Created by He, Churan, last modified on May 01, 2019

Team member (from ECE110):

Churan He (churanh2)

Zhongchun Yu (zy17)

Zhengyu Weng (zhengyu4)

Honor Section Time:

Tue 6:00PM - 7:00PM

Project Overview:

Our Rubik's Cube Solver receives image data from mobile phone, and recognizes color pattern of six surfaces of the source Rubik's cube. Afterwards, Rubik's solver algorithm would come up with a solution as well as a reversed one. The reversed solution is used to reshuffle the target Rubik's cube inside, to the same color pattern of the source Rubik's cube. When the control button is pressed, our solver can solve the target Rubik's cube in a short time.


Hardware Architecture:

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (w/ WiFi)

Low-cost, running Linux, sufficient GPIO, compatible with Python, high performance (compared to Arduino platform).

Step motors (w/ controllers)

Precise and powerful power to turn the Rubik's cube.

Control buttons

First press: turning the solved Rubik's cube (inside) to the specific assigned pattern (outside)

Second press: solving thar Rubik's cube

OLED status display (alt: LEDs)

Displaying the IP address of the Raspberry Pi in LAN, used to connect to the server

Showing current status

Power system

Powering six step motors with controllers and the Raspberry Pi

Mechanical Structure

A transparent cube containing a Rubik's cube, mounting six step motors on its six surfaces, rigid connection between each step motor and the center block on each surface of the Rubik's cube.

Web Server:

This project would required a smartphone (in the same LAN with Raspberry Pi) to take six pictures for six surfaces of the rubik's cube, and upload them to a specific directory of Raspberry Pi's file system.

Apache (Web server application on Raspberry Pi)

HTML5, CSS, PHP

Wi-Fi Hotspot

Link: http://www.raspberryconnect.com/network/item/333-raspberry-pi-hotspot-access-point-dhcpcd-method

Computer Vision:

OpenCV in Python, recognize patterns on six surfaces, which would be the input of the Rubik's cube solver algorithm.

Link: https://gist.github.com/flyboy74/2cc3097f784c8c236a1a85278f08cddd

Link: https://devpost.com/software/rubiks-cube-solver-y3r6g5

Link : https://github.com/kkoomen/qbr

Link: http://programmablebrick.blogspot.com/2017/02/rubiks-cube-tracker-using-opencv.html, https://github.com/dwalton76/rubiks-cube-tracker

Rubik's Cube Solver Algorithm:

This project would use koiema to find the solution of the rubik's cube, and if time allows, we may develop our own algrithm. For the reversing algorithm, we would use pycuber initially.

Link: https://pypi.org/project/kociemba/

Link: https://pypi.org/project/pycuber/

Extra Functionality (depend on overall progress):

Manually control via buttons

Motion controlled light effect (based on supersonic sensor)

Potential Challenges:Web server development (Solved on Feb 17 2019)

iOS's HEIF picture format (decoding and processing) (Problem doesn't occur.)

Rubik's cube's surface pattern recognition (confidence level of CV algorithm)

Mechanical structure design

Reference:

MIT Robots Breaks Rubik's Cube Record, MIT Mechanical Engineering, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZu9gjQJUQs

Computer vision projects listed above

Python/C implementation of Herbert Kociemba's Two-Phase algorithm for solving Rubik's Cube, kociemba, https://pypi.org/project/kociemba/

Working Files：

Web Server (beta): 

ECE110H Web Server beta index.phpECE110H Web Server beta upload.php

Rubik's Cube Color Recognition:

Color_Recognition_beta.py

Step Motor Control:

testMotor.py



Attachments:

ECE110H Overview Diagram1.png (image/png)
image_draft1.png (image/png)
image_draft2.png (image/png)
ECE110H Overview Diagram2.png (image/png)
ECE110H Web Server beta index.php (application/octet-stream)
ECE110H Web Server beta upload.php (application/octet-stream)
Color_Recognition.png (image/png)
Color_Recognition_beta.py (application/octet-stream)
testMotor.py (application/octet-stream)

Comments:

I believe that we spoke in lab last week about some of the complexity issues with your initial idea. In lab this week, please think about how to perhaps simplify parts of your design, or reduce your scope so that it aligns a with something you can more easily complete in the next 13-ish weeks. Keep in mind that we are looking primary for projects whose complexity stems from hardware and circuit design, rather than implementing higher-level software libraries (such as openCV, web server, etc).
Posted by chorn4 at Feb 12, 2019 11:48

Project approved!

This is a very interesting project. However, it carries a lot of complexities, both algorithmically and mechanically. Please update your page on what you have already accomplished, and a brief timeline of how you plan to complete this project. 

Also, please keep in mind of the concept of modular design. Divide your project into smaller modules that can be develped and tested independently (e.g. solver algorithm, cube rotating mechanism, web server). Please feel free to ask any TA for help.

I would love to see your rubik's cube solver work at the end of the semester!
Posted by haigec2 at Feb 19, 2019 18:17