The Blue Wire
The robotics club at Ferndale High was three weeks old. It had seven members, one table at the back of the science room, and one robot.
The robot turned in circles. That was all it did. Left wheel forward, right wheel back, around and around, like a dog chasing its tail.
On Friday a judge from the city science fair was coming to watch it work.
The club tried everything. New batteries. New code. A guide from a website, printed out and followed line by line. The robot went around and around.
On Thursday, Callum lay down on the floor and looked up at the robot from underneath. There was a small blue wire, and it was in the wrong hole on the board — two holes to the left of the picture in the guide.
He moved it. He stood up and pressed the button.
The robot went straight across the table, straight past the end, and into his bag on the chair.
On Friday it drove down a two-meter line and stopped on the tape. Everybody clapped. The judge wrote something on her paper and looked up.
“Can it turn?” she asked.
Callum looked at the robot.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s very good at that.”