Team BFF--Race to the Finish! #2

by Stacia Deutsch

  “Hi, Ms. Kamat,” Lucy said breathlessly. “We’re the Rockin’ Robots. We were just wondering—have you worked on MARS?”

  Ms. Kamat looked up at us. “Why yes, I have!” she said warmly. We gave her our paper, and she signed her name in the blank. “Which Rockin’ Robot figured it out?”

  We all looked at one another. “We worked together,” I said, gesturing toward all of us.

  “Lovely,” Ms. Kamat said. “It’s so nice to meet you all. Since you figured it out first, you get a prize.” She handed us TechTown string backpacks. I glanced inside and saw sunglasses and a box labeled “Fitness Tracker.” I’d heard of those—my mom had some that she recommended to patients who were trying to be more active. They helped keep track of how much you exercised.

  “Thanks!” we all said at pretty much the same time. I hadn’t realized we’d be getting such cool freebies—it made me want to win even more!

  Ms. Kamat smiled at us. “I have a good feeling about the Rockin’ Robots,” she whispered. “Good luck today.”

  After the icebreaker ended, it was time to start working on our robots. One of the judges walked around the room handing out robot rovers and motherboards and told us that we could pick up our modules from a table in the middle of the gym. Maya and I headed toward the table while Erin, Leila, and Lucy stayed behind to connect our laptops to the motherboard.

  A woman at the table handed us a form to list our four modules. “The judges need to see exactly what each team took,” she explained.

  Mrs. Clark was at the table, too, which was crowded with students picking their modules. “If you change your mind at any time,” she told us over the noise, “you can come back and make a trade.” With her long layered dark hair, stylish gray glasses, and chunky black boots, Mrs. Clark looked like someone’s older sister—not a middle school teacher.

  “I think we’re set,” I said. “A ball, arm, button, and speakers, please.”

  She handed us our modules. “Good for you for being prepared.”

  Behind me, I heard a familiar voice say, “We’ll take what they’re taking . . .”

  Then I heard a low, throaty chuckle.

  Maya and I spun around, and Bradley and Sammy grinned at us. As soon as I saw Sammy, my heart started racing. Ugh, why was this happening? I’d been fine in study hall the other day. But he was looking awfully cute in his green sweater . . .

  Maya looked Bradley up and down. He was wearing his team shirt that said MACHINE MADNESS in a blocky font. No one else was wearing their team T-shirts yet—I didn’t think we were supposed to until the end. “How’s world domination going?” she asked him, cocking an eyebrow.

  Bradley held up a mechanical arm. “We’re one step closer to my goal.”

  Mrs. Clark held out the button, a ball, and the speakers. “Here are the other modules the girls took, if you want the same ones.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Mrs. C.” Bradley turned to us with a smirk. “Our plans changed.”

  I was still tongue-tied, but it wasn’t like Sammy was saying anything, either. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or at the modules I was holding.

  “Wow, you’re copying us. What a surprise,” Maya said, frowning hard. “No more robot clone army?”

  “Oh, there will still be an army, Maya Banana, but not today. First, we must conquer the maze.” Bradley pointed to where the maze was set up in the back of the gym. “C’mon, dude, let’s go.” He gestured to Sammy.

  Sammy started to walk away. Then he turned back to me. “See you at the finish line, Sophia.”

  I nodded meekly. What was wrong with me?

  “Okay, he’s definitely going to pay for using my name and a fruit in the same sentence,” Maya scoffed as we headed back to our table. She adjusted the mechanical arm and sensor. “Sammy was totally staring at you, by the way.”

  I gave her a sideways look and moved my modules to one arm. “No he wasn’t.”

  “Um, Soph, I have eyes, you know. How did you not notice?”

  “Because he wasn’t.”

  “If he wasn’t, then I’m Maya Banana,” she countered, pushing her way through the crowded room.

  We passed the maze on our way back to our table and took a peek at it. It looked like the size of one of the football bins in the equipment shed—about six feet long on each side. It wasn’t very high, but there were a lot of walls for robots to get around. The outer wall came about to my knee, and was made of high blocks. The inner walls were stiff cardboard and weren’t as high—they only reached my ankle. The maze was painted red and had inspirational lines on the walls like Way to go! and You’re almost there!

  Maya and I turned to each other, clutching the modules in our hands.

  The intensity of the moment hit us. “Let’s do this, Soph,” Maya said, a determined look on her face.

  I nodded. “Time for the Rockin’ Robots to rise . . . as one!”

  Chapter Ten

  The next few hours flew by. Leila named our robot Zahira, which she said meant “shining light” in Arabic, and we all agreed it was perfect.

  We set up our modules on Zahira’s motherboard and started entering the code we’d discussed into our computers. Everything seemed to be going seamlessly, but when we gave Zahira a test run on our table . . . she wouldn’t move.

  We tried to change the code a few times, but nothing was working.

  “Um, guys? I think we need help,” Erin said, pointing to the wall behind our table that said HELP ME. The judges had explained that students could post coding issues there with sticky notes so that teams could help one another out.

  “I wish we could figure it out on our own,” Leila said, biting her lip. She was still tinkering with code on her computer. “Wait, I have an idea!” She leaned over my shoulder. “Try changing the number in the code from one to five. See what happens then.”

  “Okay.” I made the change. But Zahira still wouldn’t move.

  Mrs. Clark always said that a big part of coding was problem-solving when things didn’t work—fixing bugs. But the harder I stared at the issue, the more the coding started swimming in front of my eyes. And that was when I saw it.

  “Guys, wait a minute.” I tapped the screen. “Look at this code.”

  It read:

  moveForward( )

  “Anything missing?” I prompted, wanting my friends to see what I was seeing.

  Maya nibbled on her lip. “Um . . .”

  Leila stared intently at the computer. “I’m not seeing it, Sophia.”

  “We’re missing a semicolon after we call the function!” I exclaimed.

  It needed to be:

  moveForward( );

  Erin smacked her forehead with her palm. “You’re right, Sophia!” We’d learned in coding club that sometimes a semicolon let a computer know that it was the end of a line of code—without it, the computer wouldn’t know what instruction to follow. I couldn’t believe that a measly semicolon had almost ruined our project. I inserted the semicolon into the code, and miraculously, Zahira began to move.

  “Wahoo!” Maya whooped. We all high-fived one another.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Lucy said, nodding confidently.

  Next we needed to make the arm work. We got the arm to swing the way we wanted, but the ball kept rolling away—the arm was pushing it too hard.

  Leila put her elbows on the table. “We need the ball to stay closer to her, or she won’t get it through the maze.”

  Erin lowered her voice. “It’s like Sammy and Sophia . . . he’s trying to stay closer to her and—”

  “OMG, stop, that’s enough,” I said, clapping my hand over her mouth. “We need to stay focused.”

  “I think we should try the help board,” Maya said, blowing her bangs off her forehead. “Maybe someone could give us a good idea.”

 
Lucy nodded. “Agreed.”

  Erin had the neatest handwriting in our group. On a bright yellow sticky note she wrote:

  “We’re having trouble not making the mechanical arm swing too much. Any ideas?”

  She and Maya ran over to post it on the board. There were a lot of notes already on there.

  When they got back, we heard an announcement for lunch. It felt a little weird to take a break when we’d been working so intensively, but I realized that my stomach was growling. There were tables set up on one side of the gym with big bowls of tossed salad and sandwich platters, drink dispensers filled with water and lemonade, and a dessert table with cake pops and cookies.

  I saw Sammy just ahead of me in the food line, and as usual, I froze.

  Maya was behind me. “Soph, you’ve gotta get over this. He’s just a boy. Go talk to him!” She gave me a little shove, and I had no choice but to pick up a plate.

  I cleared my throat. “Hey, Sammy.”

  Sammy turned around. “Oh, hey.”

  I started putting salad on my plate. “So . . . how’s your robot going?”

  “Pretty good. Yours?” he asked. We inched down the line.

  “Still working on it.” My brain decided to function properly for a second, and I remembered what he’d said at the water fountain the other day. I forced myself to talk instead of just standing there. “So, how’s the secret part of your robot going?”

  He smiled evasively at me as he took a chicken Caesar wrap. “Really well.”

  I was starting to get suspicious about their secret part.

  “You know it has to be a module they have here, right?”

  “Oh, it is.” Sammy looked around, and then he lowered his voice. “I’ll tell you this: There’s no rule saying you have to use everything the way it was designed.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise. What could that mean?

  We got our food and drinks and went outside. It was a really nice day, and kids were sitting on the ground eating lunch with their groups. Fatima’s team was sprawled out on the lawn right next to mine, and Sammy’s group was pretty close by, too. First we talked about our robots, but then we started talking about school. Fatima said she was helping plan the winter school dance at her school, and that got her and Maya started on themes. I could have sworn I saw Sammy glance at me during the talk about the dance, but I decided to ignore it. Like Tyson had said, if he wanted to ask me, he would. And if he didn’t and I decided I wanted to go with him, I could always ask him myself, like Maya had mentioned.

  After lunch, I thought about what Sammy had told me. Maybe he was right—not everything had to be used the way it was designed.

  I had an idea about how to alter what Zahira’s arm did, since it still didn’t work. But it meant a pretty big change to our plan—the plan we’d spent all week working on—and I wasn’t even sure it could work. I decided not to bring it up—at least not yet. Still, I played around with my idea on my computer for a bit.

  Eventually Zahira was moving forward, and the button was working. But we still needed to solve the arm-ball problem and get Erin’s dance music up and running, when we heard Mrs. Clark say, “Coding time’s up!” She was in the center of the room, holding a microphone, and asked everyone to gather around her. Lucy, Erin, Leila, Maya, and I gave one another panicked looks.

  “You’ll have more time to code later, I promise,” Mrs. Clark said, talking over the excited room of coders. “Taking breaks is an important part of coding and being creative—it gives your brain a chance to rest and rejuvenate itself.” She looked around. “And we have something fun planned for you!”

  We put our modules down and gathered around Mrs. Clark. “And now for our very special activity . . . ,” she said suspensefully. “I’d like to introduce you all to Ms. Ana Kamat, chief technology officer of TechTown!”

  Everyone clapped as Ms. Kamat joined Mrs. Clark. I noticed that the tables behind Mrs. Clark were now filled with tablets and smartphones instead of the modules for our robots.

  “Thank you for the warm welcome!” Ms. Kamat said. “I’m so glad to be here, talking to all of you coders. I help create computers and computer programs at TechTown. Our mission is to build socially responsible technology that helps communities.” She picked up a clipboard on a table next to her. “In fact, at TechTown, we have five new products coming out next year,” she said. “And you will be the first to see them!”

  Everyone started talking excitedly. Erin and I stood on our tiptoes to try and get a better look.

  “I’ve brought examples of a few programs and gadgets. I’d love for you to try them out and tell me what you think.” She looked over at Mrs. Clark. “As I’m sure you’ve learned in your coding clubs, a big part of developing programs, apps, and robots is getting feedback from users to figure out what works and what doesn’t.”

  Ms. Kamat showed us a new system TechTown was releasing to help make sure water in small, rural areas was safe for animals and humans to drink, and a medical app that linked to the fitness tracker things we’d gotten in our TechTown backpacks.

  Before we were allowed to explore, Ms. Kamat walked over to a three-foot-tall lump covered by a black cloth.

  “And now, for the grand finale . . .”

  Swoosh!

  She pulled back the cloth dramatically, revealing a small robot. “Ta-da!” The robot had a white rounded plastic head and jointed arms and legs. My BFFs and I exchanged excited glances. It looked just like the robot Maya had designed for our Rockin’ Robots T-shirts!

  “This is a personal assistant bot we’re testing at the local hospital. It can answer curious patients’ questions about their conditions, and it can also complete simple commands, like ‘Get me a glass of water.’ It hasn’t quite mastered things like open-heart surgery, but we’re working on that.”

  Lucy leaned over to me and Leila and whispered, “This could totally be adapted to be the Babysitter 3000.”

  Leila smiled. “We should suggest she make it toothpaste-resistant.”

  “And don’t forget peanut butter!” I added, chuckling.

  “Keep in mind that none of these projects is final yet,” Ms. Kamat explained as we went around the stations, checking everything out. “In fact, some of them, like our personal assistant bot, are still experimental. Sometimes you have to take a big risk to be innovative,” Ms. Kamat continued. “But it’s usually worth it. And if it still doesn’t work, iterating—which is trying again and again—is a big part of computer science.”

  I smiled, but I was thinking about Zahira. Maybe it was worth telling my team about my idea to make her arm work better, even if it meant a big change. Like Ms. Kamat said, sometimes you have to take a big risk to make something better.

  When we got back to our tables, I decided to go for it. “Listen, I have an idea for how we can fix Zahira’s arm.”

  “Looks like Bradley did, too,” Erin grumbled, showing me the green sticky note she’d pulled from the help board.

  I read it out loud. “Glue the ball to the arm. Use chewing gum to attach the ball. Use Lucy’s bracelet to tie the ball to the arm so it can’t go far. You’re welcome. B.”

  Lucy held out her arm with the special bracelet her mom had given her. “He’s hilarious,” Lucy said wryly, rolling her eyes.

  “Only in his own mind,” Maya scoffed. “The bracelet thing is not happening.” She paused. “Though we could use one of Erin’s hair ties to tie the ball closer to the arm so it can’t roll too far . . .”

  “But that would mean taking off the speakers,” Leila countered. “We can still only have four things, and I’m pretty sure a hair tie would count. If we could even use one.”

  “What was your idea, Soph?” Erin asked me, tightening her bun. “But know that I am down for giving you my hair tie if that’s what we want to do.”

  I took a breath. “All
the stuff Ms. Kamat showed us got me thinking—maybe we should change our plan,” I said, watching my friends carefully.

  No one looked thrilled with this idea.

  I put my hands on the table. “You know how Ms. Kamat said sometimes you need to take a risk and make a change?” They all nodded. “I think we should forget the ball and put in an LED light instead.”

  “But I thought you liked the ball part,” Erin challenged, frowning.

  “And we already programmed the arm,” Leila reminded me.

  “I do like the ball part,” I said. “And we can leave the arm the way it is. I just don’t think the ball part is working, and Zahira won’t be able to get through the maze if she’s chasing the ball that far, right?”

  They all nodded again.

  “All I’m saying is, maybe we try something different.”

  “But then what would the arm do?” Lucy asked. “It’s got to have a purpose.”

  “Could it . . . dance?” I suggested, thinking out loud.

  “Dance?” Maya repeated.

  “I thought you didn’t like that idea,” Erin said.

  “Well, I didn’t think it was possible,” I explained, lifting Zahira’s arm. “But maybe I underestimated Zahira.”

  “If you’re thinking she can do the sprinkler, stop right now,” Lucy said.

  Erin rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I can’t really see her doing the shopping cart, either, but . . .”

  I shook my head so hard, my hair brushed Erin and Lucy’s cheeks. “No, no, no!” They all gave me confused looks. “Instead of the arm pushing the ball through, we have lights blink, music play, and an arm that dances to the beat of Erin’s song!”

  A hush fell over my friends. I could tell they were trying to picture my idea.

  “That’s actually pretty funny,” Erin finally admitted. “This could work!”

  I smiled. “Sammy said we don’t have to use everything the way it was originally supposed to be used.”