Solar Umbrella (Book 1)

Chapter 8: Takes a Little Time

WORK CONTINUED OVER the next few months. DJ and Kate made daily progress on their code, reusing some they had created for earlier projects and writing a lot of their own. Their school had a repository of starter code chunks as well, that were available to download and edit. Still, that editing took a lot of time and work. They even copied some code from a robotic floor waxer they had in the school to help their nest robot avoid obstacles and people as it would travel around the community garden. Most of the new, from-scratch code focused on the loading and unloading of bots. They focused on the spider robot first and it proved to be a real challenge. Getting the bot in and out, charged up and loaded with instruments was easy enough, but it was a lot of time and work to deal with the actual results of what those instruments discovered. The group had a lot to learn about soil, water levels for the various plants in the garden, when to harvest different fruits and vegetables and what to do if things with a plant were not going well. They outsourced a lot of that research to an online community of gardeners who were more than willing to help with their project, but the sheer amount of information and variables proved to be daunting.

On the mechanical side, Parker and Ibrahim worked very quickly, designing their bot in specialized software the school had, and running it in countless simulations. They were able to 3D map the garden, and have the simulated robot travel around, up and down the various trees and plants. Each iteration proved more reliable and they were able to work out small kinks. Eventually, they created their final model and printed out their shell using a very hard plastic. Adding metal reinforcement, motors and electrical components was their final step besides programming the software.

Their final design looked sort of like a spider, but it only had six legs for locomotion and gripping. An additional arm contained the fine working motors to do things like test ripeness. A final eighth arm took care of less delicate work like cutting small branches. Since they were ahead of schedule, they started their own coding for the spider bot. They took on the basic stuff like the movement code and general arm control. They were able to use the same code DJ and Kate had modified for the nest to get a head start. They left the more complicated stuff for their partners when they had time.

Parker thought he was early to the communications lab one day. He planned to get in and work on some issues with the cutting arm before anyone else came in. The school had allowed them to use a corner of the lab as a base of operations for their project, which was great since it had a lot of space to test their physical models and lay out components. When he walked in, he was surprised to see Kate and Ibrahim already working. They were in a back corner laughing as they worked through something on the monitor together. It took Parker aback for a minute, and he stopped walking and thought about what he was seeing. The two were knee-to-knee, tight up against each other and looking right into each other's eyes as they talked. They were smiling and laughing and having a great time.

"So, that's a thing," DJ said, coming up from behind Parker.

"Uh, what's a thing?" Parker replied, frowning. "You don't think? You don't mean...Kate? Ibrahim?" He looked again. Ibrahim was standing up, pointing to some line of code and explaining something to Kate. She had her hands on her cheeks, her elbows resting casually against her knees. She was absolutely enthralled with Ibrahim and whatever he was saying, nodding and smiling as he talked. She suddenly laughed and reached out, her hand gripping Ibrahim's forearm while her head titled back. "It's a thing," he added finally.

DJ nodded, adding, "I spend a lot of time watching people. I'm trying to get better at picking up on those nonverbal cues." He pointed at Kate, "look at how she keeps touching her hair, moving little bits away from her face as he talks to her. And he keeps touching her casually when he talks. Just a brush on the shoulder or a little tap on the arm. It is, without doubt, a thing. They might not even know it yet."