Spare Parts by Joshua Davis

Author:Joshua Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374712655
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

OSCAR RETURNED to the robotics closet with a mix of excitement and fear. The anxiety he felt at the immigration checkpoint had dissipated, but the threat was still there. He had to decide. The ROV contest was back in California. If he wanted to compete, he’d have to risk another checkpoint.

Oscar made a quick decision. In ROTC, he had done multiple rope courses, rappelling down sheer cliffs. He’d learned to not let his fear control him. This was no different. If he wanted to do something great, he’d have to put his worries aside. They now had a thermocouple, a range finder, and a frightening black claw that only an engineer could love. Oscar picked the pieces up and positioned them in the wooden model.

“I think we can fit everything,” he said.

With that, he put the checkpoint behind him.

Soon, Cristian and Lorenzo showed up, and the kids started to talk about how to build the real ROV. Fredi and Allan knew that other teams had used machined metal in previous years. Some colleges had machine shops and could custom-fabricate parts. Machined-metal ROVs tended to be smaller and more compact, which came in handy when exploring cramped underwater spaces. But Carl Hayden couldn’t afford the necessary metal, nor did the students have access to a machine shop. Even if they did, nobody knew how to operate the machines.

“We should use glass syntactic flotation foam,” Cristian said excitedly. “It’s got a really high compressive strength. They use it on submersibles.”

Lorenzo didn’t really know what submersibles meant. Cristian, however, had done his research. He had watched James Cameron’s Ghosts of the Abyss, a documentary about the director’s journey twelve thousand feet down to visit the wreck of the Titanic. The film crew used two ROVs outfitted with glass syntactic foam to enter the wreck. Cristian had taken this hint and done further research online.

“It’s got glass microspheres embedded in an epoxy resin so it keeps it shape under pressure while still providing buoyancy,” Cristian said.

“Damn, dude, how do you come up with all that?” Lorenzo said.

“How much is it?” Oscar asked.

“Two, maybe three thousand for what we need,” Cristian responded.

“¿Cuánto?” Lorenzo blurted. It was a lot of money.

Cristian tended to think in abstract, idealized solutions. They didn’t have that kind of money and everyone knew it. They had a total budget of less than a thousand dollars. Glass syntactic foam was not an option.

One alternative was polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. It was a material they were all familiar with. For decades, migrant laborers had installed PVC pipes throughout American farmlands. Workers from Mexico and Central America laid miles of the white plastic tube to irrigate fields of strawberries and corn. The piping didn’t have the strength of metal, but, like the laborers, it was low cost, easy to work with, and rugged. The combination had helped turn America into an agricultural juggernaut, so it seemed only natural to use it now. It was also all they could afford.

“We can run wires through the pipe to keep them dry,” Lorenzo said.

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