Date: Thu, 22 Apr 82 17:03:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Dan Hoey <Hoey@CMU-10A>
To: Cube Lovers
Subject: Cubebot

Caption from a photograph said to be from the Washington Post, April
13, 1982:

  University of Illinois engineering student Daniel Talken
  adjusts the mechanical hands of a robot built by students
  at the school in Urbana to solve the Rubik's Cube puzzle.
  The robot's computer brain can work out the solution in
  two-tenths of a second, but it takes the hands about 12
  minutes to make average 110 moves to solve the puzzle.

The photo shows a guy diddling a complicated machine in which an
unsolved cube is visible.  Eyes are painted on the front of the
machine's support above a bulge that may be functional as well
as vaguely resembling a nose.  No camera equipment is apparent;
presumably they tell the machine how the cube is scrambled, or
cheat and have the machine itself scramble the cube.