Dry Ice Loophole Makes Mockery of Robotics Competition

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Eric Lund
Oct 18, 2020 12:00 AM EDT

There's no solution more compelling than those lazy "it's not stupid if it works" moments, even if they're technically against the rules. A low budget or DIY solution might make a judge mad, but you can't say that your solution wasn't effective. For another story of a stroke of lazy genius, here's a guy who needed a permit to build a garage so he just bought a van.

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  • 01
    Text - What is the funniest loophole you have ever seen? Kevin Yue, studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology When I was in school, they held a robotics competition. It was pretty simple, conceptually. You had to make a firefighting robot. It would have to navigate a maze, find a candle and put it out (fully automated, no remote control). I can't remember the exact size but I think the robot had to be smaller than 1 foot in length, width, and height. Scoring was as follows. You start with
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  • 02
    Text - • Could separate into parts to search rooms in parallel • Operated on very little code (there were a few benchmarks for this) I entered a block of dry ice: It basically just had a spring-powered hammer to shatter it into little pieces when the start timer went (so that it would evaporate faster)
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  • 03
    Text - In seconds the entire maze was filled with a white fog and the candle was definitely out. I had the fastest time by a landslide even before you counted my deductions: • Didn't use a fan? Check • Search every room? Check. • Separate into parts to put out fires in parallel? Check I think I could've been the only person in history to ever win a robotics competition without writing a single line of code or soldering a single wire. But alas, the judges disqualified me by unanimous vote. WHY AR
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