Aaron neglects to factor in the soggy ground

Aaron re-reads the task brief and highlights the line “You cannot move the mat”, before looking at the ‘floor’ and observing “but you can move the scales.” He walks over and pulls the scale off of the ‘floor’ and places it on the mat instead.

Aaron then asks Tom to drive the ute onto the scale, but the scale only registers the weight of the vehicle as 20.5kg. The pair both look at each other, confused. Tom then repositions the ute on the scale, but this time it only registers a weight of 18.2kg. Again, Aaron questions this figure, and Tom agrees that it seems a bit low.

After Tom again repositions the tyre of the ute on the scale, it registers a weight of 39.8, but Aaron then points out that it is now displaying in pounds, not kilograms. After one more try at reparking the ute on the scale, Aaron points out that the scale is close to breaking. He decides to get a “safety one” and stands on the scale himself, but the scale registers a weight of zero.

In the studio, Tom Gleeson reminds Aaron about how concerned he was when Tom Cashman had broken the lock of the shed in a previous task. Aaron claims that after Tom Cashman had committed that “heinous crime”, he’d been influenced to also start committing crimes.

When Tom Gleeson points out that Aaron hadn’t taken the soggy ground into account, Aaron responds “I did not consider that at the time, um, Your Honour.” He then adds that he did think about it a lot, after the task had finished, and that it came to him “like Einstein, but instead of an apple it was mud”. Tom Cashman asks him what the relevance of the apple to Einstein was.

Pete then questions whether Aaron should have been on the mat the whole time, but Tom Cashman clarifies that you didn’t have to remain on the mat throughout – you just had to register the weight from the mat.

Aaron registered several different weights, but his highest registered weight was the first one: 20.5kg. He earns 4 points.

(Written by JoGo and proofread by Karl Craven)

(Illustrations collected by JoGo and adjusted by David Fuller)