RubiksCube

Overview

A Rubik's Cube simulator that runs in the terminal, written in Python.

Current Features

• Perform any possible move on a 3x3 cube
• See history of algorithms performed on the cube
• Reset the cube back to solved (also clears history)
• Undo the most recent algorithm (currently this will set the history back to how it was before this algorithm was performed)
• Show the inverse of the most recently performed algorithm
• Scramble the cube (Just does random moves a set amount of times, currently 22)
• Toggle case will toggle between your input being treated as normal/swapped case (this was added in case you want to perform moves that require upper-case letters often and for some reason using caps lock is inconvenient)

Interface

Inputting Moves

You input moves by inputting a string of as many moves as you want, using standard Rubik's Cube notation:

e.g. "U' L' U' F' R2 B' R F U B2 U B' L U' F U R F'"

These moves will then all be performed in sequence on the cube. Spaces don't matter, since all whitespace characters are removed from the string. Input for moves are case-sensitive, but the characters for options are not.

Getting Started

Navigate to the project directory in your terminal

Set up a virtual environment if you wish

Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Launch the program with:

python -m src.main

Dependencies

• Uses termcolor for coloured terminal output

Project Backstory

This was just made for fun. I started this as I was only just getting into Rubik's Cubes for the first time, so I learnt about the notation and other things as I was working on this. I intend to add to it over time.

It's probably a fairly naive implementation? I still have a lot to learn. But I tried my best to make it extensible for future.

Implementation

Here are some details on the main classes in the project:

Cube (in cube.py)

The cube is represented as a 3-dimensional list, with the outermost list being the 6 faces of the cube, and each face is a 2-dimensional list that represents each individual tile in that face.

The cube is thus manipulated through methods that manipulate this 3-dimensional list. I created methods that can manipulate any part of a cube of any size by specifying the x/y/z axis a row/column is rotated around, a number to specify what row/column to rotate, and a direction to rotate in.

Each position in the cube just contains an enum value representing one of 6 colours. The program then reads these values and prints output of the corresponding colour.

Support is there for cubes of different sizes like 2x2, 4x4, etc., but I haven't tested this much, or added an interface for the user to interact with cubes of these sizes.

CubeSimulator (in cube_simulator.py)

This class adds an interface for performing moves with standard Rubik's Cube notation. These methods call the rotate_(x/y/z) methods in the Cube class. All other functionality in the program for working with the cube is provided in this class.

CubeGame (in cube_game.py)

This class provides the user interface, and calls the appropriate methods on the CubeSimulator class.

To-do / Ideas / Future Features

• 3D interface?
• Solver?
• Other cube sizes?
• Interface for inputting a cube layout into the program?
• In-program help screen
• More rigorous testing
• Better method for checking if two cubes are the same (currently they have to be rotated in exactly the same way)
• Option to show/hide undo moves in the history (i.e. keep the move that was undone, and add the inverse algorithm to the history)