a la Le Petit Nicolas

Guest Writer CAG

Her English version of her French assignment to write a story from her childhood in the style of Le Petit Nicolas stories*

When I was 12 years old, I joined my school's Lego Robotics team. This decision came from a variety of sources. I WAS interested, but I think that the fact that my best friend was on the team and that my dad was more interested than I was also helped in my decision.

My dad, an electrical engineer, was more than happy to share his world of programming with me. And I admit it was nice to be able to share something with him. Regardless of the reason, I found myself staying after school twice a week to work on my Lego Robot.

Let me take a moment to explain how Lego Robot challenges work. Each team in the competition builds two robots and programs them to complete a series of tasks. In our case, collecting tennis balls wrapped in aluminum foil. (Perhaps this was a simulation of taking a robot to Mars. Although I doubt there are nice black lines to follow like we had.) The robots are autonomous, meaning that there is no remote control and all the robots' actions and choices must already be programmed into it.

Needless to say, this was a lot to ask of four 11- and 12-year-old kids. My three team mates immediately gravitated toward the more complicated -- and, therefore, more impressive -- robot, leaving me by myself with the other robot.

After six weeks of hard work (and being ignored by my team mates), my efforts yielded one temperamental robot that was entirely MY design and contained MY program in its stubborn little microchip brain.

By the time of our first competition, both robots were managing to consistently follow their programming. And the libellules écarlates (scarlet dragonflies, our team name -- although we seriously considered supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) felt fairly confident as we unpacked our robots in the event's warm-up room.

On the practice table, my robot's performance was flawless. And as I walked out with my team, and looked up at my dad in the bleachers, I could almost see myself proudly advancing to the next round. But my robot had other ideas.

I think my team mates' robot had problems. But I didn't really notice. I was too busy watching in disbelief as my robot, who had apparently developed artificial intelligence in the past five minutes, exercised its right to not do what I programmed it to do. My robot failed to collect any tennis balls. Instead it spent our allotted time spinning in circles. We didn't advance to the next round.

After our turn, my dad bought me a bagel and we retreated to the bleachers to watch the few remaining competitors. The most memorable moment was when another team's robot made a suicidal veer towards the edge of the table. Its creator leaped to its rescue, upending the entire challenge table in the process, only to see it fall to the floor and shatter into a billion tiny Lego pieces inches from his fingertips.

In watching this tragedy, I had to reflect that, while my robot had point-blank refused to cooperate, at least I wasn't THAT kid.

*For more info: http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Le_petit_Nicolas