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A robot is stood at its base on mars. It needs to collect samples of dirt and bring them back to base. Each sample lies on the circumference of a circle whose center is the base.

The first sample will be taken from 100m away, and each additional sample will be taken from a further 30m away. The robot can only carry one sample at a time.

The robot can travel a maximum of 10km before it needs to recharge. If it starts with a full battery, how many samples can the robot collect before recharging?


The robot needs to get to each sample and back before going for the next one.


Find a formula, in terms of n where n is the number of complete trips, for the total distance travelled. (You can use Sn for this.)


Try to solve Sn=10000 and use the solution to choose the appropriate integer for n.