Swedish Hacker Builds Sudoku-Solving Lego Robot

[Earnest Cavalli]

Swedish Hacker Builds Sudoku-Solving Lego Robot

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Realizing Sudoku is incredibly boring, Swedish hacker Hans Andersson created a robot from a Lego Mindstorms NXT kit to solve the number puzzles for him.

As you can see in the video at right, the robot uses an optical scanner and character recognition software to scan the entire puzzle before crunching the numbers in its superior robo-brain and filling in the remaining blank squares with a pen.

Given that this is really just a writing implement built around a calculator we don't expect this lil' guy to go nuts and start lopping off heads or ejecting its pen into people's eyes.

Then again, that's what they said about Teddy Ruxpin, and we all know how evil that thing turned out to be.

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[SquirrelPants]

That is slow...But so cool. Seems like a waste of time to build, but It's certainly fun to watch.

 

[headshotcatcher]

Ahh, lego mindstorm, what CAN'T you do

 

[Cpt_Oblivious]

That's awesome.
I want one.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

Certainly a cool showing of what technology can do. Can't wait until Skynet comes. I'll be laughing then at the irony of how people were joking about it. You know, kind of what I'm doing now.

 

[That One Six]

I want NEED one of these things!

 

[Xvito]

Haha, that was awesome.

 

[tomtom94]

I thought this would be a fix or a fake.
I was mistaken.
That is awesome... now this guy should go out and make one which solves crosswords.

 

[Gerazzi]

OH DEAR GOD, A ROBOT THAT SOLVES SUDOKU...
MANKIND HAS BECOME OBSOLETE.

Seriously though, that guy's got mad programming skillz.

 

[Draygen]

Wow, that thing completes Sudoku puzzles about as fast as I do with a normal pen, but I don't make the little whirly noise!

 

[TheBarefootBandit]

LEGO MEN if real would rule the world. We all know this.

 

[New Troll]

Whatever you do, don't give that little guy the centuries it would take for him to scan in the world, cause then he'll quickly work on solving the Earth's problem with humanity. And we all know the pen is mightier than the sword. We're doomed.

 

[PhantomCritic]

That's awesome.
I want one.

I want NEED one of these things!

Who doesn't want/need one?
Pretty awesome thing to build, but the time to make it would have been extrodanarily long. Props to the hacker all the same.

 

[Connosaurus Rex]

You have to be pretty bored to do that

 

[Grayjack]

That robot has better handwriting than me.
OT: I want one.

 

[BoredKellon]

Wow, that thing completes Sudoku puzzles about as fast as I do with a normal pen, but I don't make the little whirly noise!

To make it work that fast is not hard at all, as a program to solve sudoku is relatively simple and when done efficiently the time is very quick, so as long as the robot can write the answer faster then you can think it, it will win Now the actual motions of writing the answers is somewhat difficult, it's far from outstanding. Now to actually scan and recognize the numbers on the sheet, that's a difficult task.

But ya, robots are awesome, and lego mindstorm is awesome.

 

[darthzew]

I would pay for that.

 

[not a zaar]

Jesus how bored was this guy? This is obviously not what this robot kit was designed for, you could this this in seconds with a scanner and some simple code.

 

[scotth266]

Slow, but DAMN is that a neat application of the technology.

 

[BoredKellon]

Jesus how bored was this guy? This is obviously not what this robot kit was designed for, you could this this in seconds with a scanner and some simple code.

Actually this is exactly the kind of stuff lego Mindstorms was designed for.