Sudoku-Solving Robot: with Video

"LEGO Mindstorms Sudoku Solver"
Tilted Twister (undated)

"This little robot solves a sudoku puzzle all by itself.

"It scans the sudoku puzzle using a light sensor. It calculates the solution to the puzzle and then writes the digits...."

The building instructions are "coming soon" - which, since the post is undated, may have been a promise made yesterday or shortly after LEGO came out with the products involved. A video associated with the post dates from last month: so this might be a recent project. Or, not.

The good news is that this post gives a detailed overview of how the robot scans each box and "sees" the number. My guess is that the numbers have to be from a particular font - but it's impressive, just the same.

There's a bit more, about how the problem-solving end of the process was handled.

The video associated with this post does exist:

"LEGO Mindstorms Sudoku Solver"

tiltedtwister, YouTube (August 17, 2009)
video, 4:05

The video includes a 'robot's view' of a scanned number. It looks like the whole process is shown, although some of the tediously repetitious parts of the robot's progress are 'fast forwarded.'

Impressive? Quite!