Last month DARPA, the U.S. Defense Department's research agency, invited proposals from robotics experts to build a "chemical robot" made from soft, flexible materials and capable of squeezing through gaps smaller than its regular dimensions.

CNN: Robotics discovers its soft side

To deal with the race's new challenges, Stanford has souped up its robot, called "Junior, " with a new, more flexible system of reasoning, more capable of improvising and planning around unexpected contingencies.

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