Gadget Geeks - Sample
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Chapter 1. The Art of Dumpster Diving
Drew Binary stretched his neck to peer out of the boxy green dumpster. A flash of lavender plastic and the crunch of aluminum cans against his forehead was the only warning that someone was tossing in a bag of trash. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out and shook his head to clear the pain. A wave of rotten vegetable stench puffed out of the trash bag when it landed under him. Drew held his breath and counted to twenty three before inhaling. It didn’t help. The rotten food was not only all around him, but all over him.
Since trash hunting was a weekly activity, he was getting used to picking potato peels from his hair and blotting ketchup stains from his tee shirts. But it was getting more and more difficult to think of good excuses for Mom when he came home covered in ugly stains and spoiled food.
He peeked out of the dumpster a second time and made sure he was alone before he let the bungee rope slip through his fingers to lower his treasures to the street. He had designed the bungee-powered Plexiglass elevator specifically for dump-ster diving.
His dark blue eyes gleamed with excitement when he jumped out of the dumpster and inspected today’s haul. A cracked MP3 player, a toaster, a blue racquetball, a DVD player and a fan without any blades were piled haphazardly on his platform. Best of all, he had found a golf cart battery. Finally, the perfect power solution for the magnetic robot he was building.
At the end of the month, people often moved from the large apartment complex down the street. Most relocating families tossed out a collection of broken electronic equipment that Drew could either fix, or disassemble for parts.
Drew had transformed dumpster diving into an art. He knew the best days to dive, and the best hours on those days. Today was the first Friday of September, not a great day to dive according to his careful calculations. But the junk haul in front of him proved that his calculations were sometimes wrong.
He slid his backpack off with a swift shrug, hung his green cap on the bicycle handlebars, and ruffled his light brown hair back into messy spikes. Then, he crouched down and began his work. Large items were not only impossible to carry on his small mountain bike, but also impossible to sneak past Mom. As a result, he had developed a precise method for dumpster diving fieldwork. He always took apart large items, like the fan and DVD player, on site. The useful pieces would then fit easily into his backpack. Once the parts were in his room, all was safe. No way would Mom detect a few extra electronic parts there. The piles and collections made his room look like an electronics store. Well— an electronics store after an explosion.
His tool pack was out and spread before him in thirty seconds flat. He removed the fan motor, cord, and knob in under five minutes. The DVD player took a bit longer because he had to be extra careful with the tiny gears. Then, he removed the DVD digital display and wrapped it in an old Mickey Mouse beach towel he carried for emergency dives. The towel padded the delicate pieces from his heavy Geography book. Finally, he tossed the cases from the fan and the DVD player back into the dumpster. The toaster was too old and dirty to serve any useful purpose, so he threw it back as well. He pitched the racquetball into his backpack. The family’s chocolate Labrador, Hershey, would love the new toy.
The large battery was going to be a problem. It was too big and too heavy to hide. But he had been looking for a power source for this robot too long to let this battery go to waste. Golf cart batteries are different than car batteries in several ways. Most importantly, they can easily be recharged with a standard electrical outlet. He would have to find a way to sneak it into the house.
Drew tied the plastic platform in place behind the seat of his bike with the battery balanced on top. He’d completed today’s work so quickly that mom wouldn’t even notice he had stopped on the way home from school.
If he hurried, he could still make it home in time for his favorite show, Zyego. All the boys at school collected the Japanese Zyego cards and played war matches with them. Each card had a picture of a futuristic robot and listed the robot’s strengths and weaknesses. Drew was determined to someday build robots as lifelike as the Zyego machines.
Drew sped toward his neighborhood. The Binary family had lived in a small old house in Southern Missouri for Drew’s entire life. Dried Springs was a small town where exciting things never happened. Drew’s dad installed computer cables in office buildings. The cables joined all of the office computers together in a network. The family was always struggling to get the bills paid. Worst of all, Mr. Binary had to travel around the country, so Drew only saw him a few times a month.
Mom stayed home with his three younger brothers. At thirteen, Drew was the oldest by eight years. He shared a room with his five-year-old brother, Alan. The twins, Brad and Chad, were almost two. Even though Drew ignored them most of the time, he secretly thought they were exceptionally cute toddlers.
Pulling into the driveway with a one handed wheelie over the curb, Drew came to a screeching halt inches from Alan’s chest.
“Dwew’s home! Dwew’s home!” Alan lisped, dancing in a circle with his arms pumping over his head. Alan adored his older brother.
The right side of Drew’s mouth lifted into a crooked half smile. Alan would have actually been a pretty cool brother––if only he had been born about six years earlier. As it was, the little imp followed him everywhere. When Drew was at school, Alan often pulled apart important exper-iments and built towers out of the delicate electronic pieces. Drew would give just about anything for his own room—and an allowance.
Mom was under a tree in the front yard pushing Brad and Chad in a double swing.
Drew maneuvered around Alan and sped his bike toward the back yard gate. Hopefully Mom wouldn’t notice the battery strapped behind his seat if he kept moving.
"I built a wobot today!” Alan shouted after him.
“Cool, Alan,” Drew shouted as he closed the gate behind him. He slung his backpack over his right shoulder, tucked the golf cart battery under his left arm, and then ran for the back door. He stopped so quickly that the heavy battery slipped forward and thudded into the door. Drew strengthened his grip and ran inside.
His stomach growled so he paused just long enough to grab a package of cherry toaster pastries from the pantry. When he was finally safe in his room with the door closed, he pumped both fists in the air and shouted “Yes, yes, yes!”
Every afternoon he worked on his newest Robot, Sticky, while watching the Zyego robots battle on his new television. He had found the flat screen TV set in their neighbor’s curbside trash and repaired it. The broken outer case was beyond repair, so Drew had built a new case from clear Plexiglass. Because the remote sensor was missing, he made a makeshift, wired remote using a num-bered keypad from an old telephone. This remote attached to the television with a long wire. He could change the channel from his desk or bed, and as an added bonus, it was impossible to lose the remote because the wire held it permanently to the set. Alan loved the TV because the clear case left all of its guts visible.
The Zeygo robots began their battle while Drew took a giant bite of his toaster pastry. Sticky was in the center of the room, waiting impatiently for the battery that would bring him to life. An unexpected flash of color across Sticky’s chest caught Drew’s attention. “Whaaaa?” he said, a cloud of crumbs dropping onto his tee shirt.
Alan had stuck brightly colored alphabet magnets spelling out S-T-I-N-K-Y crookedly across Sticky’s chest. “The little imp can’t even spell Sticky…” he mumbled around the cherry bulge in his cheek.
Sticky was a robot built completely from dumpstersalvaged parts. Drew was experimenting with magnets to power the robot. The bot was nicknamed Sticky because his powerful magnets caused various metal objects to stick to his case. If all worked well, Sticky would someday be able to move along the ground by floating over a wheeled magnetic foot. He had turned the magnets on the foot with opposite poles facing the magnets on the bottom of Sticky’s case. The opposing magnets made the robot hover over the rectangular platform-foot lined with rows of magnets.
The trick now was to send electric power to the magnets along the base so the magnetic pulse would push the foot along. Drew was betting the golf cart battery would be the perfect power source. He picked an orange peel off the battery and then used his tee shirt to polish away a brown smudge that looked like chocolate syrup.
As a new member of the family, Sticky still had some basic problems fitting in. The main one was that other members of the family didn’t take him seriously. The family dog, Hershey, was suspicious of the robot. He seemed to think it was an intruder and he growled and bit viciously at the innocent bot. Alan, on the other hand, thought Sticky was just a big toy. Another problem was that Sticky was—of course—very sticky. Sometimes Drew would forget to take off his watch and his arm would get stuck firmly to Sticky’s metal case. The magnets were so strong he had to unbuckle the watch and pry it from the case with both hands.
While the Zyego robots paused for a commercial break, Drew jumped up and inspected Sticky for Alandamage. He was so anxious to finish the robot that he couldn’t even concentrate on his favorite show. The robot’s head was fashioned from a twelve inch tall Easter egg Drew had spray-painted silver. In the center of the egg head were two little green lights for eyes, and the round “Made in China” symbol on the egg formed a tiny robot nose. Drew’s dad had given him a few pieces of muscle wire for his birthday that he attached to pieces of rope, forming two antennas and a mouth. Silly putty held the antenna straight up on Sticky’s egghead, and a wire at the center of the mouth held on the mouthpieces.
Muscle wire gets shorter when an electrical current passes through it. He used this to make the rope ends of Sticky’s antenna and mouth droop down when he wanted the robot to look sad. The drooping lips and antenna added a human touch to Sticky. When Drew pushed the lever on the old remote control, an electrical current passed into the muscle wire and shortened it. The ends of the rope antenna drooped and so did the ends of his rope lips; Sticky’s face drooped in sadness.
Drew continued his detailed inspection. The old vacuum he used for Sticky’s body was hollow and light. He had replaced the front plate of the vacuum with a sheet of thin metal from the side of a computer tower. After removing the magnets that spelled S-T-I-N-K-Y from this metal plate, Drew confirmed that Alan hadn’t damaged the body. The magnetic foot and base looked fine too. It‘s just the bright alphabet name then, not so bad for a whole day’s worth of Alan-damage.
Drew spent the next hour wiring the golf cart battery into Sticky’s belly. It was smaller than a car battery, but still as large as a half loaf of bread, so it was a tight fit. When everything was hooked up, Drew took a deep breath and walked around Sticky for a last check. For months now, he had looked forward to testing this robot and proving the magnetic foot would work as a new method of motion. Now, with everything ready, he felt very alone. He didn’t have anyone to share the excitement with.
Still, he was so excited he was sweating.
He switched on the power and Sticky’s eyes lit up, then a row of red lights down his sides flashed once. Everything was working perfectly so far. Next, he pushed the lever forward on his remote. Sticky leaned forward, like he really wanted to float over his magnetic foot and walk. But he didn’t move. His body didn’t even lift above the foot like it was supposed to.
Drew sighed and turned off the power. The battery was just too heavy. The magnets weren’t powerful enough to lift so much weight. If he couldn’t come up with a new power source, Sticky would be a failure.
During supper, the twins babbled in their private language and crammed fists full of noodles into their mouths. Alan chattered on about the wood scrap robot he was building in the back yard. “Wanna see my wobot now?” he asked, bouncing in his seat. “He’s weally neat! Almost as good as Sticky.”
“Not right now Alan. Besides, Sticky isn’t such a great robot after all. He’s too heavy. I have to find a way to make him weigh less,” Drew said. He was leaning his cheek on his fist and pushing noodles around his plate.
Mom smiled, “If you find a good weight loss program for Sticky, let me know. I’ve been walking with the Solar Sprinting Mom’s group for six months now and haven’t shed a pound.”
Drew sighed and tried to see how many macaroni noodles he could poke onto his fork at the same time. Suddenly, he sat straight up. His fork hit the plate and three noodles jumped into the air, smacked his juice cup and slid slowly down to the table. “Solar Sprinting…?” he whispered.
“You know, the group Mary and I joined. We walk in the park every weekend,” Mom said.
But Drew wasn’t listening. He already knew what the Solar Sprinting Mom’s group was. “Can I be excused?” he asked.
Mom pointed to his full plate and raised her eyebrows. “After you eat.”
Drew finished his food in less than three minutes. He didn’t waste time chewing or even tasting the food, just swallowed as quickly as he could lift it to his mouth. Then he rushed to his room and pulled the battery out of Sticky’s belly.
“Solar panels, that’s it Sticky! You’re going to be a revolutionary robot in more than one way. Not only do you have a unique magnetic movement —you are also going to save the planet by running on solar panels!”
It was a long, sleepless night. Drew couldn’t stop thinking about the new power source. How was he going to come up with enough solar panels to power his robot? This would be his greatest dumpster diving challenge ever.
