I know very little about modern exploits (take this with a pinch of salt), but I imagine one could exploit the bots like so:

• software updates will need to be periodically installed to the dog. I really really doubt they wouldn't update the software after release, given how novel the bots are

• the software updates will be authenticated somehow, to ensure that "only" the software vendor is the author of an update.

• if an attacker can successfully impersonate the software vendor, they could load malware onto the robot through the existing update process. This would be similar to the attack that came through SolarWinds

....and? It was one class in an undergrad degree, I wasn't doing cyber security research. Physics undergrads aren't discovering new particles and premed undergrads aren't curing cancer.

Also, we weren't script kiddies begging for premade exploit files, our assignment was to exploit a known vulnerability using a nop slide in C++. If you think that's easy, then I doubt you've had to write C++ at all

As I mentioned earlier, I know enough about cyber security to know it isn't for me. You don't need to be Steven Fucking Hawking to know you don't want to learn high level math.

You clearly know nothing about cyber security if you agree with the statement "probably fairly easy to make [shotgun bot] secure". I had a cyber security course in my degree, and I had to spend hours in the isolated CS lab trying to crack a purposefully vulnerable WEP network. I know enough about cyber security to know it isn't for me

LOL hell no, very much the opposite