Chapter 15

We were up very early on Friday morning and got to the airport just before four am. We got our boarding passes for this flight as well as our connecting flight to Boston out of Toronto airport before going through security. We found seats near the boarding area at the gate where the plane was already parked. Everyone was still tired so we just vegged a bit until more passengers arrived and sat near us. I pulled my laptop out and worked on improving my other robot model designs now that we knew what worked well with version two of Model One. Base helped and we soon had Model Two, the manufacturing and service robot with four arms, treads and legs, and a three-sixty vision system updated with the updated spine and hip design. Base went ahead and updated Model Three, the security robot and Model Four, the home/personal robot as well.

“Ben, better pack up, boarding will start in a couple minutes,” warned dad.

I shut down the laptop and slid it into my backpack, acting as my carryon. We each had checked in a suitcase for the four-day trip. Fifteen minutes later we were in our seats, the emergency door seats with the wider aisle. I told my parents to splurge for seats with extra legroom and they were able to get them, at least on this flight. The flight was about two hours and twenty minutes and we landed at busy Pearson Airport in Toronto about eight-twenty-five and took another ten minutes to get to the gate. We disembarked and found a washroom before heading to our next gate. We got there with fifteen minutes to spare before boarding and bought some snacks and drinks to take on the plane.

The flight to Boston was crowded but mom had paid for good seats again so she sat in the middle of a three-seat row while I had the window seat again. It got boring once we were at our cruising altitude so Mom and I talked about getting patents for my robot designs and the components Base and I designed and manufactured for the spine and hips. We already had intellectual property protection on the software games but we also needed it on the AI software.

“We will have to discuss intellectual property protection and patents with both universities so we know what they will want versus what we will need to protect your work and ideas,” mom stated. “I know some schools want fifty percent of the revenue from a patent so we have to hurry to get your patents sent in before you start school and then decide what you’re going to work on while at school.”

“Definitely,” I agreed. “Do we have a line on a good patent lawyer?”

“There isn’t a big demand for that in Dryden,” mom replied sarcastically.

“True, but we do need one,” I said. “Probably have to go to Toronto for that I suppose or maybe in the States. I’ll start looking for some now online.”

Base and I found a bunch in Toronto and hundreds in the States. We narrowed it down to a couple in Toronto, a couple in Michigan and a couple in Boston to start. After visiting their websites, we knew what we had to prepare before even engaging one of them. Base started that while I showed mom the list we created and what was needed to file a patent. I assured her a lot of what we needed was already done and I would get the rest done between our visits this weekend and early next week so we could file quickly.

I packed up my laptop before we landed and we were soon on the ground and taxiing to the terminal. It took us a three quarters of an hour to find baggage claim, get our luggage and then find an Uber to take us to our hotel, Le Meridien, a seven-minute walk to the university. It was too early to get into our room but the hotel was kind enough to store our luggage while we toured the university. We soon were in the midst of the residence buildings and only a few more minutes to be outside of the main buildings. It was cold and it had snowed yesterday so we walked quickly and decided to go inside the buildings where we could. We would get an official tour tomorrow of several labs and buildings that they knew I was interested in.

We started with the main building at 77 Massachusetts Ave, the actual main address for MIT, after crossing the biggest crosswalk I’d ever seen, with hundreds of students crossing at once. The lobby was a four-floor opening a hundred feet high leading up to the Little Dome. Off of that led the infinite corridor, an eight-hundred-and-twenty-foot-long hallway leading through several buildings in a West to East alignment. The corridors actually are all on all four upper floors as well as the basement tunnels. I had read that twice a year, the sun would line up and shine down the entire length of the hallways, which was called MIThenge when it occurred.

Hundreds of students travelled the hallways as most of the classes were held in buildings along the corridor. We had to go with the flow of traffic or be trampled, so we missed a bunch of the displays along the way. There were glass walls showing off various labs as well. We spent a couple hours exploring the insides of the various buildings and then explored a few of the residences on the West side of campus. The most modern one was New Vassar, behind one of the stadiums, which was only one of two that had air conditioning. The other one I was interested was the MacGregor House as it was made up several ‘entries’ with groups of single suites.

Eventually we got tired and walked back to the hotel to veg for a while before having dinner. There was a restaurant in the hotel so dad reserved a table for six pm and we crashed in the rooms of our suite for a bit. After a fancy meal at the French style restaurant, we split up and headed to bed early after the long day.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast in the room and then met our guides at the visitor’s centre. Our guide was a fourth-year student making some money doing tours. Sandra was in the 6-2 program which was the traditional Mechanical Engineering program. I was thinking if I went into robotics I would need the 6-2A Mechanical Engineering with a broader ability on whatever we wanted to learn. I also wanted to study Aerospace Engineering which was Course 16. MIT used numbers to discern their programs rather than the titles once you got there. She showed us the various buildings again, concentrating on the Engineering and Aerospace ones and then showed us some of the residences and dining halls. The Maseeh Hall was the closest to the main buildings and had a dining hall so that was also interesting to me.

Sandra explained meal plans versus cooking for yourself in your residence if they were a cook-for-yourself community or not. You could still buy a meal plan and eat at any of the dining halls. Since my scholarship came with a meal plan, I was set either way. The tour wound down back at the visitor center and we were then met by Professor Atwood and Professor Chou, robotics and AI, respectively.

“Gentlemen, thank you for taking time to meet with me and my family, especially on the weekend,” I said as we shook hands.

“It’s our pleasure, Ben,” Professor Atwood said.

“Yes, we’re very interested in making sure you wish to attend MIT as we would like to collaborate with you on your robot and AI right away,” Professor Chou added.