MJA@MIT-AI 08/29/80 21:45:41 Re: Knowledge-based Rubik's Cube solver?
To: cube-hackers at MIT-MC
Please excuse the previous badly munged versions of this message i accidently
sent.

	I am taking an artificial intelligence course at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I need to do a term project for the
course that involves developing and/or using a knowledge based system.
Since I am interested in the Rubik's cube and since it seems like
there are human expert cube solvers (as is evident from msgs on this mailing
list) that use heuristic knowledge (for example the various macro's (as I like
to call them, they are more properly called composite elements of the
group, i guess) that people have come up with to do some particular operations
on the cube), it seems natural to me that a knowledge based system would
be just right for this task. I would like to hear:

	(1) Pros/cons on why this can/can't be done and how effective
such a system would be.

	(2) Considering that I have but one semester to work on this project
(while concurently taking 5 courses, incl. this AI course) is it reasonable to
attempt this for a term project? (The actual system would not have to be
100% complete at the end of the term, but I would at least like to have
something to show for a semester's worth of work.)

	(3) If this is too ambitious for a term project for a course, what
about the use of this as a topic for a master's thesis. (I would have until
the summer of '81 to finish since thats how long my company will wait for me
to get a master's degree if im going to continue working for them.)

	(4) Of course in addition to all of the above trivia, I would like
some ideas for such a system (even if it isnt feasable to do in this limited
amount for time, im still interested in at least thinking about such a system
with the idea in mind that someday it can be implemented).

	I dont know how interested the majority of the people on this mailing
list are in knowledge based systems, so we might consider a seperate mailing
list for knowledge based cube solvers to spare those on the current mailing
list from mail they dont want.

		/ MJA