Weekly I/O: How robot solves maze fast, High margin business boosts social status, From shame to normalcy
#64: Micromouse Maze-Solving, Gross Margin and Social Status, From Shame to Normal through Proud, Experience not Characteristic, Scam and Tourist
Hi friends,
Greetings from Sunnyvale!
Here's your weekly dose of I/O. This week, I revisited the podcast covered in #50, along with a nerdy topic. I hope you enjoy it :)
Input
Here's a list of what I'm exploring and pondering on this week.
1. How do robotic mice navigate to solve mazes in the shortest time? Three interesting strategies invented in the Micromouse competition history.
How do fully autonomous robots solve a maze efficiently? Veritasium introduces the Micromouse competition, a maze-solving competition where robotic mice compete to see which one navigates and solves the maze in the shortest time.
In the competition, each mouse can make five attempts at reaching the goal from the starting point within a time limit. The common strategy is using early runs to search and map out the maze, aiming to find an optimal route from the start to the goal. In subsequent runs, the mouse traverses that route in the shortest achievable time. The most common search method is the flood-fill algorithm.
There are many remarkable strategies invented throughout competition history. Here are three I found the most interesting:
The shortest path may not be the fastest. The initial instinct to solve a maze fast is to find the shortest route. However, there are instances where the micro-mice actually took longer to reach the goal using the shortest path. This is because turns slow down the mouse, and a longer route can require fewer turns, making it faster.
The turning mechanism employed by robots is critical. Previously, all micro-mice used to make 90-degree turns when maneuvering through the maze. However, an innovation introduced by mitee3 involved turning at 45-degree angles and traveling diagonally. This method proved to be much faster because it reduced the path length and introduced more possible routes.
Equipping a vacuum fan under the mouse can greatly enhance its performance. In physics, centripetal force is necessary to keep you on track when driving fast and making turns. The faster you move, the more force is needed to maintain your trajectory. For micro-mice, incorporating a suction fan can provide additional centripetal force, enabling them to make turns without significant deceleration. Compared to a non-fan mouse, the newer one can achieve centripetal accelerations of 6g or even higher.
It can be quite nerdy, but I highly recommend watching the whole video. It perfectly demonstrates that robotics is not solely a software or hardware problem. It's both.
2. The margin you can charge for a product depends on how much extra social status it gives the user. The gross margin on living room furniture is three times higher compared to bedroom furniture.
Podcast: Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations [The Knowledge Project Ep. #141]
Gross margins exist when you allow human beings to jump their social status, and gross margins disappear when you do not help them increase their social status.
For instance, luxury cars and watches create a perception of belonging to a higher social class. Going to an ivy league MBA program offers people a chance to jump to a higher social status. Therefore, the Chief Marketing Officer of our brain envisions a higher social class and thinks justifying the extra price. This explains why ivy league schools and luxury brands can keep increasing their gross margin.
However, utility providers cannot increase their gross margin because people are willing to keep switching for a lower price. The department of our brain dealing with this is the Chief Financial Officer, who always looks for cost cuts.
Businesses that shift your social level are businesses with high gross margins. Kunal Shah mentioned these observations in the context of India, but they hold in a broader sense. He also noted that the gross margin on living room furniture in India is three times more than bedroom furniture because the living room is where people entertain guests, showcasing their taste and boosting their sense of higher social status.
3. The shortest path to transfer from shame to normalcy is through pride.
Podcast: Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations [The Knowledge Project Ep. #141]
The fastest way to make somebody feel okay about what they're ashamed of is to make them feel proud about it. Take the LGBTQ+ movement of embracing gay pride, for instance. By encouraging people to take pride in aspects of themselves that were historically stigmatized, society works towards dismantling harmful stigmas and promoting acceptance and inclusiveness.
This notion of turning shame into pride is also relevant in conversations surrounding body image. For example, the body positivity movement aims to counteract body shaming by advocating people should be proud of their diverse body types. It's a hack that you can make people not feel ashamed about certain things by saying, "You have to be very proud of this."
This reminds me of #29.3, where the philosopher Georg Hegel observed that The world progresses by lurching from one extreme to another while overcompensating for previous mistakes.
4. People aren't buying your product for the molecules. They're buying it for the way it makes them feel. The subjective experience matters more than the objective characteristics of the product.
Podcast: Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations [The Knowledge Project Ep. #141]
The concept of focusing on the subjective experience (how it feels) instead of the objective characteristics of a product (what it is) has been noted repeatedly in Weekly I/O. In #11.2, Rahul Vohra from Superhuman mentioned that "Consider how your product makes customers feel instead of what it functionally does for them."
In #22.3, Maya Angelou quoted: "People may forget what you said, people may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Also, in the book, The Design of Everyday Things, the author stated, "Great designers produce pleasurable experiences. Engineers tend not to like it; it is too subjective. Experience is critical, for it determines how fondly people remember their interactions."
5. Places with no repeat customer behavior are designed to optimize for short-term behavior. That's why scammy businesses are usually found around tourist places.
Podcast: Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations [The Knowledge Project Ep. #141]
Why are there more scammy businesses around tourist attractions? Because people typically visit tourist attractions only once, scammers don't need to rely on customers to come back again.
Businesses located around tourist attractions are designed to optimize for short-term behavior because there is no repeat customer. As a result, scammy people are more likely to self-select themselves to be around tourist places because they don't need to optimize for their long-term NPS.
That's it. Thanks for reading. Since I always want to know more about my readers, please let me know which input you find most useful or interesting. You can take 5 seconds and reply to this email with a number!
As always, feel free to send me any interesting ideas you came across recently!
Looking forward to learning from you.
Best,
Cheng-Wei