Building Robots Before Tying Shoes

Sevy 1

Sean Sevy

English 2010

Professor Combs

September 8, 2011

Building Robots before Tying Shoes

When I was five years old, our phone broke. We, of course, bought a new one, but before the old one was thrown away, I couldn’t resist breaking into it. As I took it apart, I discovered a world of microchips and wires. Others saw it as trash; I saw it as opportunity—opportunity for me to build my new robot. The circuit board became my robot’s new body. Its legs were made of wallpaper rolls, its arms were paper towel rolls, and the neck was a toilet paper roll. The head and hands were constructed of paper plates and its hair was a red crepe paper. His name was Red Head, my first grand invention.

What could have influenced me to build a human-like robot at the age of five? Looking back, I see that I must have been inspired by movies like: CHIP, Flubber and Space Man in King Arthurs Court. But besides random books and movies almost unknown to man, there were very few sources for my unusual aspirations. At that young age, when I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn’t give the typical 5-year-old answers: police, fireman, professional baseball player, etc. I confidently answered that I wanted to be an inventor. I wanted to create things that would change the world. Now, 17 years later, my desires have hardly changed. I’m a student of engineering and I still have an imagination for creating things.

Though I seldom admitted it, I liked school as a child. I especially liked my science classes—I feasted on them. But my science knowledge and interests went far beyond the scope of any of my elementary classes. When I was in first grade, I got an atlas that had a solar system diagram on the first two pages. I studied that diagram until I had memorized all of the planets. In fact, I was so obsessed with this that I made a song. To the tune of “Ten Little Indians,” I sang: “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars….”

I never waited for “Show and tell” to bring my inventions to school. In kindergarten I brought Red Head to class. The teacher handed out worksheets and I requested, “Can Red Head have one too?” In first grade I came to school with a lined paper folded in half. When I opened it, it was a cool little laptop with a keyboard and a screen, both of which I sketched myself. I taught some of my peers how to make their own cool laptop just like mine. In second grade I brought my microscope to recess. In fourth grade I brought one of my greatest innovations to school. This invention consisted of a retainer case, a fan, and a pencil sharpener—the Swiss Army Knife of things that were practical to me. The construction was simple. The pencil sharpener, the electric fan, and a 9-volt battery were duct taped to my plastic retainer case. How convenient! My contraption could conveniently hold my retainer during school lunch, sharpen my pencil, and I only had to connect some bare wires to get fresh air from the little fan.

Then there were the Science Fairs. In third grade I wanted to show how electricity flowed through water. I spent many hours trying to get a bulb to light up with the circuit broken by a bowl of water. It wasn’t until my brother consulted his high school physics teacher that I figured out how to make it work. I learned that I needed to add salt to the water to get the bulb to light up. I never got my science projects out of a book—they were all homegrown. And I was especially bitter in sixth grade when my homemade speaker got beat out by the classic potato-powered watch demonstration. Looking back, it surprises me at how inventive I was at such a young age. I read articles from the encyclopedia over and over to learn how to build a speaker and an electric engine. It wasn’t until I was in my college engineering physics class—10 years later—that I again learned about how to build engines and speakers.

Sometimes I ask myself: Am I as creative as I used to be or am I so pinned down with school and work that I don’t take time to sit down and try to build something? Perhaps my inventor ambitions were just in my programming because before I could tie my shoes, I was determined to be an inventor. Looking into this interesting past of mine makes me anxious for my future. Will I be the engineer that changes the world or will I just stick with the first job I find out of college? I know which option my 5-year-old self would choose.