Team BFF--Race to the Finish! #2

by Stacia Deutsch

  “Oooh, Sammy!” Maya nudged Lucy.

  I gave her a stern look. “Don’t even start.”

  I started typing on my keyboard and pointed to a spot on the screen. “We can change the coding here.” I pointed to another line. “And here.”

  Maya and Lucy raced to the supply table to exchange the ball and came back with an LED light board.

  After we’d made the changes and plugged in the LED light board to Zahira’s motherboard, I uploaded the music to the robot’s motherboard and set the coding in motion. Zahira’s arm wiggled in all directions to the music, which played in a loop. The lights flashed red, green, and blue, but not to the beat at all. She looked totally silly. But there was no doubt about it: She was dancing!

  “OMG, I saw Bradley at a bar mitzvah last month, and that’s exactly how he moved on the dance floor!” Maya squealed, cracking us up.

  “You’re terrible,” Leila said, shaking her head, but she was laughing.

  “Looks like I’ve got some real competition,” Erin said. She began doing her silly robot dance.

  “Excuse me!” A short kid with braces came running over to us. “I know we’re supposed to go to the board, but you guys look like you know what you’re doing, and we’re running out of time. Our robot keeps hitting the wall, and we can’t figure it out. Can you help us?”

  “Um, sure,” Leila said as we all nodded. “Guys, I’ll be back.” She and the kid raced off.

  “I love how helpful everyone is here,” Maya said as we watched the two teams next to us give each other advice.

  “Yeah,” I said. It was a pretty cool atmosphere.

  Before we knew it, it was time for Zahira to do a practice run through the maze.

  “Where’s Leila?” Lucy asked, scanning the room. We had some time . . . but not much. We waited patiently, watching other teams send their robots through. There were some really cool ones: a robot that carried blocks in the bulldozer arm and dumped them at the finish line, one that unwound a ball of string behind it to show its path, and one that had a spinning propeller on top—though I couldn’t figure out why it was there or what it did.

  “I’m back,” Leila gasped, running up to us. “They just needed to use sensors.”

  “Phew,” Erin said, scooting over so Leila could squeeze in next to her.

  I noticed that Bradley and Sammy’s team wasn’t coming over to practice. Maybe they thought they didn’t need to practice . . . or maybe they still wanted to keep what their robot did a secret. I realized that maybe that was a good idea—we didn’t want everyone to know what Zahira was going to do before the actual maze run.

  “We should keep Zahira’s dancing a secret,” I whispered to my friends, glancing over my shoulder at Sammy. “Let’s just try the sensors and the movement through the maze,” I told them.

  “Good idea,” Erin said. “That’s the hardest part, anyway.”

  Maya had walked up to the maze and waved her hand at us, calling us over. “It’s our turn.”

  I headed to the starting line and squatted down, setting Zahira on the green arrow at the start of the maze. “Time to see what you can do, Zahira . . . ,” I whispered to her.

  Ms. Kamat was running the practices. “Go!” she said, and blew a whistle.

  Erin dashed back to the computer and clicked “run” on our program.

  Zahira crossed the starting line, just like she was supposed to. When she hit the first wall, she sensed it and turned left. We all looked at one another and grinned. Then she turned left again to an opening in the maze, where she moved forward one more time.

  “Zahira! Zahira!” Lucy and Maya were whooping and yelling.

  “It works!” Leila shouted over to where Erin sat. “She actually works!”

  At the next wall, Zahira turned left. But then she went left again . . . and again . . . and again.

  I gasped. “Oh no!”

  “Looks like you girls have a problem,” Ms. Kamat said as Zahira continued to turn in circles. “Can you try to solve it?”

  Erin looked over at us, a panicky look on her face. “I don’t know what to do!” she called to us.

  I could tell Ms. Kamat wasn’t going to help—it was up to us. With a deep breath, I scooped up Zahira, cradled her in my arms, and joined my friends on the sidelines.

  Erin took her hands off the keyboard and held her hands up in a shrug. “I have no idea how to fix this.”

  “Let’s look at our plan again,” Maya said, already heading back to her computer.

  “No, Maya, there’s not enough time,” I argued, stopping her. “And we already changed it once. I think we should try to fix the code until Zahira works.”

  “And we’ve already worked on the plan so much,” Leila said. “I don’t think that’s where the problem is. Sophia’s right. We don’t want to make things worse. Let’s go through the code again.”

  “Okay, fine,” Maya gave in. “I guess you’re right. I mean, I’d hate to fix the way she moves but then mess up the arm or lights.”

  “True,” Lucy said. “Let’s go over it all, line by line. We’ll figure this out!”

  We were about to rush back to our table when I noticed Ms. Kamat looking at us. She was close enough to have heard our entire conversation, but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  Was there any way we could get Zahira to finish the maze? We’d put so much work into her—and I didn’t want Sammy’s robot to beat us.

  But we were running out of time.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I t’s the left turn!” I exclaimed after we looked through the code a few times. “That’s the issue. Zahira only knows how to go left!”

  “Five minutes left!” Ms. Kamat announced.

  I could see the judges gathering near the maze. Students were already carrying their projects over.

  In the end, we made a few changes to the code but didn’t have time to think through whether it was right or not. We figured anything was worth a try.

  “Time’s up!” Mrs. Clark called the last straggling teams to the maze. “If you’re visiting, please take your seats. And hackathon participants, please put your team T-shirts on for the final maze runs.”

  I hadn’t even noticed, but some visitors had gathered around the maze. Lucy’s parents and Leila’s little brother waved at us. I thought about my mom not being there and got a bit sad, but then I remembered that at least I’d been able to come to the hackathon—thanks to my friends.

  We all got our T-shirts and put them on. Suddenly it felt real. We were about to compete!

  And then, far out in the crowd, I spotted Abuela sneaking into the community center. She saw me and started waving frantically. I couldn’t believe it! She must have come back early from Marissa’s to see me. I felt a rush of happiness and waved back with a huge grin.

  “We’ll go in order of your table station numbers,” Mrs. Clark told the groups. “Table one.”

  The first group that went had a basic robot. They directed it by remote control and had no extra modules. It only went through the maze, and pretty slowly at that.

  Another group had their robot drag the ball behind it with a string rope. And the group that had asked Leila for advice used sensors to detect distance and avoid the walls.

  “They owe you,” Lucy whispered in Leila’s ear.

  Leila shrugged. “They were really nice. I’m glad I could help them.”

  Machine Madness was up next.

  “Looking forward to your surprise,” I called over to Sammy as he walked past me to the starting line.

  “We’re going to beat all speed records for doing a maze,” Bradley said, strutting forward with a cocky grin. “Any maze. Ever.”

  Maya rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”

  Machine Madness gave one another a round of high fives while Alicia put their rob
ot on the start line. Their robot had a huge swinging arm, just like Zahira did.

  “Okay, go!” Ms. Kamat said, and blew her whistle.

  The robot gripped a block in its arm until it reached the first wall. But instead of turning left or right or even backing up, it put the block down. Then, using its arm, it lifted itself onto the block and over the wall. Once on the other side, it turned back and reached over the wall with its arm to collect the block. Then it moved on to the next wall and did the whole thing over again. After going over two walls, all the robot had left to do was move straight to the finish line. I had to admit, it was pretty creative—and efficient.

  “That was fast!” Ms. Kamat said, checking the time and making a note on her clipboard. “First place so far.”

  Bradley and Sammy started dancing.

  “And the most innovative, as well,” Ms. Kamat added.

  “Isn’t that cheating?” Erin asked Ms. Kamat, saying what we all were thinking. “I mean, they went over the maze instead of through it.”

  Ms. Kamat flipped a few pages on her clipboard. “Well, it’s certainly not the way we expected the robot to finish the maze, but the rules don’t say anything against going over.”

  “The time stands,” another judge announced. “Machine Madness has the score to beat!”

  “There’s no way we can top that,” Maya said darkly. We’d worked so hard, and now we weren’t even sure our robot would travel past the first wall.

  I looked at my friends. “We did our best,” I said, channeling Coach Tilton. “Time to leave it all on the field. No holding back.”

  “Rockin’ Robots!” Ms. Kamat called our group. “You’re up!”

  “Let’s see this robot rock,” Erin said, sounding determined. I set Zahira down at the beginning of the maze, and Erin initiated the code on her laptop.

  At the starting line, Zahira’s lights began blinking constantly. Soon after, Erin’s song started playing from the speakers we’d attached to the rover. Then Zahira’s arm began to swing, and it almost seemed like she was trying to move to the rhythm of the song.

  She started through the maze perfectly. She moved forward to the first wall, sensed it like she was supposed to . . . and then, just when she was supposed to turn, she began to spin. She kept going left, left, and left, but it was happening so fast that it seemed like she was spinning.

  “She’s only going left!” Lucy said, sounding panicked. And on top of that, her arm was swinging wildly, with the music still playing.

  “Yeah, but why?” Erin asked, her hands on her head.

  I was horrified by what was happening. I looked over at Ms. Kamat, but to my surprise, she was chuckling. Maya looked over at me and started laughing.

  “It really looks like Zahira’s dancing!” she said.

  We all realized how ridiculous Zahira looked and cracked up together. Then other kids and some of the visitors started laughing, too. Even Mrs. Clark was giggling.

  Zahira might not be able to pass the first part of the maze, but she sure could bust some moves!

  Erin turned up the music, and we all began to dance, swinging our arms like Zahira. Pretty soon, the whole room was dancing along to Erin’s song and Zahira’s funky moves. It didn’t matter anymore that Zahira had failed miserably at getting through the maze—we’d started the most epic robot dance party!

  After the dance party (and Zahira’s coming in last, since she didn’t even make it through the maze) we were cleaning up at our table when Ms. Kamat came over to us.

  “Hi, girls,” she said. “I know your robot didn’t work how you expected. But I was impressed at your problem-solving style.”

  “Thanks,” I said, unplugging Zahira’s arm. “I’m not sure we have much of a problem-solving style, though. Zahira didn’t exactly do what we planned.”

  “Yeah, she was supposed to move her arms like she was dancing, not turn around nonstop!” Erin said, sighing.

  “I know,” Ms. Kamat answered. “But some problems take more time than we had here.” She looked at our robot. “Have you girls learned about feature creep yet?” We shook our heads. “It’s when you put too many things in a computer program—or robot, in this case—and it can’t do any of them exactly as intended. Too many features creep in.”

  I laughed. “Well, that’s definitely what happened to Zahira!”

  “Indeed,” Ms. Kamat continued. “There’s always so much to learn with computer programming.” She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a card. “I know you didn’t win a prize, but I still have an offer.”

  We all stopped cleaning up for a minute.

  “I heard you trying to figure out why your robot would only go left.” She handed me the business card. “Most kids would have gone back and started rethinking their whole plan, potentially making things worse in the process.”

  “Ha! We considered that,” Maya said.

  “I know.” Ms. Kamat nodded. “But in the end you decided to review your original concept, to determine where things had gone wrong.” She looked at each of us in turn, her eyes finally resting on me. “That was impressive.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling flattered.

  “Computer programing is all about creativity, grit, and teamwork, and you girls showed today that you have all of that, so I want you to see what else you can do with it.” She pointed at her business card. “I’d like to invite you all to come to TechTown for a personal tour. I’d love to show you around.” She leaned in toward us and whispered, “I might even have a prototype drone to show off.”

  My friends and I all looked at one another in amazement and grinned.

  All I’d wanted to do was beat everyone else in the hackathon. But now I didn’t even care that Zahira hadn’t made it through the maze—or that we had (technically) lost. Because with what Ms. Kamat had just told the Rockin’ Robots, we were winners all the way.

  Chapter Twelve

  After the dance party and cleanup, it was finally time to go home. Abuela had found me after the maze runs and gushed about how hackathons were the most fun thing ever—she even said she might want to participate in one. I tried to explain that they probably didn’t all end in dance extravaganzas.

  “Well, maybe they should,” she’d said firmly as I waved goodbye. Ellie’s grandmother overheard our conversation, and soon she and Abuela were chatting away about learning to code and taking a flamenco dance class together at the Y.

  “That was the best dance party!” Leila declared as we headed out of the community center. She was carrying Zahira.

  “Like we’re the best group!” Maya said.

  “And today was the best hackathon!” Erin added.

  I started to say “We are the best—” when Lucy cut in.

  “Best friends,” she finished.

  “You guys are the best,” I gushed.

  “Talking about us again?” It was Bradley. “We still have the best robot,” Bradley bragged as he, Sammy, Alicia, and Ellie came walking up next to us. Bradley held out their team’s robot. “We’re calling him the Climb Over Rover.”

  Their robot had placed pretty high, though the winner was a robot from another school that sped through the maze tipped on two wheels. I still wasn’t sure how they’d managed to do that. It was pretty epic.

  “We won a pizza party from that new place near school,” Bradley said smugly.

  While Bradley and the others discussed the pizza party, Sammy stepped up next to me. “Hey,” he whispered. “Can I talk to you?”

  We started walking a bit slower, falling behind the others.

  “What’s up?” I asked, trying to act calm.

  Sammy looked down at the ground. “So, you know . . . the dance?” He shuffled his feet around.

  I thought about what Tyson and Maya had said. I realized that I kind of did want to go to the dance with Sammy, and it see
med like he wanted to, also.

  I took a deep breath. “You want to go together?” I couldn’t believe those words had just come out of my mouth.

  Sammy looked up at me wide-eyed and then broke into a grin. “That’d be awesome.” He reached for my hand. I let him take it, even though it was a sweaty mess—but his was, too. Right before we reached the others, he let go of my hand and looked at me with his warm, dark eyes. “Text you later?”

  “Okay.” I nodded, my heart racing.

  Sammy’s mom was giving his team rides home, and Lucy’s dad was going to drive us to her house—he’d just stopped to talk to another parent inside. We’d all planned to hang out at Lucy’s for a while before going home.

  As soon as I caught up with my friends, they pounced. “What was that about?” Lucy shrieked as she and Maya, Erin, and Leila crowded around me.

  I touched my hot cheeks. “I asked Sammy to the dance!” I exclaimed, surprising even myself.

  “You didn’t!” Maya said, hitting me on the arm. “What did you say?”

  “I just asked him to go with me!” I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

  “That’s so cool!” Leila said.

  Erin hugged me. “You’re awesome.”

  “Okay, but you have to promise not to wear raggedy sports shirts or sweatpants,” Maya said, scanning my outfit with her finger.

  I put my hands over my heart. “Promise.”

  I looked at my friends and thought how I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them helping me out that morning. And if I wasn’t here, I wouldn’t have been able to help code Zahira’s amazing dance moves. And ask Sammy to the dance.

  “Smile!” Erin held her phone up, and we threw our arms around one another and made silly faces, making sure to hold Zahira up high.

  “Text it to all of us,” Maya said.

  “Done.” Erin nodded, tapping her phone.

  I pulled out my phone and looked at the picture that popped up on my screen. “Rockin’ Robots forever,” I said, waves of happiness washing over me. Not only did I have the absolute best, most epic team . . . I had the absolute best BFFs.