I quickly opened a thick wood door and rushed into a large dome room. A remarkably dry smell surrounded me as I came in. I exchanged greetings with an amicable librarian who was giving me a perplexed look as I shot past her. It was the fourth day of my tech camp, the day we can have robot battles to see which teams’ robot was better.

I ran up polished stairs that lead to a second floor. I stopped at the top of the stairs and exuberantly rushed over to an oak wood door with a window. Peeking in I could hear my class loudly working on their robots. I pushed the door open and walked into a large room with elaborate pillar designs on the walls. I walked over to a table where my partner Ezra was quickly modifying our robot. 

“Hi-How are ya’?”

“Hi,” I replied laughing.

Legos were scattered over the table that he was working on. Our robot was called the DEATH SHOVEL because the only main weapon it had was a shovel that could rotate horizontally, but we did add spikes that can spin.
Once Ezra was done modifying our robot I decided to make sure the remote control was working because we had some issues with it in the past. When I turned the remote control on, our robot gave out a metallic screech.
I pushed the joystick on the remote control to the left, and the robot spun around. Yup it’s working, I thought. I looked over to see what some other teams were doing. I saw what appeared to be a wall of legos protecting the robot’s wheels and wires connecting to the E-brick.

I walked over to the person who built the interesting robot and asked him if he wanted to have a robot battle. He said “sure.” We had robot battles on a small stage, so that pushing the opposing team’s robot off was an option to make winning easier.  “My robot is called the Penguin,” the kid said.

“Ezra and I named ours the Death Shovel,” I replied. I pushed a few buttons on the remote causing the Death Shovel to do a 360. “Are you ready?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied. “On a count of three,” he began, “One… two… three!”

I impatiently put full power in the forwards position on the joystick. The sound of motors whirring filled the room. I tried to break the Penguin’s treads with the shovel, but sadly it didn’t work. “Ha! You think you can defeat the Penguin?” the kid sneered.

“Yeah! I do,” I replied in annoyance.

I then tried to tip the Penguin over by rotating the shovel at a 35 degree angle, but instead the shovel just prevented the Penguin from moving for at least 5 seconds. I released the Penguin because if I didn’t the shovel would break. I then expeditiously maneuvered the Death Shovel around the Penguin so it could push the Penguin off the edge of the “arena.” I hastily positioned the shovel to a 90 degree angle and then I pushed the joystick forward. The opposing team was acting hysterical as the Penguin struggled to keep itself as far away from the edge as possible. The Death Shovel could not be stopped and thus began the fall of the Penguin. Of course someone swiftly caught the Penguin before it shattered into a million pieces.

“Good game,” I said trying not to show the smug look on my face.

“Thanks,” he replied with devastation.

My face was beaming with pride. In the end I learned two lessons, 1. Working with a partner is better than working alone 2. Check if your robot has any weaknesses or loose screws before a battle.