一郎@民族楽器愛好家 (@wyrm06) February 15, 2020
It looks like an ordinary Rubik’s cube, but somehow it magically floats above a table as its various sections twist and slide all on their own, slowly aligning all the colors. With the momentum of its adjustments it also slowly rotates in the air, which gives a really cool futuristic look to the old-school toy.
It does occasionally get stuck, and while it manages to work through some of the catches, at the end its creator had to pick it up and give it an adjustment to keep it going. But that tiny defect doesn’t detract from the device’s charm. @wyrm06 wrote, “It was kind of cute how it sometimes got stuck!”
▼ Here you can watch the cube solve itself all the way to the end.
Japanese Twitter was pretty impressed by the invention:
“Wow!”
“How the heck does this work?”
“This is the future, you guys. Seriously!”
“It’s like magic.”
“Personally I think the coolest part is that the guy who made it was wearing a Rubik’s cube shirt.”
“It feels like we’ve entered into a new era, lol. I’d love to know about the source code and the mechanisms behind how it floats and rotates!”
The cube is the work of Takashi Kaburagi, whose hobby is apparently creating and programming unique contraptions. On his YouTube channel, Human Controller, he’s uploaded a few videos about this and other creations like a “human controller”. But his main creation appears to be the self-solving Rubik’s cube; he was even featured on the official Rubik’s cube Twitter page!
After over 2 years of hard work check out the moment when Takashi Kaburagi found he made the first ever SELF SOLVING RUBIK'S CUBE #rubikscube #amazinghttps://t.co/FON5IqiEOK
— Rubik's (@Rubiks_Official) October 4, 2018
Sadly, the self-solving Rubik’s cube isn’t for sale, but perhaps it will be one day. Then people like me who can’t solve a Rubik’s cube without looking it up on the Internet can have an even better way to impress their friends, by having a floating, self-solving cube on display in their house. It would be much cooler, anyway, than a piece of a gut-busting android’s abs from Premium Bandai.
Source: Twitter/@wyrm06 via My Game News Flash
Featured image: YouTube/Human Controller
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