Rubik's Cube Solving Robot
RIXAN is a local automation company that builds cells for manufacturing companies, but in this case, the customer was the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. MSI was planning a Robot Revolution exhibit and commissioned various displays from different companies. In our case, we built a cell where the user could scramble a Rubik's Cube, provide it to the robot, and the robot would solve it. My FANUC programming experience from MLPC was Teach Pendant based, but this project taught me how to communicate directly with the controller, read the current status of the system, and activate specific routines. As this system was going to a museum, it also required two displays: a guest display visualizing the user-provided cube as the robot solved it and an operator/maintenance display. Thankfully, a Rubik's Cube solver already existed, so my work focused on integrating the robotics, vision system, and solver into one cohesive unit.
