Hard coding refers to the software development practice of embedding input or configuration data directly into the source code of a program or other executable object, or fixed formatting of the data, instead of obtaining that data from external sources or generating data or formatting in the program itself with the given input.

Hard coding in this context refers to putting the positions of mines as constants into the source code instead of obtaining the data from sensors (like metal detector) and then solving the grid or traversing the arena. To hard code is to use an explicit (constant) rather than a symbolic name (variable) for something that is likely to change at a later time(in this case position of mines). Putting a predefined specific path in the source code for the bot to traverse on is NOT allowed. You must take input from the metal detector sensors and then give the position of the mines as an input to your code that then solves for the shortest path between the starting point and the end point