6:35 p.m.
Faith and my brother are working on the tubing for the intake, and I'm troubleshooting the code for the different drivetrain gears when the doors of the fabrication lab swing open. I glance up from my computer.
"Sorry I'm late, guys. Lecture ran into overtime," Marcus pants, holding onto the door for support.
"It's all good, man. We figured."
"Has anyone seen the mini guillotine?" Faith calls from across the shop. Marcus reaches for the small tube cutter behind him and tosses it to Faith; she catches it with ease and continues to work.
"I don't know how far they've gotten with the wiring, but from where I'm sitting, it...still needs work."
My friend pinches the bridge of his nose. "I know. I started on it yesterday, but it was already late, and you know how I'm a stickler for organization, so I thought I'd finish it today instead."
Nodding in understanding, I avert my eyes back to my screen; Marc grabs an assortment of zip ties and leaves to join Faith and my brother near the robot.
faith
11:38 p.m. A wave of relief washes over me while tightening the blue tag around the massive plastic bag. I take a step back to admire the masterpiece in its full glory while Hunter takes a picture and submits it to Enigma Space for competition registration; back in high school, I never even thought any of my rough sketches would come to fruition like this, especially on this scale.
Time to win.
12:13 a.m. "Let's try timed trials with defense for the keycards this time," I say while switching out the robot battery. Aidan does a routine check on the drive train gearboxes, spraying canned air on the motors and tightening loose screws on the plates.
Aidan plugs the used battery into the power bank. "By ground pick up or through the loading station?"
"Loading station. We need to work on timing and rely on hand signals since we don't have our headsets yet."
"Sounds good." Aidan pushes himself up and makes his way behind the polycarbonate wall. "Are you guys free to give us a hand?"
Road case drawers close shut. "I'll deal with the game pieces," Hunter calls back.
"I'll run defense with the practice robot then," Marcus says.
"Ready?" Aidan asks me, his index finger hovering over the timer set to two minutes and thirty seconds.
"Ready."
He looks across the field to his brother and peers behind me at Marcus. They both give him a thumbs up.
"There are thirteen keycards total. Two in the lowest level, five in the middle level, and six in the top level. That makes a total score of ninety-four points, including the climb," Marcus says, gathering the game pieces and resetting the practice field. "Not bad, you two. That was the second-highest score of the week."
I help Aidan move the competition robot to the front of the driver station and manually move the elevator to its starting configuration. "We had better scores with the skelebot though," I say, pointing behind him at the polished prototype.
It wasn't the most appealing to look at, but it did all the essential functions we listed in our preliminary design review, making it perfect for testing driver/operator dynamics as we fabricated the competition bot.
Hunter wheels over a whiteboard with all our timed trials with the practice bot. "I still think we'll be fine, Faith. Cut yourselves some slack. It's like you mentioned before. We don't have the official headsets yet, so communication with each other across the field was not the best."
I sigh while switching out the battery. "Yeah, I suppose so." Hopping over the guardrail, I
take the Xbox controller resting on the driver station's table.
"How about a speed round?" I suggest to Aidan.
He grins. "You're on."
YOU ARE READING
The Silicon Valley Connection
RomanceCollege junior Faith Sommers is all about processes--a series of steps followed (sometimes often repeated) in order to yield a certain result. As an aspiring astronaut, the founder of her own tech company, and a full-time engineering student, proced...
