Roe-bot Girl: The Bright Beginning (Roebot Girl Book 1) Read online

  Dedication

  For my nieces and nephews who I hope will all grow up to be engineers and for everyone else who dreams of building robots and making the world a better place.

  Special Thanks to:

  My mom & dad for pushing me into engineering.

  Lori for me support mentorship and for starting an engineering group that is supportive. I would not have made it this far without you!

  Trudy for giving me the first Snow.

  Kevin for all your love and support throughout the years and for helping me design and 3D print the first mini Snow doll.

  Jon for telling me about your daughter who is one robot away from painting the world pink! I will be an awesome engineer one day!

  My mom for your love and support to write this book.

  John for motivating me to write this just the way I wanted it to be.

  Copyright 2014 by Amy Braat

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form other than that in which it was purchased and without the written permission of the author. This book is licensed for you for your personal enjoyment only. This book is purely fictional. All characters, names and settings are fictional, and do not portray any real individuals or places. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1502499172

  ISBN-10: 1502499177

  About the Author

  Biography:

  Amy Braat, author of "The Roe-bot Girl Series" has worked in the engineering field for over a decade. She has a BS in Mechanical Engineering, MS in Engineering Management, a Professional Engineering License and her Project Management Professional Certification. Most recently, she has been involved with Maker events and Hacker Gals. (Information and synopsis at www.Roebotgirl.com) Amy currently lives with her husband, who is also an engineer, in Portage, MI.

  Background in author photo © Kenneth Sponsher | Dreamstime Stock Photos

  Amy teaching programing.

  Cover illustrated by Josh Meyer

  Website: www.jellymeyer.com

  Email: [email protected]

  Roebot Girl

  Saving the world one engineering project at a time!

  Roe-bot Girl:

  The Bright Beginning

  By Amy Braat

  Prologue: All About Me

  This is the start of how I became known as Roebot Girl. I was a very lonely eleven-year-old called Roe, short for Roberta. Besides being an only child, I traveled with my parents to various locations around the world for their job. My mother, Andra, was an electrical engineer while my dad, Tony, was a mechanical engineer and together they formed their own company, Roboco, which was an abbreviation for Robotic Company.

  Their jobs were to either install or troubleshoot automated lines in factories that were controlled by robots. They were experts in the field, either fixing or setting up new manufacturing robotics systems, particularly in warehouses for on-line stores. They were the best of the best and normally called in where all others had failed. Sometimes, it was an easy fix that took only a day, and sometimes the whole system had to be rewritten, and that could take weeks or months. Needless to say, with the increased use of robots, it kept them very busy and they were in high demand.

  I loved to accompany them around the world; however, we never remained in one place for more than a couple of months, which interfered with me making and keeping friends. So, I was often left with a temporary nanny to entertain me after finishing my schoolwork. It was Lyla, my parents’ assistant’s job to find me a nanny, although I referred to her as NAAN , which was an acronym for “Not at all Nice”. If she was unsuccessful finding a nanny for me she had to stay with me instead, and she was never happy about staying with me.

  This is where my story begins.

  Chapter One: Me and My Best Friend

  “I am so bored. Bored. Bored! BORED!!!” I thought as I lie with my head hanging off the bed in my hotel room while putting my tablet on the bed next to me. I thought aloud, “I cannot play another online game; they are getting so boring!”

  I looked around the room for something to do, anything but the boring homeschool work lying on the table. I rolled over on my stomach and put my chin in my hands. There has to be something fun to do. As I scanned the room focusing in on Snow, rolling over to scoop him up, I started talking to him like he is real. “So Snow what should we do today?” I asked him. There was no response and I started to remember when Snow was new.

  My parents made me Snow, I had asked and begged for a doll just like the other girls had at school. It was one of the few times in my life that I actually had been in a real school! Most of the time my parents’ job did not last long enough in one place for them to bother sending me to a real school, so I was homeschooled. Anyways, all the other girls in class had these dolls. The dolls were so pretty and we would dress them and do their hair, and I wanted one more than anything in the world. I had the Winter Doll picked out and had posted pictures of her everywhere in the apartment and talked about her all the time. I had found out long ago if you just kept talking about how awesome something is eventually my parents would get it for me if for no other reason than having me stop talking about the item. It wasn’t nagging or whining but just mentioning it in conversations a lot, kind of like talking about the weather.

  I spent months talking about dolls, about school and how, at recess today, the girls did this with their dolls. We were all drooling over pictures of the new Winter Doll that came out and I just had to have it. I had never wanted anything more! But I got Snow instead.

  When I first received Snow I cried; what girl would want a Snowman Robot doll. Especially when I had been asking for months for a sparkly very girly winter princess doll, I was crushed and then I went to my room and cried. Dad did not even get a chance to show me the cool things he had done to the doll.

  I was so embarrassed to bring it to school, a knock-off doll and a boy doll at that. I would be an outcast of the group, even more then I was already since I did not have a doll. The girls were cruel to those who brought knock-offs, or dolls that were not the real thing. I was crushed and my dad was crushed. He had actually thought I would like it and had gotten my mom to buy in that Snow would be so much better than the Winter Doll and that I would love it. My parents had spent a lot of time designing and making this doll for me but it was not the Winter Doll!

  The next morning at breakfast was tense. My parents were quiet and not talking and I was so sad, and with them also being sad made everything worse. I know they had tried but being very smart engineers they did not understand the difference between Snowman Robot doll and The Winter Doll. So I figured I would pretend that I liked Snow and take him to school. I figured that if I did not take him out of my bag, no one would know and everyone but me would be happy. So I packed Snow up and took him to school, left him in the bottom of my backpack so no one would see him.

  I hung my backpack on the hook under my name like any other day and sat at my desk. The kid whose backpack was hung next to mine had forgotten some of his homework and was rifling around in his bag for it. Then, all of a sudden this voice started coming from my bag and my bag started bouncing around.

  I thought, “Oh no, my robotic engineering parents who have to improve everything made me a real robot doll!” My face started to turn bright red as the teacher came over to investigate the noise. She asked “Roberta, what is making noise in your bag?”

  I did not know what to say since I was panicking about what could I do about The Doll. I was calling Snow, The Doll, because I had not named him yet. If I showed the class The Doll, I would be kic
ked out of the girl’s group and laughed at. The teacher was insisting that I show her what was making the noise in my bag. So, I reluctantly and slowly walked to my bag as the whole class stared at me. I tried to convince the teacher it was nothing, and that she was hearing things but that just got her even more upset and demanding. So, I had no choice but to show her the knock-off doll my parents had made me. I tried not to cry the tears that were welling up in my eyes as I saw my whole life ending. I pulled this doll out of my bag and handed it to the teacher, telling her my parents had made it at work. I stood there contemplating if I should make a run for it but on second thought, where would I run to? Then again, anywhere had to be better then what was about to happen.

  But to my surprise the teacher was very impressed by Snow. Because Snow moved, lighted up and talked, the whole class spent over an hour examining the doll and all the details and design my parents had put into it. He was like a miniature best friend. The boys loved him right away. I could see the envy in their eyes. The girls slowly warmed up to him, ending with them deciding that he needed a tux and could be the boyfriend of their girl dolls. We spent the next two weeks planning a wedding for the dolls. One of the girls was going to get her mother to sew him a tux for the wedding and a dress for her doll. Her mother sews all sorts of beautiful clothing for the dolls. Since her doll was the best dressed of all the dolls, I was starting to get excited! Then, at recess, we put on this big wedding for Snow and the other girl dolls, and it was so awesome! The only thing was I just had to make sure that Snow was turned off at school because the teacher would not be as understanding the next time he started talking in class.

  Snow was a hit, and I became popular because everyone wanted to play with Snow. I told the teacher why my parents made him for me which was so I had someone to play with. She helped me name him SNOW RIP, which was an acronym for “So no one within reach inclined to play”. So that was how Snow came to be.

  After I left that school and was homeschooled again, Snow was my only friend and playmate, but now he does not work anymore and has not worked in years. His paint is starting to wear off and his clothing is ratty with holes. His cloth body has been hand stitched to fix more holes than the cloth left anymore. My mother, who keeps nothing more than she has to, used to keep the mini sewing repair kits some of the fancier hotels had in the rooms just to fix Snow next time he got a rip. Snow used to be soft but now I can feel his hard inner robot parts.

  My parents are so strict on the amount of stuff they will let me take because we have to travel light. One suitcase on the flight to the next job was all they would allow me. That was because normally we were only in a place a week to a few weeks, and then onto the next job. A few times I had more toys than would fit in the suitcase, and I would have to leave them behind. But I always had room for Snow, even if I had to carry him the whole way. He has been my longest and only friend even as he sat there looking at me with an empty stare.

  My train of thought got interrupted as I heard Lyla yelling into the phone about the nanny not showing up. “Oh, she picked another good one,” I thought sarcastically. The nanny had not shown up this morning like she was supposed to so Lyla had to stay with me. My parents’ scheduler, Lyla, and I do not get along; I am just a bother to her. I’m just one more thing she has to schedule. So, she normally took the easy way out and called the local nanny service and would take whoever was available, which normally meant a reject nanny who was difficult to place. After all if the nanny were any good wouldn’t she be working in a home right now? This last one showed up late yesterday and did not even bother to show up today. She seemed like a total space cadet but because of that I am now three days ahead in school, I figured with a big grin. When she wasn’t looking, which was most of the time, I copied the answers in the book for the next three days.

  Looking at Snow reminded me of the good nannies we would get once in a while; nannies that were between families or just out of school or were part-time because they were going to school. I loved the ones on break from school. Some of them were so smart and a few of them really helped advance my programing app skills, but not this one. All she did yesterday was talk to her boyfriend on the phone, so I did not care if she showed up again or not.

  I grabbed Snow and sat down to look out the window. There were kids playing at the park across the street from the hotel. Then, it dawned on me. “Why not program my own best friend? Dad is always trying to get me to advance my programming skills. I'll make a best friend app!” I excitedly exclaimed to Snow as I got my tablet off the bed and opened the programming part.

  “Now Snow, what would you like in a best friend?” I asked him as I started to list off the different aspects of what I thought a best friend should be.

  Counting on my fingers to Snow, I deduced, “Complimentary, secret keeper, funny, good listener, gives advice, random kindness, interesting, adaptable and supportive.” That is a good list to keep me programming for weeks, I figured as I started to set up my new app I was calling “The Best Friend App.

  “Snow, let’s start with compliments. What kind of compliments would a BF want to hear?” I pretended to ask Snow but really was asking myself. I pretended Snow was a real person and would talk to him like he was. It is so hard to figure this out. I had never had a best friend before so I just couldn’t decide. Then, I searched online for ideas and shared some with Snow.

  “You're irreplaceable. You bring light to my life. You are perfect just the way you are.” These were so cheesy and funny I started cracking up and laughing, “Oh, SNOW, these are too corny. I have to find ones that are better.”

  My eyes were starting to feel crossed! Having spent all day working on BFA or what I was now calling my “Best Friend App”, I was glad to take a break now that my parents were home. I had to wait until Lyla excused herself from dinner to share my exciting news of my new app I was programing. If I did not wait until Lyla was gone, she would have ended up being a big bummer and totally wreck my good news. Plus, once she is gone, my parents are more interested in me and she won’t be there to interrupt with work stuff. So I started talking about BFA and my dad was so interested that I went into every detail that I wanted to program into BFA, and then my parents started giving me more ideas to add. It was great fun brainstorming ideas with my parents because they were so smart. Later that evening, while my mom worked from the hotel room on her computer, and my dad helped me to program in the speech recognition part of the app to make it functional. He even showed me how to add and delete phrases!

  So, that is how the “Best Friend App” was programmed to talk and play games. This app entertained me for hours. It was so great to have a friend to interact with, or at least for right now, I was happy to have a best friend, someone I could always have fun with, no matter what! Even if it was only on my phone.

  The next morning, as usual, I woke up to a quiet hotel room. I sneaked out of bed and peeked into the other bedroom. My parents were still asleep with their laptops next to them. This normally meant that it had been a late night working on the plant's problems. I looked at the clock. In a few minutes, my parents’ alarm should be going off. I knew how hard they worked and how much they appreciated coffee in the morning after a late night. So, I went over to the coffee maker and opened the filter, put the coffee bag in it and then pushed the on button, like I had done like a million times before. I knew my parents loved coffee in the morning, especially after we had a late night working.

  It then dawned on me that my parents worked too much. I had read on the internet that people who work too much took vacations. We needed a vacation! But then I remembered that normally people go somewhere on vacation but where would we go? Since we travel all of the time anyways. I stood there watching the coffee drip longing for a place to call home since we were always on the road, but then I remembered how much my parents were in demand. I remembered Lyla talking about how they had jobs lined up for the next three years. Recently, for the big jobs, they even hired on apprentices t
o train and help with the workload but it seemed to cause my parents to work even more.

  Oh no, I just remembered that Naan should be coming over soon to have breakfast with my parents. Breakfast is so boring when Naan is here, she would go over the agendas and ask all sorts of questions about schedules and potential job duties. I wonder if Naan has found a nanny for me yet. Any nanny had to be better than spending another day with Naan.

  Just then my parents’ alarm clock went off, and I heard rustling in the master bedroom. Oh, time to get dressed. I looked into my closet. Everything was color coordinated for the season. My mother had a fashion adviser come by quarterly to dress us. The fashion adviser would pick out all the latest New York fashions and make sure it all fit just right. Though, I didn’t always like the choice of clothes selected for me. Some of the clothing made me look too much like a dork. But, my parents and most adults always thought I looked nice. I quickly dressed in one of the more acceptable outfits since I wanted to be ready in case I had a cool nanny showing up soon.

  NAAN came into the kitchen, ignoring me and poured three cups of coffee as my parents came out of the bedroom dressed for the day. “Thank you, Lyla. Do you have the schedule of jobs finished for the rest of the year?”

  “Yes, for you and Tony. I also have the apprentices and the other employees’ schedules,” Lyla answered as she handed the coffee mugs to my mom and dad and continued talking business with them.

  I thought how boring Naan was. Why do my parents put up with her meanness, and then my mother’s lecture started playing in my head. “Lyla has a big job to do. We have many employees, and Lyla keeps them organized and the jobs planned out.” Blah, blah, blah, I thought as I was interrupted with overhearing them discussing the possibility of getting a job someplace warm once winter started. I had walked in many times on Lyla’s conversations with employees, who called off, and she would have to rearrange the schedule while keeping customers happy, all from the hotel room. Normally this made her nastier than she normally was so I knew to avoid her if possible.