Chapter 8

Saturday morning, I got up early before sunrise and spent some time cleaning my room in case Mom decided to ambush me with a visit from the Owen sisters. Then I did some fishing and then cut a few leaning trees down before splitting a couple of cords of wood. I loved doing physical work or fishing while sub-vocalizing with Base, working on various concepts and designs. He was even able to show me designs in my head, somehow projecting it front of me without anyone else seeing them. After stacking all the split wood in the lean-to beside the garage, I went in and had a shower.

I found a note from Dad on the kitchen counter letting me know that mom went to the office while he went to the airport as a fire bomber repair needed to be done as quickly as possible. I grabbed a snack and powered up my laptop, finding that Base had updated the version two design of the original robot and put it on my laptop as if I had done it myself. I was okay with that as we had both worked on it and I could reproduce the design myself if needed. I updated my work logs, detailing concept work and design work to ensure a record should anyone try to prove I had stolen the work. I even went so far as to open the design and then resave it with the current date and time so that there was a copy of it that matched my log time. Base and I had discussed the next models we would concept and design and appropriately named them as models two, three, and four.

Model Two had treads as well as legs to allow it to speed along a flat surface and then climb with legs when needed. Four arms helped with functionality to both hold and work on objects while multiple optical systems placed around the top dome of the robot created full spherical vision capability. I hoped these would be full functional robots for manufacturing and service where appearance wasn’t a big factor.

Model Three became our version of a security robot. It was scalable from one-eighth of a normal person to child size and then a six-foot full-size version. Initial concepts allowed for weapons to be concealed but easily accessible. Simple rods of different material, blades and even projectile devices were simulated and then designed in. Various levels of martial arts would have to be programmed in and turned on or off depending on the customers’ requirements and pocketbook. As we actually started making robots to sell, I would be making a few of the high-end robots to protect the family and the production facilities.

Model Four would be for household or personal robots, again of various sizes and capabilities. Child companions, babysitting, butler, maid service, hospitality were just some of the functions robots could do soon.

Version two of original Model One would be of great benefit to the later versions if we could get the spine and hips to work properly. Teran end effectors would also help with the finer work required for all of the models.

I slipped downstairs for a late lunch and just heated up a bowl of ravioli and took it back upstairs. I spent the afternoon on programming with Base on the sports game, with concentration on modelling the way the humans looked and moved. Once we got a base model down for each gender, we had to program variables that the player could control for each event. When the player met the best combination for all of the variables, such as speed, when to jump and how to swing arms for example on a long jump, their simulated player jumped as far as that body type could. Different body types were better than others for different events. Power ups could be purchased to give a player more speed, jumping power, etc. Upgrades to the next body type could be purchased from the initial free body choice. Then we would offer visual upgrades for looks, clothes and even bling the simulated player could wear. Once we had all of that done, we moved on to all the contests we would offer. Track and Field had a host of events for both male and female. Shooting games like skeet, target, biathlon, archery could be a big hit as could all the events for Scottish games. Winter sports for speed skating, figure skating, skiing, bobsled, luge etc. would be included. Water sports would be as well. Our first version would be for individual sports but new versions could add team games. I got so involved that I didn’t notice what time it was until Dad came up to check on me.