A developer used Anthropic's Claude to "vibe code" a browser-based app that scans a physical Rubik's Cube through a phone camera and calculates a solution in 20 moves or fewer, reviving interest in a decades-old mathematical result.
Vibe Coding · AI-Assisted Development
A Browser App Solves Any Rubik's Cube in 20 Moves — Built by Talking to Claude
Point a phone camera at a scrambled cube and it scans the colors, reconstructs the state, and walks you through a near-optimal solution in 3D — no install, no backend, assembled largely by prompting an AI assistant.
≤20
moves to solve any scramble — "God's Number"
4.3×1019
possible cube states, all checked in the 2010 proof
0
installs or backends — runs fully in the browser
The math behind it
A typical algorithm result vs. the proven ceiling
20–22
Kociemba two-phase (fast, practical)
≤20
"Tightest" mode → God's Number
Each block ≈ moves. "Tightest" mode is best-effort — a strict 20-move result isn't guaranteed within a fixed search budget.
How it works — off-the-shelf pieces, glued by AI
Scan
OpenCV.js reads face colors via camera
→
Solve
Kociemba's two-phase algorithm computes moves
→
Guide
Three.js renders a step-by-step 3D walkthrough
Why it's impressive
A genuinely useful app built mostly by natural-language prompting
Fully in-browser — works with no downloads
Ties a 2010 theorem to a hands-on demo
Caveats
An individual project — no verified public URL or formal release
Color reading is sensitive to lighting and angle (all six faces advised)
Strict 20-move solutions not guaranteed
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