Dr. Seuss I will teach on a train I will teach in the rain a fox shirt

The projects that I remember as falling into the latter category (not that impressive) are usually the ones where the student chose the wrong tool for the job. This is a “classic” problem. The idea is that the robot will balance itself. When you unbalance it by pushing the top to a side, the robot should compensate and rebalance itself again. This is the underlying principle of Segways as well.