Why not post the details here? I'd love to have a go at it
Here is the contest, you can play with your keyboard with a human in the loop (try to bring the fruit to the head using the listed keyboard shortcuts) or you can try to automate it using javascript:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39949966
About twenty people looked at it when I posted it but I didn't have any winning entries and I couldn't solve it myself either.
If you are very interested you can see a walkthrough of my attempts to solve it here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39962620
I must emphasize that even this very toy, 2D robotics problem with perfect information is very hard, despite being quite easy for a human in the loop. (I tried it with test users, who could complete the task easily with a human in the loop remote controlling the robot.)
Let me know if you have any questions or need help using the test environment or understanding the task. You can give me any other feedback you want as well.
The contest is finished (with no winners) and there is no longer any prize.
>but I don't want to reverse-engineer it.
is kind of my original point :) It's a pain to reverse engineer the geometry. You can copy the variables wherever you want and I would accept it, but it doesn't solve the robotics problem.
Feel free to copy and paste the code or refactor it however you want, if you send me a solution I will look at it if it is in the spirit of the contest.