After a few more presentations by my classmates we stopped for lunch. I was relieved to be able to finally relax and eat. Mom packed me a ham sandwich minus the cheese (my favorite) and even gave me a special cookie as a treat for Presentation Day. Everyone was coming up to me and asking me questions about how I figured out how to hack my toys to make Digit.
"My dad and I do stuff like this all the time," I said. "He’s an engineer."
I really love my dad. We’ve made quite a few projects together: an extendable arm made out of popsicle sticks that were screwed in with toothpicks and a wind up digital camera that really works. He always told me that the process of making was more important than the final end product – that one project can be made a hundred different ways. It’s all about finding the way you want to make it.
When we got back to class, Alex was next. He gave me a glare again while walking up to the front of the class. I think he had a snicker on his face too. I can’t be sure. He had his back to the class while he took his project out of the paper bag. I felt a lump in my throat. Then, when he moved away to show what he made. I saw it. Alex made a ROBOT!
"Ok, Chloe calm down," I said to myself. "He didn’t make Digit, you did." I looked at his slick, silver shiny pieces and was a little jealous that his looked much more polished than mine. The only difference in our robot shape was that his had two legs and my robot was on wheels.
"So this is my robot," Alex said. "I made him out of old appliance parts that my dad had left over at his shop."
"Great," I thought. "He gets an endless supply of metal with his dad’s appliance repair shop."
"It took me a while to build out his face from old screws and…," Alex paused. I could see something was wrong in his face. He cheeks were getting red and they looked like they were starting to freeze up. Everyone in the class was super quiet and fixated directly onto Alex and his robot. I could see some tiny beads of sweat form on his forehead. Perhaps that was leftover sweat from playing basketball at lunch?
Then it started. The gurgling and rumbling that came from his belly. You’d think an earthquake was about to happen. Alex’s eyes started to get big. The gurgling and rumbling started to get louder. I could tell that Ms. Harris was getting impatient. "Alex, please continue."
"So I made the face from old…" continued Alex. The rumbling from his belly was too loud to ignore now. You could hear it getting progressively louder as it traveled up through his mouth. Right then and there, in mid-sentence Alex Burp-ison reminded us why everyone called him that. He let out the biggest and loudest burp in front of the whole class. It was so loud I thought Sabrina who sat in the front row while he was presenting, was going to scream from fear. I even wondered if Lulu heard it all the way at home in Potrero Hill. (Dogs have excellent hearing, you know.) Everyone was silent for a split second. Then hysterical laughter broke out over the entire class, even Alex. He seemed a little relieved. "Excuse me," Alex said while we all still laughed uncontrollably. Ms. Harris on the other hand was really annoyed now and had to settle us down.
"Now class, that’s enough!" Ms. Harris scolded. "Alex, are you ok?"
"I’m sorry Ms. Harris. I think I was so nervous I ate too much for lunch!" Alex said.
"That’s ok," Ms. Harris said. "Are you ok to continue?"
"Yes," Alex said.
I had to wipe the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard. Hudson nearly fell out of his chair. Phoebe was snorting uncontrollably (she always does this when something is too funny).
Alex was really annoying to me overall, but I felt really bad he burped in front of the whole class during his presentation. Crazily enough, it didn’t seem to faze him. I guess burping for him is like a badge of honor or something. Alex continued his presentation and named off all the different appliances and their parts that made up his robot.
I really wanted to hate his robot. As a tinkering expert though, I had to admit to myself that he did a fantastic job. Everyone clapped after he finished his presentation. His best friend Conner exclaimed, "That burp was the BEST!" and they high fived. So now there are two robots in the tinkering competition. Plus, he also had a funny burp moment that made everyone laugh. He was sure to win the contest. UGH! Why is this happening to me?!
When all the presentations were done, Ms. Harris handed out ballots so that we could all vote. All of the projects and our names were on the board and we had to write down which one we wanted to vote for.
"Class it’s time to vote!" Ms. Harris said. "Which project do you like the best? Which one had the best process?" Ms. Harris added," And one last thing, you can’t vote for yourself. You have to vote for another classmate’s project."
What?! I can’t vote for myself? I couldn’t believe it. I liked Phoebe’s jewelry but if I was really honest, I really liked Alex’s robot. He did a good job giving it a face even if it couldn’t roll around or talk like mine. I decided to do the right thing. I voted for Alex and his robot. I could tell he took a lot of time building it and it looked really beautiful.
Ms. Harris collected all of the ballots and told us she would tell us the winner tomorrow. TOMORROW?! I was dying to know who won! Ms. Harris told us that she was really impressed with our projects. She was going to display everyone’s project in the classroom and the winning project would then be going to the Exploratorium to represent our school.
Read More in Chapter 9: Winning Isn't Everything – Right?
