Engineering Students Create 1,500-Pound Rubik’s Cube

Engineering Students Create 1,500-Pound Rubik’s Cube

Mangalore Today News Network

APR 22, 2017: Squaring off against this Rubik’s Cube is a huge undertaking ― it weighs 1,500 pounds.

 

University of Michigan engineering students on Thursday unveiled what is believed to be the world’s largest hand-solvable, stationary version of the cube.

Designing and building the colossal cube was a three-year process, much of it involving getting the cubelets to move properly.

“On the inside of our big Rubik’s Cube we have rollers and transfer bearings so that all of the cubelets are only touching each other through rolling friction,” graduate student instructor Kelsey Hockstrand says in the video above.

Although an expert Rubik’s player can solve the puzzle in seconds, the nature of this particular cube means that even the best player will need a lot more time to finish, according to cube co-developer Ryan Kuhn.

“For this cube, every move is deliberate, so you have to grab onto a face and rotate it completely and then remember what you just did, instead of doing a series of algorithms,” Kuhn said in the video. “So it’s hard to keep track in your mind what moves you’ve already done, as well as what moves more you have to do.”

This giant cube is now on display at the university, but be prepared to wait in line. The creators say it takes about an hour for an accomplished cuber to solve.