Two brothers built their own Rubik’s spinning robot

The Revenger rotated the scrambled Rubik’s cube in just 45.3 seconds, 33 seconds faster than the second-place robot. The record attempt took place last year at Bristol University, where the Pidden brothers studied, and was officially recognized by Guinness World Records this month.

“I decided to set the record as part of my university graduation project. I have loved Rubik’s Cubes since I was a child and also love computer science. Combining the two seemed like a natural progression and a great project,” Matthew shared with Guinness World Records.

The Revenger solved the Rubik’s cube a total of 6 times. The first two attempts failed to break the old world record, but the third attempt succeeded with a time of 55 seconds. However, the Pidden brothers believe that robots can still do better. Finally, on the 6th try, the robot continued to break the record with a time of 45.3 seconds amid cheers and applause from witnesses.

The Revenger is equipped with a pair of webcams to help scan the Rubik’s Cube, while the arms are specifically designed to grip and rotate it. A laptop running a special algorithm, acting as the robot’s brain, is placed nearby to help analyze data from the webcam and quickly calculate rotation steps. During the test, the webcam was covered until the timer started to ensure the robot did not “look ahead”.

The Pidden brothers built The Revenger in 15 weeks. Matthew focuses primarily on software and control systems, developing algorithms that allow robots to analyze Rubik’s cubes and determine rotation sequences. Thomas designs and produces many of the robot’s mechanical parts using 3D printing technology.

The record of 45.3 seconds is only for the 4x4x4 Rubik’s Cube. The traditional 3x3x3, invented by Hungarian sculptor Erno Rubik in 1974, is solved significantly faster in 0.103 seconds – faster than the blink of an eye. This record was set by a robot of a group of engineering students at Purdue University in 2025. Meanwhile, the shortest time for a human to solve a traditional Rubik’s cube is 2.76 seconds, set by 9-year-old boy Teodor Zajder (Poland) last month.