When I was a student studying robotics, a group of us decided to make a present for our professor's birthday.

We wanted to program our robot to cut a slice of cake for him.

We pulled an all-nighter writing the software, and the next day, disaster.

We programmed this robot to cut a soft, round sponge cake, but we didn't coordinate well.

And instead, we received a square hard ice cream cake.

The robot flailed wildly and nearly destroyed the cake.

(Laughter) Our professor was delighted, anyway.

He calmly pushed the stop button and declared the erratic behavior of the robot a control singularity.

A robotics technical term.

I was disappointed, but I learned a very important lesson.