From a link in the story:

Gulak first applied to MIT last year, but was waitlisted and decided to take a year off rather than settle for another school.

What the hell does it take to get into MIT these days? Does the robot you build in your basement have to be able to pass the SATs, too?

Trevor Blackwell did something similar a while ago (and he is a founder of YCombinator too): http://tlb.org/eunicycle.html