October 2009
The idea came by chance, as the best ideas often do.
I was at Earl's workshop, adjusting the last details of the robotic arm, when I saw a poster taped to the wall with masking tape. It said, in capital letters and bright colors:
ROBOTICS COMPETITION FOR YOUNG INVENTORS
Category: 12-15 years
First Prize: Gold Medal + $500
Registration Deadline: October 31st
Earl saw me looking at the poster and let out a dry laugh.
"That's been there for two months," he said, wiping his hands with an oily rag. "No one signed up. Kids these days prefer video games."
"Why didn't you take it down?"
"In case some crazy person showed up who wanted to try. Like you."
I didn't say anything. But my eyes stayed fixed on the poster, on the words $500, on the idea that something I had built with my hands could be worth more than the time I had spent on it.
That Night, in My Room
Mark entered without knocking, as always. He found me with the robotic arm disassembled on the desk, the pieces arranged in rows by function, and a sheet of paper covered in calculations I'd been making since I returned from the workshop.
"What are you doing?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"There's a robotics competition," I said without looking up. "First prize is five hundred dollars."
"Five hundred? For a fourteen-year-old?"
"For whoever wins."
Mark fell silent. I kept writing, calculating the costs of the materials I still needed, the delivery times, the deadlines.
"And do you think you'll win?" he asked, his voice uncertain whether it was pride or concern.
"I'm going to try."
"What do you need?"
"Time. And not to be bothered."
"I can arrange that."
He stood up, but before leaving, he stopped at the door.
"Leo," he said. "It doesn't matter if you win or lose. What matters is that you're trying. That's already more than most people do."
And he left, leaving me with the disassembled arm and my head full of ideas.
The Following Weeks
They were weeks of intense work. Sleepless nights, days when school was just a formality between one programming session and another. Alex came to help me after school, and together we reviewed the code, adjusted the parameters, tested again and again until the arm responded with the precision of a clock.
"The problem is the gripper," Alex said one afternoon, her fingers stained with grease, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. "It can lift objects, but it can't distinguish them. If you tell it to grab an egg, it breaks it. If you tell it to grab a rock, it doesn't hold it with enough force."
"I know. I was thinking of adding pressure sensors, but they're expensive."
"How much?"
"Fifty dollars, more or less."
Alex fell silent. Then, without saying anything, she took her wallet from her pocket and put two twenty-dollar bills and one ten on the table.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I'm lending it to you. When you win, you pay me back."
"What if I don't win?"
"Then you pay me back anyway, when you can."
I looked at her. In her eyes was something I hadn't seen before. It was trust. Trust that I was going to win. Trust that it was worth betting on me.
"I'm going to win," I said.
"I know," she replied.
And we went back to work.
The Day of the Competition
The competition was held at the city science museum, a building of glass and steel that looked like it came out of a science fiction movie. When we arrived with Mark and Susan, the place was already full of kids with incredible projects: bionic arms, dancing robots, autonomous vehicles that navigated mazes without touching the walls.
"This is harder than I thought," Mark murmured, watching a robot solve a Rubik's Cube in under a minute.
"Leo is going to win," Susan said, with a confidence her eyes didn't reflect.
"I'm going to win," I repeated, more to myself than to them.
At the table assigned to me, I disassembled the robotic arm and reassembled it piece by piece. The judges moved from table to table, asking questions, evaluating the projects. When they reached mine, the oldest of them—a man with a white beard and magnifying glasses—looked at me with an expression I couldn't tell was curiosity or skepticism.
"Did you make this alone?" he asked, pointing to the arm.
"With help from a friend. She wrote part of the code."
"And what does it do?"
"It picks up objects. Distinguishes weights. Adjusts its force depending on what it's holding."
"Can you demonstrate?"
I put an egg on the table. The arm moved with calculated slowness. Its gripper brushed the surface with the delicacy of a surgeon and lifted it without breaking it.
The judges looked at each other.
I put a rock. The arm gripped it with more force, held it in the air, set it down gently.
I put a feather. The arm took it with a gentleness that seemed impossible, brought it close to the camera I had installed on the base, and let it float for a second before setting it in place.
"How does it distinguish objects?" asked the youngest judge, a woman with short hair and a stained lab coat.
"It has pressure sensors in the gripper and a camera that recognizes shapes and textures. The code compares the sensor information with a database my friend and I built."
"How long did it take you?"
"Three months. But I'd been learning before that."
The judges wrote something in their notebooks and moved on to the next table. I stayed where I was, my hands trembling, my heart beating harder than normal.
The Wait
The wait was the worst part. After the demonstrations, they moved us to a room with sandwiches and sodas and told us to wait. The kids gathered in groups, discussing the projects, comparing their inventions.
I stayed in a corner with the robotic arm on my lap, waiting.
The phone vibrated. Alex: "Did you win?"
Me: "Not yet. They're deliberating."
Alex: "How do you feel?"
Me: "Nervous. There's a kid who made a robot that solves Rubik's Cubes."
Alex: "And is that hard?"
Me: "Yes. It's very hard."
Alex: "But your arm picks up eggs without breaking them. That's also hard."
Me: "You think that's enough?"
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Leo found a poster. Robotics contest. First prize: $500.
He worked for weeks. Alex helped him. She put her own money toward the sensors.
"If you lose, I'll take you out to eat so you feel better. If you win, I'll take you out to eat to celebrate."
"It's the same answer."
"Because both options end the same."
Do you think Leo will beat the Rubik's Cube kid? And if he loses, how do you think Alex will cheer him up? 🤖🏆💭
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