Stopping The Robot Apocalypse Just in Time

Once Upon a Time… We asked students to come up with their own Beijing adaptation of their favorite childhood fairy tales. Thank you to all the students who have submitted their work. We’ll be publishing them online and selecting the best story that fits all the criteria to be included in the upcoming issue of Jingkids.

Jack And The Robot Stock
By Anitra Coelho

Mooo! This was the last sound that Jack heard of his cow before he had to give it away. Jack and his mother had fallen on hard times, so Jack could not pursue his dream of taking a computer coding course in the city. Their only hope for money was to sell their precious cow. Jack sold the cow to a wealthy scholar who gave him some magic pellets in exchange. The scholar said that the pellets would come in handy when needed, so Jack thought that it was a fair bargain.

When Jack got home, his mother asked him for the money he had received for the cow. When he only produced a couple of pellets, his mother flew into a rage and threw the pellets onto Jack’s bedroom floor. At around midnight, Jack got up to get a glass of water, and to his surprise, he found a giant hole in the middle of his bedroom with steps leading down! Jack, being very inquisitive, decided to explore the crater and took his phone with him so he would have proof of what he had seen.

After going down the steps, Jack saw something unimaginable! A complete robot city! It was exactly like a town, but there was not a single human in sight, only robots everywhere. The trees appeared normal, but up close Jack found they were made of soft block-like structures, and even though there was a light breeze, not a single leaf swayed. There was also a putrid odor everywhere. The flowers seemed odd too and when Jack tried to pluck a petal, he cut his finger on the sharp edges of the petals.

Jack noticed there were no roads and sidewalks, but just steel surfaces everywhere. They gleamed so brightly in the moonlight that Jack’s eyes watered, and he had to blink often. Thankfully, the houses looked normal as they were made out of squares and rectangles. There were also malls and restaurants filled with robots, speaking in a foreign language and munching on angular things. Luckily, Jack knew a little bit of the binary code that the robots spoke and managed to decipher what they were saying. The entire city seemed to be painted in hues of grey, black, and white. But there was one question lingering in Jack’s mind. How exactly were these robots created and by whom?

As Jack walked around the robot city he reached a big factory. Every couple of minutes, a robot would be pumped out of it and would go into the robot city. Inside the factory were long winding conveyor belts that had robot parts on them like screws, bolts, hands, legs, and even eyeballs! There were also big computers with several codes written on them. Jack suddenly felt colder, and the hair on his neck stood up. He then turned around and found that he was surrounded by a dozen or more robots, which were glaring at him. Jack crouched low, crawled through the robot’s legs, and made a dash for it. He ran and leaped onto the closest tree he could find. Just as Jack thought that he wasn’t going to make it, his fingers brushed against a red button on the tree and to his immense astonishment, he saw that the tree began to shoot upwards! It went through the crater and the next thing Jack knew, his mom was shaking him awake.

Jack thought that the robot city was just a dream when he saw that the hole in the floor was gone, but when he went through the pictures on his phone, he saw photos of the robot city! Later that day, when Jack was walking home from school, he met the wealthy scholar who had given him the pellets. When Jack recounted the previous night’s events and showed the scholar the pictures of the robot city, he discovered that the scholar already knew about it. The reason for this was that the person who was in charge of creating the robots was actually the scholar’s arch-nemesis from engineering college!

After looking at Jack’s photos, the two realized that the robots were created as a plan to destroy the world. Jack and the scholar came up with a plan to eliminate these evil robots. They noticed that the evil robots had a flaw; they could not see sideways, but only straight ahead. This meant that they could be attacked from the side.

Late that night, Jack had a brainwave! He had finally figured out what type of robot he had to build! He would need to create at least half a dozen robots out of the strongest materials they could find in order to defend itself against the fighting robots.

After a few grueling months the mini robot army was ready. These robots were made out of titanium alloy and were reinforced with steel plates. A strong rope which the robots could lasso was placed on the outer part of the robots. Jack even created a way to store oil in a can that was placed on the robot’s hands. This oil could be used to make the evil robots slip and get damaged. Inside the robot was a special type of binary code that couldn’t be hacked and wires that were covered with thick layers of plastic.

The scholar also added several microchips to control the robot’s movements and a video camera to see what was happening. In this way, the robots could be sent to attack without Jack having to take the risk of going down the crater himself. Once the robots were ready, Jack felt like they were his family and was quite scared to send them into battle.

The next night as planned, Jack threw the remaining pellets on the floor. The hole opened up as usual and the steps leading down were also there. Jack and the scholar maneuvered the robots down the hole, making sure they made them stay in the shadows cast by the moonlight.

Once down the crater, Jack saw on the video controls something peculiar about the robots. This time, the evil robot’s eyes were glowing red and they were lining up one behind the other as if to exit the hole. Jack realized his robots had to attack immediately before it was too late.

Jack and the scholar quickly programmed all their robots to spill oil on the floor, which made all the evil robots fall down like nine pins. Within seconds the more giant evil robots were also made to topple over into the oil using lassoes. The oil had gotten into the evil robots’ microchips. There were sparks of light everywhere, almost as if they were firecrackers. Everything was in complete, utter pandemonium! The good robots finished their mission and managed to get out of the hole just in time before it closed.

Now these robots help Jack and his mom a lot. They assist with daily chores and also earn money by teaching computer programming to other people. In the end, these robots saved the day.

The End

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