Watch a 6-axis motor solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a third of a second

The last time a human set the world record for solving a Rubik's Cube, it was Max Park, at 3.13 seconds for a standard 3×3×3 cube, set in June 2023. It is going to be very difficult for any human to pull off a John Henry-like usurping of the new machine record, which is more than 10 times faster, at 0.305 seconds. That's within the accepted time frame for human eye blinking, which averages out to one-third of a second.

TOKUFASTbot, built by Mitsubishi Electric, can actually pull off a solve in as little as 0.204 seconds on video, but not when Guinness World Records judges were measuring. The previous mechanical record was 0.38 seconds.

Alternatively, you might ask if this was a specially modified cube. Was there some kind of lubrication involved, given the role friction must play in shaving hundredths of a second off a prior world record? Guinness' post notes that there was "an unexpected issue" with Mitsubishi's attempt: "the puzzle cube struggled to keep up with the speed of the robot!" (exclamation theirs). The solution was vaguely described as the team fine-tuning the machine, according to Guinness. The cube certainly looks the part of a regular Rubik's. But if you're looking for an asterisk so that humans can hold onto some kind of Rubik rubric, that might be one angle.

On a Google Japanese-to-English translation of Mitsubishi's press release about the record, Mitsubishi provides some details about this particular robot:

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