Gracious Professionalism

Part 1

Mecanum wheels. Drilling from a back room. Motors and wires on every table. Six weeks to bring a pile of metal to life.

There's nobody else here. I'm left with only my thoughts and a half-finished robot. Perfect.

I tighten my grip on the wrench I am holding and put an ever-increasing force on the pieces I am putting together. The angle should work, according to the measurements we did a few weeks ago.

It's hard to explain.

When I'm here, I'm home. Only a handful of people know the passion I feel when I design, code, build, and test these teleoperated contraptions. Anger, sadness, happiness, fear. Poured into every smallest action, until it's impossible to tell where I end and where the machine begins. The results? A working robot, leftover parts, and a feeling of satisfaction. Machines that are so complex they're simple. An item of my creation that I can take apart and rebuild.

People are different. People have too many thoughts; an unending amount of emotion. I spend this time trying to get away.

I know what you're thinking. Probably that I'm some low-life technology nerd that's just a little too obsessed. Maybe you're right, but I know one thing that's certain:

This isn't a mere hobby.

Pneumatics, writing code, computer-aided design, and mechanics. Who knew that the algebra we learned in school could apply to this? Staying at hotels in downtown urban cities for competitions. Inside jokes with team members. Ever since I joined my robotics team, I found my true interest. Since November, I had seen and participated in everything related to developing our robot.

The season ended last month. For everyone else, each season meant winning every competition we participated in and making it to the world cup for the fifth year in a row.

For us, that meant spending our days running on three hours of sleep and too much caffeine.

I look down at the intake mechanism I had been reinstalling. Some of the rivets were bending from weak reinforcements during the matches. Now, there isn't a flaw in the contraption. The new design is a major improvement, and the measurements are accurate enough to make the CAD model envious.

Feeling satisfied of my work, I rebalance the ninety-pound machine and wheel it back into the middle of our build space.

I pull out my phone and check the time. Four-thirty. My teammates should have arrived for the meeting half an hour ago.

But I am alone, alone with my thoughts and this half-finished robot.

The sound of a distant drill press and the smell of wet paint fills the room. I sigh and walk to the door. The sky is a deep blue, with wisps of clouds strung in a pattern across. A powerful wind surges through the air, needing to get somewhere quickly.

Just like my team members.

Going back into the building and keeping an eye on the time, I decide to go through some things from previous seasons. Letters, trophies, spare parts, signs. Strewn in various places around the area. Since when did the Allen wrenches get so unorganized?

Gradually, cars start to trickle in the parking lot.

"Thanks for arriving on time," I sarcastically comment as people walk in.

The first forty minutes are spent lounging around the build space and talking. I show everyone the new intake. The marketing people go into the conference room to plan outreach events, and the programmers return to their computer screens decked out in code. As for the rest of us, there isn't much else to change on the mechanical side. Some people go to other groups to help, and the remaining people stay to design a potential variant of our driving mechanism.

After about two hours, Marcus, our team captain, calls a meeting around the robot.

"As you all know, we have been working very hard to prepare for the first summer competition in Indiana. Next week, we'll load the trailer and drive to the hotel in Indianapolis. We should have carpooling arranged already. The competition will last for two days, the same as during the season."

Everyone had been told this information multiple times before, so nobody paid serious attention to what he was saying.

When the meeting ended, most people left. A few people stayed behind to complete any unfinished duties. As I walked out the door, I couldn't help but notice the team's newly designed trailer. Last year, we turned the grey steel walls into a yellow and green mural with our team number, symbol, and name. The colorful design stood out against the red brick building and dismal parking lot.

I open the sliding door in the back. It slowly lowers to the ground, now acting as a ramp. As I step inside, I notice that the cart and robot restraints have deteriorated since the last time I saw them. The stoppers on the floor eroded from overuse, turning into random stubs of rubber. The powered-activated restraint's programmable controls aren't wired to the other equipment.

If we travel to Indiana without making changes, everything inside the trailer will crash against each other and break apart.

We only have another week until we leave, so I run inside and break the news to people that stayed.

"Guys, something's wrong with the trailer. The trailers won't hold the carts, much less the robot. Everything we bring would theoretically be destroyed by the time we arrive at the competition. That means that the robot won't work, and we could lose thousands of points. We have to begin making changes starting from tomorrow, or we'll never have a chance at winning this!" I exclaim.

A few people came outside to see what I described. Everyone is nervous lately, with the summer season coming up. Everything has to work, and any flaws would undoubtedly cost us our potential for doing well at this competition.

"The trailer should be fine, at least for this one event. We could do some renovations after Indiana, but for now, there shouldn't be any troubles getting there or coming back," a programmer comments.

"We're driving across the Rocky Mountains twice, and none of the restraints are working properly. Does anyone else see the problem?" I shoot back. Nobody replies.