"Are you wearing that today?" Lulu asked.
"Yes, I am wearing this. It’s totally fine, Lulu."
"Well I think you should wear a power suit."
"A power what?"
"A power suit," said Lulu. "People who give presentations on TV wear a power suit. I saw it last night on one of Mom’s TV shows.
Great. Lulu wants me to dress like one of Mom’s favorite legal dramas.
"Look Lulu, I’m in the third grade," I explained. "I’m not going to present in court and I’m not on TV!" I shouted.
I looked in the mirror and did a once over to double check my appearance. I looked absolutely fine in my purple t-shirt and jeans just like any other normal eight-year-old girl. I raced to the garage and had a sigh of relief to see Digit still intact. I had tripled checked the night before that all of the garage windows and the back door were closed and locked, just in case that Mr. Snuffles had another inkling to destroy my project.
I grabbed a small box from a pile in the garage and placed Digit inside. Even though Digit wasn’t big, I wanted something more secure to carry him in. I also grabbed my mini tablet and placed it into the box. I stuffed the sides of the box carefully with some tissue paper so Digit wouldn’t be knocked around in the box.
"Good luck, Peaches!" Lulu shouted from inside the garage. "I wanted to wish you all the luck in the world. I won’t be able to talk to you in a few minutes since Mom will be taking you and Phoebe to school."
"Thanks Lulu," I said. "I really couldn’t have don’t this without you. You gave me the inspiration for the extra toy parts. You’re the best dog ever!" I gave Lulu a hug and she gave me big lick on the cheek.
"I love you, girl!" Lulu started to sniff. "You’re my favorite person in the world. The world! You hear?"
"Don’t cry on me Lulu!" I said. "I’ll be back after school!"
When I arrived at school, I was so nervous I felt like a butterfly was zooming all around in my belly. I sat down at my desk and placed the box containing Digit beside me. Hudson, who sits next to me and is so nosy, wanted to peek inside but I wouldn’t let him. He offered to give me his gummy fruit snacks at lunch but I still said no. Digit was way too important for me to give up for some measly gummy snacks.
Ms. Harris was at the front of the classroom with a big smile on her face. I could tell she was as excited as I was. "Class, I’m looking forward to seeing each one of your tinkering projects today. We are going to get started with it right away but I wanted to start with a few ground rules. Let’s be nice to each other and respect each other while presenting. I don’t want to hear any snickering or boos from anyone. Tinkering is all about exploring so there’s no wrong way to make a project. None of it has to be perfect. If you can, please explain what recycled pieces you used to create your project."
Phoebe was first. I was nervous for her! I could see her twisting her fingers around the curls in her long hair – something she does when she’s nervous. I really loved her project! She showed me her project really quickly in the car this morning so I knew already how amazing it was. She made a really stylish necklace and bracelet out of scraps of fabric, old beads and rope. She tied up little fabric scraps into knots and tied them all around the thin rope. The colors she picked and mixed together were so pretty! She said she still had extra materials left over and decided to make a matching bracelet to go with her necklace.
Next up was Geoffrey. He was the shyest kid in class. All of us stayed really quiet so we could listen to what he was saying. Geoffrey made art of himself out of all the recycled materials! It’s called a self-portrait, and he used nuts and bolts as well as twine and it was all inside an old weathered wooden frame. I didn’t realize how artistic Geoffrey is. Now I was getting a little worried about the direction I went in for my project.
Ms. Harris called on me and I could feel my heartbeat through my t-shirt. I could barely hear anything but that ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom in my chest. "Take a deep breath Chloe," I told myself. "You’ve got this." I picked up my box and took out the tissue paper that protected Digit. I then carefully took Digit out and placed him on the floor in front of the class. I placed my mini tablet on the table. I looked up and everyone had their eyes fixed directly on me.
"Umm..," I started. [Come on Chloe, start talking!] "This is Digit," I said. [Phew! Ok I’m talking now. All good.] "He’s a little robot that can be powered by this remote control. I made him from old toys from my childhood and some of the recycled objects from the classroom such as the plastic container body and all the nuts and bolts." I put Digit on the floor and grabbed the remote and started moving him around the classroom. He started to breeze under the desks and chairs while all the kids turned their heads in amazement. The class was all abuzz looking around and oohing and ahhing.
"I built Digit on top of my old remote control racing car," I explained. "The remote also lets you record your voice so you can have exclamations while the car does tricks." When I was younger, I had dropped the car so many times most of the tricks didn’t work. Watching it zoom around the classroom, I was happy that the car worked perfectly just driving straight and turning.
Lulu helped me record some funny bits when I pressed the remote buttons. "Hello, I am Digit," the little robot said as he meandered through the desks. I pressed the next button, "I like to tinker," said Digit. The class clapped and laughed. I pressed the third and last button, "I love pancakes!" said Digit. Wait whaat? Oh no! I forgot that Lulu and I did that as a goofy test phrase when we were playing around and testing the buttons. I told her to say anything she wanted, of course she chose her favorite topic - FOOD. I started to break out in a sweat. The class on the other hand though it was so hilarious and clapped.
"He’s so cute!" squealed Amanda. "I love that Digit loves pancakes!"
"I want one for Christmas!" exclaimed Hudson. "Digit rocks!"
I started to smile and then remembered that I was still in the front of the class.
"Ms. Harris says that I needed to talk about the process of my project," I said. "I wanted to show you instead through this slideshow." I pressed play on my mini tablet and my animation started to play. Photos of my building process went by one by one on the screen. Slowly, I started to notice that Lulu was in each of the photos. Sometimes she was in front, sometimes she was way in the back or to the side. Yet in every photo she was always posed and smiling, with her cute head tilt in full view. Boy, this little Pom sure knew how to work the camera. The class started to ooh and aww at Lulu with each photo. I was getting nervous and a little mad. I completely forgot that Lulu loved being photographed. I’m so used to having her around me that I didn’t notice that she was pretty much in EVERY. SINGLE. PHOTO. I’m doomed!
"That is the cutest dog I have ever seen!" Mica exclaimed.
"I think she’s smiling in that last shot," Toby said.
"She’s definitely smiling in all the photos," explained Phoebe. "She likes to have her picture taken."
I was mortified. I was so busy making Digit and documenting all of the process, I forgot that my cuckoo Pom loved the attention when I was clicking away taking photos.
"Sorry, my dog keeps me company while I’m working and she loves having her picture taken," I explained.
"Let’s settle down class," Ms. Harris said. "Chloe, that really is a cute dog you have there. Looks like you have a good tinkering buddy. I really liked how you took the time to document your process of building and making by taking photos."
"Thanks," I said. "The photos helped me remember what pieces worked because sometimes I had to go back and take things apart again. I didn’t want to forget how I did certain things. I also really wanted to show how I came up with the design and how I hacked some of my old toys in order to create Digit. I thought it would be easier to explain in pictures so that if someone else wanted to try to make it, they could figure it out step-by-step from my photos."
"That’s a great point," said Ms. Harris. "Part of the idea of tinkering is that you are exploring and making. By documenting what you are doing either through a notebook, sketchbook or in Chloe’s case photos – you can trace your steps so that you can also create instructions for your project. Then anyone else can make it too. Great job, Chloe!"
I finished my presentation with loud claps and cheers from the class. I picked up Digit and my mini tablet and sat back down at my desk.
"Super cool, Chloe!" Hudson said while turning around to see Digit up close on my desk.
"Thanks!" I said smiling. Alex gave me a jealous glance. My nervous butterflies came back and I gulped.
Read More in Chapter 8: The Burp Heard Around the World
