Cubix

Overview

A simple Rubik's Cube simulator and solver built in Python with Pygame for visual rendering and performance analysis of various cube solving algorithms.

Features

• Two-dimensional visualisation of a 3x3 Rubik's cube
• Keyboard controls for face turns and rotations.
• Generation of animated solutions based on the user selected method.

Quick Start

To work on or run this project, start by creating a virtual environment:

$ virtualenv venv

Activate the virtual environment by running:

$ source venv/bin/activate

Install the dependencies inside the virtual environment

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Launch the main graphical user interface

$ python3 -m src.main

Repository Structure

src/cube

This folder contains the majority of the core logic for representing the Cube and the solver.

• gui.py - The Gui class which acts as the interface between the Cube class and Pygame.
• cube.py - The Cube class which encapsulates all the main logic for representing a Rubik's Cube.
• history_cube.py - A subclass of Cube that has methods to record all moves applied.
• solver.py - The solving functions that generate solutions given an instance of a Cube.
• move.py - A simple Move dataclass to encapsulate information about specific moves.
• pieces.py - Simple Edge and Corner dataclasses to encapsulate information about pieces.
• colour.py - A simple Colour type definition to wrap around RGB colour tuples.

src/scramble

This folder contains any logic regarding scramble generation and scramble parsing.

• generator.py - A simple scramble generation function that randomly selects moves to produce a scramble.
• parser.py - A set of parsing functions to convert between moves of str type and Move type.

src/p2

This folder contains code for all the search algorithms and the heurestics required by them.

• AIs.py - Comtains the implementaion of all the Search Algorithms that user selectable to solve a scramble.
• Cubeai.py - A set of Cube functions to simulate the cube necesary for the search algorithms to work on.
• Heuristics.py - All the implementations of Heuristics that are user slectable.
• ManhattanCube.py - A helper funtion to create the Manhattan Cube necessary for the Manhattan Hueristics to work.

Implementation

Cube

This program uses a relatively simplistic representation of the Rubik's Cube. We simply consider the cube to be an array of 6 2-dimensional arrays, each representing a face of the cube. Each element of these 2-dimensional arrays then represents a sticker on the cube.

A single face turn then can be implemented by:

1. Rotating all elements of the given face by 90 degrees
2. Cycling all the rows/columns that intersect with the given face on all adjacent faces

Solving

The program implements a collection of search algorithms and also includes Kociemba and the traiditional Beginners method(Layering) to provide a wide diversity for the user to choose between and solve the scramble and have a visualization of the performance and solution of each algorithm.