Researchers from ETH Zurich’s Robotic Systems Lab have shown that a standard four-legged inspection robot can fully solve a giant Rubik’s Cube on its own, relying entirely on its feet for every contact with the puzzle. The machine, an ANYmal-D, first walks around the freestanding cube and tips it onto different faces so its onboard depth camera can build a complete picture of the colors. Once it has that map, a planner turns a conventional cube solution into a short list of robot actions, and the machine carries them out without further help from people.