The robot olympics, p.1
The Robot Olympics, page 1
Don’t miss any of Tom’s adventures!
1: Into the Abyss
2: The Robot Olympics
Coming Soon:
3: The Space Hotel
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2006 by Simon & Schuster Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Lisa Vega
The text of this book was set in Weiss.
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Aladdin Paperbacks edition June 2006
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Control Number 2005937379
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-1361-0
ISBN-10: 1-4169-1361-0
eISBN: 978-1-439-10371-5
Contents
1 One-on-One
2 Tomorrow’s Dinner Today
3 The Games Begin
4 Race for the Gold
5 Field Trip to the Future
6 Heavy Lifting
7 Suspicions
8 Hoops
9 Follow That Car!
10 The Truth Comes Out
11 Closing Ceremonies
1
One-on-One
“Score!”
The basketball swished through the net as my sneakers slapped down onto the hardwood floor. A perfect slam dunk! I turned to face my opponent.
SwiftBot-1 gleamed beneath the LED lights overhead. His silver-metallic body was about my height, roughly five feet ten inches, and mimicked your basic humanoid design: two arms, two legs, one head, and so on. Jointed arms gave him a standing reach of over seven feet. Inside his lightweight, carbon-fiber exterior was an array of integrated circuits, servos, optical sensors, wires, and batteries. His smiling steel face was just for show, except for the pair of glowing infrared sensors that served as his eyes.
I thought he looked pretty impressive, but, of course, I was biased. I had built SwiftBot myself, with plenty of help from my friends.
I saw my face reflected in his polished silver torso. Blue eyes. Blond hair. A backward baseball cap kept sweat from dripping into my eyes. My face was flushed from the exercise.
“Your ball.” I tossed the bright orange sphere over to SwiftBot-1, which caught it with both hands. This part of my private lab had been converted into a half-court playing area for testing the robots hoop skills one-on-one. “Play offense.”
Voice-recognition software let him respond to my verbal command. He dribbled the ball against the floor, keeping it close to his body for better control. Titanium-alloy muscles flexed smoothly as he went into action. Looks good, I thought, nodding in approval. Teaching a robot to dribble hadn’t been easy. My friend Yolanda and I had spent hours trying to get the programming and mechanics right.
In a way I was sort of playing against myself. Tom Swift, amateur athlete, versus Tom Swift, teenage inventor. And the inventor in me was definitely rooting for the robot.
SwiftBot charged toward the free-throw lane while I scooted to keep between him and the hoop. Pausing right at the edge of the paint, he went into the classic triple-threat stance: feet spread, knees apart, elbows in. Like a human athlete, SwiftBot could either shoot, pass, or dribble from this posture. Of course, with no one to pass to in this one-on-one match, the robot’s options were reduced to either dribbling or taking a shot. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do next.
Yo had programmed SwiftBot to vary its behavior, so that his play wouldn’t become too predictable. Right now, I knew, the microprocessors in his electronic brain were analyzing the data from its sensors in order to rapidly arrive at a decision. His sculpted face offered no hint as to what he was thinking. Talk about a poker face! It occurred to me that a robot card shark would have a distinct advantage over a human player.
Hmm. Might be an interesting project for the future …
SwiftBot’s head swiveled from left to right and back, trying to fake me out, but I spotted his legs bending at the knee joints and guessed that he was going for a jump shot. I gave him props for trying to bluff me, though, and wondered if his move would have fooled another robot.
Guess we’ll find out soon.
Sure enough, SwiftBot went airborne the next second. Foam rubber springs in the soles of his feet gave him extra lift as he pushed off the floor. Metallic fingers held the ball poised above his head, ready to go. At the very top of his jump, SwiftBot released the ball from his fingers. He was going for it!
I jumped, too, hoping to block his shot, but he had too much altitude on me. For a second, I kicked myself for making his arms so long. Eyes wide, I watched the ball arc over my head, just beyond my fingertips. SwiftBot had calculated its trajectory perfectly. The ball passed right through the hoop without even grazing the rim.
One point to SwiftBot!
He landed easily back onto the floor, the springs in his feet doubling as shock absorbers. I was stoked to see him stick the landing so well. The first couple of times we’d played against each other, he had lost his balance after every other jump. I winced at the memory of SwiftBot toppling over onto the floor. He still had trouble getting up if he landed flat on his back, but, thanks to a new-and-improved internal gyroscope, he didn’t fall down as much anymore, thank goodness. I was tired of hammering out the dents in his outer casing.
“Way to go!” I congratulated him. The score was now 10-6 in my favor. Not bad for a robot who had been playing b-ball for only a couple of months now. Still, my inner inventor couldn’t help but wish that he was winning.
That would be seriously cool.
SwiftBot said nothing in reply. No big surprise there since his mouth was strictly decorative. It had been tempting to install a speaker so that he could talk back, but that would have required additional software as well. We sacrificed speech to devote more memory to his motor skills.
“Okay,” I said, reclaiming the ball. One more point and I would win the match. “Play defense.”
SwiftBot took up a defensive position just outside the post. Infrared sensors scanned my every movement.
Dribbling the ball against the floor, I darted to the right of the free-throw lane. The sound of the orange leather ball bouncing against the hardwood echoed throughout the lab. Adrenalin rushed through my veins as I rushed toward the low post, keeping my eyes on the hoop. My own sneakers were equipped with sensors, microchips, and a motor and cabling system that allowed the shoes to adjust to my gait on the fly. I felt like I was running on air.
SwiftBot matched my moves with his own. He kept between me and the hoop, extending his arms and elbows out to the side to take up as much space as possible. The flexible joints in his knees bent slightly in anticipation of a jump.
I didn’t even try to fake him out. My brain already had way more computing power than his, so it seemed unfair to pull any mind games on him. Instead I decided to rely on my own natural speed and agility. Maybe SwiftBot could jump higher than I could, but I had faster reflexes.
The higher I dribbled, the quicker I could move, so I really let the ball bounce as I sprinted to the left of SwiftBot and took my shot. I put a bit of backspin on the ball as it left my fingers, wishing for the hundredth time that I could engineer a way for SwiftBot to do the same. That was just too subtle a move for the robot’s mechanical fingers to master, however. His tactile sensors weren’t that precise.
Maybe for SwiftBot-2 …
I held my breath as I watched the ball soar toward the hoop. If I sunk this shot, the game was over.
But SwiftBot wasn’t beaten yet. My heart leaped as the robot sprang into the air at a forty-five-degree angle. His right arm stretched out above his head, intercepting the spinning ball in midair. Leather smacked against a carbon-fiber palm as SwiftBot batted the ball back at me.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “Pretty slick!”
Caught by surprise, I almost let the ball bounce out of bounds. The unmistakable ba-boom-ba of a loose basketball called out to me and I raced after the air-filled sphere like a maniac. My hands grabbed onto the ball at the last minute, and I spun back toward the hoop.
To my relief SwiftBot was still on his feet, despite leaping diagonally after the ball. He wobbled on one leg for a moment, struggling to regain his balance, then landed both feet on the floor. Smooth move, I thought, mentally cheering him on. I could win easily if he fell over, but that was the last thing I wanted. The better SwiftBot played, the more it felt like a victory.
But that didn’t mean I was going to make it too easy on him.
Taking advantage of my human speed, I dashed around SwiftBot, dribbling the ball with my right hand. My plan was to make a close-range shot on the run before the robot could get into position to block me again . I scrambled toward the hoop until I was only about six feet from the basket. Without coming to a halt, I lifted off on my left foot and with my right hand aimed for the upper-right corner of the white targeting box painted on the clear SwiftGlass backboard. My eyes tracked the ball as I dropped toward the floor. Had I made the layup?
Too late to stop my shot, SwiftBot rushed in front of me, hoping to snag the rebound just in case my shot missed. His metal arms shot up to box me out.
It was good strategy, but a wasted effort in this case. The ball hit the backboard right where it was supposed to. With a resounding boom, the ball banked off the SwiftGlass into the net. Swish!
“Game over,” I announced, but SwiftBot’s computerized brain had already calculated the score as well. His arms dropped to his sides and he came to halt. He knew that my eleven points meant that I had won the match. Fortunately, Yo had programmed him to be a good loser.
No robot of mine was going to go on a Terminator-like rampage. That only happened in the movies.
SwiftBot stood quietly upon the court. If nothing else, he looked less tired than I felt. Breathing hard, I retrieved the ball and strolled over to the sideline, where I dropped down onto a bench. A bottle of cold water was waiting for me, and I gulped down the liquid eagerly. SwiftBot didn’t have to worry about getting dehydrated, but I did.
I glanced up at video cameras mounted above and around the court. The whole match had been digitally recorded so that Yo and I could analyze SwiftBot’s performance later. I made a mental note to e-mail the footage to Yo right away. She’d want to pick apart the robot’s moves frame by frame.
In the meantime, I ran over the game in my head. Today’s 11 -6 was SwiftBot’s best score to date. It was a bummer to keep beating him all the time, but I reminded myself that his real competition was other robots. If he could do this well against an actual human being, he was sure to keep winning against his fellow machines—or so I hoped.
His reflexes were still a little slower than I liked. Maybe if I squeezed a few more microprocessors into his neural network …?
Before I could pursue the idea any further, a familiar voice interrupted my thoughts. “Hey, dawg!” my wristwatch blurted. “Better get a move on. You’re going to be late for dinner.”
The voice belonged to Q.U.I.P., short for Quantum Utilizing Interactive Processor, an artificial intelligence that was basically the worlds smartest PDA. A chip in my wristwatch connected me with the powerful servers and supercomputer running Q.U.I.P.’s software. The AI had been up and running for only about a year now, but already I had no idea how I had ever coped without him. It was like having a backup brain.
“Thanks for the alert!” I said. Playing against SwiftBot, I had completely lost track of the time, but now that I actually looked at my watch I saw that it was almost seven. A growl from my stomach confirmed that I was running late for dinner. “Tell my folks I’ll be right there.” Q.U.I.P. was set up to interface with the rest of the household computers and systems. “Oh yeah, and e-mail the latest b-ball training footage to Yolanda. Triple encrypted, please.”
“No problemo,” the AI assured me. I was proud that Q.U.I.P. didn’t talk like a stereotypical movie computer. None of that “insufficient data … cannot compute” baloney. Right now I had him set on Standard American Teen, but I could change his voice and speech patterns as easily as I could download a new ring tone for my cell phone. After Pirates of the Caribbean came out, I had him talking like a buccaneer for a week, just for the fun of it. “I’ve got your back, man.”
“You know it,” I said.
With no time to lose, I instructed SwiftBot to recharge his batteries, then left the robot training room. The rest of my laboratory filled up a blastproof concrete bunker that was buried deep into a hill behind our house, a safe distance away from my family’s actual living quarters. (Hey, accidents happen!) Various tools and instruments cluttered the stainless steel counters in the workshop area, and a mounted fume hood provided adequate ventilation for working with noxious chemicals. The assorted equipment included a laser wielder, a miniature cyclotron, an electron microscope, and even a rapid prototyping machine that could make usable components out of plastic powder. Among various half-finished projects, put aside while I focused on SwiftBot, was a zero-gravity jetpack. Modular partitions allowed me to rearrange the layout of the lab as needed.
The overhead lights switched off automatically as I left the lab. An air-lock door slammed shut behind me. Only I knew the password to open the air lock, although my parents always had the option of activating an emergency override. I knew SwiftBot would be safe in my absence, no matter how much certain parties might like to get an advance peek at his wiring.
His moment of truth was coming up. Just wait until people saw him in action!
An underground tunnel connected my lab to the house, about five hundred feet away. I stepped onto a moving conveyor belt. My watch chirped again, but this time it wasn’t Q.U.I.P.
“Tom?” my mom’s voice addressed me. “What’s keeping you?”
“I’m on my way!” I promised. “Just give me a second!”
I was sorry to keep everyone waiting, but, hey, I had the Robot Olympics to win.
2
Tomorrow’s Dinner Today
People visiting our home often feel like they’ve stepped through a time portal into the future. From the outside the house blends in with its neighbors: It looks like a traditional Victorian home with a slate roof and red brick walls. Brick-colored ceramic tiles actually cover the outer walls, however, and the dark slate shingles are also made of synthetic tiles that absorb solar energy through super-efficient photovoltaic cells. The house’s deceptively old-fashioned facade pulls in enough sunlight to power all the systems inside, even though we have a couple of backup generators to pick up any slack. One of those generators is hooked up to my lab, just in case I need a little extra juice sometimes.
Once you step through the front door, the house stops pretending to be ordinary. There’s no such thing as a time machine, but our home is definitely ahead of its time. My dad runs Swift Enterprises, one of the top research and development companies in the world, and he’s big into beta testing SE’s new inventions at home before marketing them to the general public. As a result every network and appliance in our house is state-of-the-art.
And then some.
The tunnel from my lab leads to our basement. A clear plastic door slid open in front of me, and I hopped off the conveyor belt. Passing the virtual-reality gym in the basement, I ran up the stairs to the ground floor. An automated laundry room is located at the top of the steps, and I took a second to trade my sweaty jersey for a clean T-shirt. I could use a shower, too, but that could wait until later. Hunger took priority over hygiene.
Not quite as stinky, I headed for the dining room. Soothing images of fluffy, white clouds drifted across the “smart” plastic walls, which could be either transparent or opaque, depending on the circumstances. Classical music played softly in the background, and I recognized my mom’s favorite evening environmental program. I would have preferred rock-’n’-roll and exploding starbursts myself, but that’s why I had my own room. Mom’s classical selections were basically “music to digest by.”
Motorized cleaning robots, resembling foot-long silver Frisbees, patrolled the carpet and furniture, sucking up dust and dirt. They hummed to each other as they worked, communicating by infrared signals. Possessed of a swarmlike collective intelligence, they operated without human supervision. They expertly dodged my feet as I hustled toward the dining room.
Familiar voices reached my ears. A delicious smell teased my nostrils, making my mouth water. Playing b-ball with SwiftBot had definitely worked up my appetite. Wonder what’s for dinner?
“Thomas Swift Junior!” Mom exclaimed as I stepped into the dining room. “Look at you. You’re a sweaty mess!”
She and Dad and my sister, Sandy, were already seated around the circular dining-room table. An interactive communications console rose from the center of the table. Text and images appeared on the curved plastic screen running all the way around the cylindrical console. At the moment my dad was perusing the nightly news bulletins on the segment of the screen facing his chair. I caught a glimpse of one of the headlines: TERRORIST GROUP DENOUNCES ROBO OLYMPICS.
